The UN climate agency today released a new draft agreement at COP28, which includes a range of options for the future of fossil fuel use, the session’s most contentious issue.

In the next few days, countries are expected to focus on the issue in the hope of reaching a consensus before the meeting’s scheduled end on December 12.

The options included in the text, which is still under negotiation, will call on countries in the final agreement to “take further action in this critical decade to:”

— “The phase-out of fossil fuels according to the best available scientific knowledge”

— “The phase-out of fossil fuels according to the best available scientific knowledge, the IPCC’s guidelines [Διακυβερνητική Επιτροπή για την Κλιματική Αλλαγή] on the 1.5 degree and the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement”

— “Abolition of fossil fuels without carbon sequestration recognizing the need for a peak in their consumption this decade and underlining how important it is for the energy sector to be primarily fossil fuel-free well before 2050”

— “The phase-out of carbon-free fossil fuels and the rapid reduction of their use so as to achieve zero-carbon energy systems by or around mid-century”

— No mention of future fossil fuel use.

The document also sets out an option to “rapidly phase out unabated coal power without sequestering carbon dioxide this decade and immediately stop issuing permits for new generation without sequestering coal power.” The other option for this paragraph is to include no mention of the subject at all.

Elsewhere the draft offers an option to call for either “the removal of fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or simply transition” or no mention of the issue at all.