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Fossil fuel phaseout or phasedown: Countries have agreed to reduce carbon emissions at previous COPs, but have not explicitly acknowledged the role of fossil fuels in causing the climate crisis until recently.

At the outset of the conference, ministers and advocates had debated whether to call for a “phaseout” of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, or a weaker “phasedown” of those same fuels.

In Dubai, after a week of closed-door talks, it seemed like activists and the most climate-vulnerable countries had scored a big victory in the stocktake debate: A draft text that emerged on the Friday of the conference’s last full week contained four options for a line about fossil fuels, all of which referenced “phaseout” rather than “phasedown.”

The options in the draft on the future of fossil fuels range from a less-stringent “phasedown of unabated coal power” to a simple but dramatic “an orderly and just phase out of fossil fuels.”

The options in the draft range from a less-stringent “phasedown of unabated coal power” to a simple but dramatic “an orderly and just phase out of fossil fuels.”