A handful of nations committed to phasing out oil and gas production at the COP26 summit Thursday, in what organisers Denmark and Costa Rica hope will inspire a global movement towards ending fossil fuels.

The coalition, which includes a dozen countries, was announced as nations tussle over a range of issues in the final stages of the UN climate talks in Glasgow.

The UN summit aims to implement the Paris Agreement, which has a target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

To do that, scientists say the use of oil and gas must be radically slashed.

The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) counts France and Greenland among its core members, committing to end new oil and gas exploration and extraction and set a Paris-aligned date for ending production.

The US state of California is also among a wider group signed up to measures to restrict fossil fuel supply.

"Now we extend the challenge to others," said Danish Climate, Energy and Utilities Minister Dan Jorgensen.

Denmark, which is among the largest oil and gas producers in Europe, said it will phase out production by 2050 and cancel all future licencing rounds.

"The fossil era must come to an end," said Jorgensen.

"But just as the Stone Age did not end due to lack of stone, the fossil era will not end because there's no more oil left in the ground. It will end because governments decided to do the right thing."

The initiative was welcomed as a first step that would need the buy-in of more oil producing nations to have an impact.

"This is a welcome and vital initiative to accelerate an end to the age of fossil fuels," said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

"Logically, every country that has now set a 2050 net zero target, including the UK and United States, should be joining this alliance."

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its special report on 1.5C, offered estimates of how much fossil fuel use needed to decline in order to hit the temperature cap.

Absent large-scale deployment of untested technology, it said that oil use needed to fall 37 percent by 2030 and 87 percent by 2050. Gas would need to fall by 25 percent by 2030 and 74 percent by 2050, and coal use would need to fall 97 percent by mid-century.

COP26 told climate pledges 'hollow' without fossil fuel phase out
Glasgow (AFP) Nov 11, 2021 - Climate promises from nations ring "hollow" while they continue to invest in oil, gas and coal, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Thursday, as the COP26 summit struggled to make headway on its goal to halt devastating warming.

Representatives from nearly 200 countries have gathered in Glasgow for painstaking talks aimed at keeping the world within the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

But with emissions still rising and current promises putting the world on a path to heat far beyond that target, negotiators were wrangling over a range of issues.

"The announcements here in Glasgow are encouraging -- but they are far from enough," Guterres told the COP26 climate summit, urging negotiators to "pick up the pace".

"Promises ring hollow when the fossil fuels industry still receives trillions in subsidies."

Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate said delegates had "two pathways" to choose from.

"There is the pathway of commitments and hype and promises and fanciful Net Zero targets and happily ever after," she told the plenary.

"And then there is the pathway of the best available science, of ever stronger storms and droughts and floods of toxic polluted air of real people suffering and dying."

COP26 President Alok Sharma warned that time was running short to clinch a deal before the meeting's scheduled end on Friday evening.

"We still have a monumental challenge ahead of us," he said, appealing to delegates to show more ambition.

"Quite a lot has been achieved. But we are still some way away from finalising those very critical issues that are still outstanding."

He welcomed a joint China-US pact to accelerate climate action this decade, which experts said should allay fears that tensions visible early in the summit might derail the talks.

- Science warning -

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw nations promise to limit heating to "well below" two degrees Celsius and to work towards a safer 1.5C cap through sweeping emissions cuts.

The 1.1C of warming so far is already magnifying weather extremes, subjecting communities across the world to more intense fire and drought, displacement and severe economic hardship.

But the UN says that even the most up-to-date national pledges set Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

More than 200 scientists sent an open letter to the summit Thursday urging countries to take "immediate, strong, rapid, sustained and large-scale actions" to halt global warming.

A handful of nations committed to phasing out oil and gas production, in what organisers Denmark and Costa Rica hope will inspire a global movement towards the ending of fossil fuels.

"The fossil era must come to an end," said Danish Climate, Energy and Utilities Minister Dan Jorgensen.

"But just as the Stone Age did not end due to lack of stone, the fossil era will not end because there's no more oil left in the ground. It will end because governments decided to do the right thing."

However major emitters were not part of the initiative.

- 'Credibility test' -

Egypt was on Thursday was confirmed as the host of COP27, due for 2022, while the United Arab Emirates will host COP28 in 2023.

Wednesday saw the release of draft "decisions", which were the first real indication of where nations are 10 days into deeply technical discussions.

The text, which is sure to change during ministerial debates, called for nations to "revisit and strengthen" their new climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by next year, instead of 2025 as previously agreed.

The issues that remain unresolved at the COP26 include how vulnerable nations are supported financially to green their economies and prepare for future shocks.

Rules over transparency, common reporting of climate action and carbon markets are all also still under discussion.

Also contentious is wording in the draft text to "accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels", something which large emitters are opposing, according to sources close to the talks.

And nations already hit by climate disasters are demanding "loss and damage" support from rich emitters.

But the main sticking point is ambition: which countries plan to slash their carbon emissions fast enough to avert dangerous heating.

"We need action if commitments are to pass the credibility test," Guterres said, urging negotiators not to settle for a lowest common denominator outcome.

"We know what must be done."

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