Ribera: 'Many countries are calling for a bold language on fossil fuels'

We’ve seen a great start of this COP. Numerous announcements, the agreement to the loss and damage fund and many financial pledges. Now that the initial excitement has died down, where do we stand?

It’s a very difficult COP. We need to ensure that the Paris mechanism wraps up and energizes the next steps. We left Sharm el-Sheikh last year with mixed feelings. For the first time, there was this conviction that we needed to work on Loss and Damage, but at the same time, there was no single word on mitigation. And the first measure to lower costs and ensure lower losses and damages is mitigation. So this is going to be the year to say we are not on track and we do need to do more.

Glasgow was the COP for the developed countries. Sharm el-Sheikh was the COP for the developing countries because of loss and damage and no mitigation at all. So what is this COP now going to be?

This is the COP of the Paris Agreement. It is going to prove to be functioning or useless. And I think everybody understands that it needs to deliver. But the question is whether the public opinion feels that it really delivers or is it just blah, blah, blah. And to deliver, we need to be as concrete as possible. What's next in mitigation, and how to ensure that an increasing share of financial flows all over the world are climate proof. So 1.5 means mitigation and making the smart decisions on investments, public or private, and being ready to anticipate the climate impacts.

'Implementing the phase-out of fossil fuels'

And delivering means to phase out fossil fuels?

Yes, we need to deliver on the package of tripling renewables, doubling energy efficiency and phasing out of fossil fuels. But what does it mean to phase out? There are some saying this is not a treaty on energy but on emissions. But we need to be coherent, not saying we need to reduce emissions when in fact we are talking about fossil fuels. We need to be very explicit on the fossil fuel-related aspects of the energy transition. We need a sharp decline in both supply and demand.

So you’re not talking about phasing down emissions of fossil fuels or CCS?

The EU mandate is very clear about that. When talking about capturing emissions, we say that abatement technologies should only be referred to hard-to-abate sectors. On electricity, we know that there are much more intelligent and faster solutions.

Where do you find allies for this when even the USA is in favor of CCS?

There are a lot more that we think that are asking for a bold language on fossil fuels. The absolute minimum should be Glasgow language or G20 language. Some of the most reluctant countries signed the G20 language.

But it was really hard to get there and G20 energy ministers did not even include it.

But leaders did. I don't care what any of the negotiators or the presidency personally think about every single element discussed here. It’s about negotiating in good faith and creating the premises for negotiations. The COP28-president has the role of the honest broker.

Sharm el Sheikh: 'We forgot about damage limitation'

Is he the honest broker he claims to be?

I hope so. We will be paying attention and asking him to be. It’s good that the president knows what the fossil fuel industry means, what renewable business means, what finance means and what those mean for African or for OPEC countries. He's quite an experienced guy in this sector and has learned a lot in the last year about the way we need to make the decisions. Not being biased on one side or the other. This was a little bit missed in Sharm el-Sheikh. The impression was that the outcome was not very balanced. We focused so much on Loss and Damage that we forgot about mitigation.

How helpful are the Germans in pushing for mitigation after they twice refused to sign declarations of the High Ambition Coalition?

The Germans have been going through a complicated period dealing with energy – whether to walk the talk in energy transition and lower the energy dependency. Now they have to see how far they can commit.

But this weakens the HAC.

We learned a long time ago that if there are people willing to go faster, they are not going to wait for those having problems to go faster. It's always good to count on the Germans. But they should be joining whenever they feel like it.

And if you can't count on the Germans?

You still go on and keep the pressure up to ensure that they can join whenever as soon as possible.

What about the G77+China? We have seen a financing pledge from the United Arab Emirates here in Dubai. It is the first time that a non-Annex I country has made such a pledge. Do you see any discussions in the group that could change the blocs of developed countries against non-developed countries?

In Paris, we agreed that not only historic responsibilities count – even though they are very important. But also, the current share of pollution and current share of income per capita and emissions per capita count. This debate is also taking place in the G77. Countries in the G77 know very well that China, the Emirates or the Saudis are not the same as Rwanda, Cuba or the Philippines. Who's contributing to climate finance is going to be one of the most sensitive issues in the negotiations. And our door is very open for a much more updated understanding of fairness and equity in terms of reducing emissions in terms of contributing to the general finance.

'We are largely on the same page'

Would it be easier for you to negotiate if the G77 bloc were to dissolve? If China and the developing countries were separate?

We as Europeans need to pay attention to the different sensitiveness, but we need to respect their own governance platform. We should not play dirty, breaking down their own governance considerations. To understand what is happening, we need to talk to each regional group and alliance within the G 77. We make a mistake if we think they all think the same.

There are also very different opinions in Europe and not every country thinks along the same lines. How does Team Europe stick together here in Dubai?

That is our role as the council presidency to keep them together. Even if there may be differences from one country to another, in general terms we are on the same page. Because we know we are much more effective when we play together and send the same message with many different accents. That's something that we have missed in the last years and that we need to recover from.

You are talking about the time under the leadership of former Climate Commissioner Frans Timmermans. How is his successor Wopke Hoekstra faring?

Well, he just started and toured the world with the shared message of our mandate. He is working in a very honest and constructive manner, understands that we need to work in Team Europe and he's quite happy to do so. I'm sure that it will go very well.

"Problems from countries we didn't expect"

There have been attempts in Europe to dilute the green agenda and the Green Deal. Are you sure that Europe still speaks with one voice on green policy?

There were many occasions when things could have exploded due to the different sensitivities. But we overcame that in a sensible way. Sometimes it is difficult because we feel the tensions that exist in Europe. The Spanish presidency had solved various problems within the legislative proposals that nobody thought we could solve. But it's true, sometimes the problems came from countries that we didn't expect.

You are looking at us Germans...

(laughs) The important lesson to be learned from this is that change is so important and so necessary that it cannot be postponed. You have to speed it up. But it can only work if public opinion and citizens feel the benefits of the green agenda and understand what and why we are doing what we are doing.