The world agreed to quit fossil fuels. Now it disagrees over the plan

Over three years ago, close to 200 countries approved an agreement to transition away from using fossil fuels in energy systems. Cut to today, and those countries are now struggling to decide what that transition looks like.

COP28 in Dubai was the first UN climate summit to explicitly mention the need to move away from coal, oil and gas, in its final text. But it included no mechanism to action that commitment.

Three years later, the president of last year’s COP30 summit, Brazil, has spent much of the past year trying to close this gap by drafting a global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels, to be unveiled at COP31 in November.  

The task is more urgent than ever, says Siân Bradley, head of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) Secretariat, a coalition of governments committed to phasing out fossil fuels. She told Dialogue Earth: “Every single thing that has happened since the launch, from the ongoing impacts of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, to the wildfires and the heatwaves, makes this more urgent. We’re moving into an implementation phase now.”

Of the 146 updated national climate action plans submitted to the UN as of August, 101 reference moving away from fossil fuels but only 12 spell out how, analysis from BOGA shared with Dialogue Earth shows. Interviews with negotiators, campaigners and analysts reveal that this comes down to fundamental divisions on basic principles – what the roadmap should say or do.

A report, or a framework?

At COP30 last November, Brazil attempted to make the roadmap part of the official negotiations but differences between countries prevented that. Instead, Brazil proposed a voluntary roadmap, which it would build in 2026 in consultation with governments.

Ana Toni, COP30 CEO, describes this proposed document as a “frame” rather than a set of guidelines: meant to show countries what is already moving rather than dictate what they must do. The roadmap will address both demand and the production of fossil fuels. It will show this is not just an energy problem but also a social and economic one. “The transition isn’t a taboo. It has to be discussed,” she says.

The COP30 presidency has identified four broad areas the roadmap will focus on to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels: reforming the international financial architecture, strengthening capacity building, increasing cooperation and prioritising the just transition.

Alejandra López, head of climate diplomacy at Transforma, an NGO headquartered in Colombia, tells Dialogue Earth she doesn’t want the roadmap to repeat the mistakes of the USD 1.3 trillion climate finance roadmap, which she says lacks a plan for who does what.

The real test, López argues, is whether the document is connected to existing architecture, such as national climate plans, rather than being placed in a vacuum. “I see it as a benchmark of what has to be done and how it should be done,” she adds.

Paola Yanguas Parra is policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a think-tank headquartered in Canada. She mentions another challenge: Türkiye, host and president of COP31, has not made the transition away from fossil fuels a priority for the conference, focussing instead on electrification. This illustrate a tension at the heart of the roadmap: countries can embrace clean energy while remaining reluctant to discuss reducing fossil fuel production and use.

“If they [countries] don’t take it forward, the roadmap could fall between the cracks,” Yanguas Parra tells Dialogue Earth. “Türkiye has set an electrification target but that has to happen in tandem with fossil fuel transition. So far, I don’t see that coordination.”

COP30 CEO Anna Toni speaks to the UN climate chief Simon Stiell during June’s Bonn climate meetings. She says the new transition roadmap should be more a “frame” than a set of guidelines (Image: Lara Murillo / UN Climate Change, CC BY NC SA)

Old fault lines resurface

Brazil opened a submission process for influencing the shape of the roadmap in February and received inputs from only 18 governments, the European Union and two negotiating blocs – the 44-strong group of Least Developed Countries (LDC), and the 39-strong Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).  

AOSIS’s said the roadmap “must not become a purely descriptive exercise” but a “practical instrument”. The Marshall Islands called for it to be clear on the necessity of reducing oil, gas and coal production. Vanuatu demanded a binding fossil fuel treaty to “support a managed and equitable phase-out”. Iceland and Switzerland have both asked for a roadmap with defined milestones, with the latter proposing agreed markers through to 2035.

Producer countries have staked out their own positions: Russia argued gas is a legitimate transition fuel, while Norway emphasised that its gas production is relatively low-emission already – a reminder that “moving away from fossil fuels” means different things depending on who’s producing them.

The other 180 member countries of the UN climate change convention have submitted nothing.

Shady Khalil, global policy strategist at Oil Change International, says the divide points to an unresolved question of responsibility. “Countries from the Global North need to show they are taking the lead on the transition,” he says. “It’s not only a climate imperative. It is also in their best interests to transition. But there are barriers that yet need to be unlocked.”

Where national roadmaps fit in

While the global document is being discussed, a handful of countries have been trying to build their own. France was the first to publish a national roadmap in April, but there are already questions around its content.

“They put it together quickly to deliver something, but it does not have any level of detail. It was like an inventory of the things that they are already doing,” Yanguas Parra said.

The Netherlands published its own national roadmap in September, folded into its new National Energy System Plan. The plan frames cutting fossil fuel import dependence as central to energy security, and pairs that with plans to nearly quadruple renewable capacity by 2040. But it stops short of setting a binding end date for fossil fuel use or production, found Greenpeace Netherlands, 350.org and Oil Change International.

Germany also published its roadmap in September, committing to a phase-out of coal, oil and natural gas by 2045.

Last December, President Lula da Silva had instructed key Brazilian ministries to draft a roadmap in two months. The deadline was missed, and a plan is now being worked on by the national energy policy council, but with no fixed timeline.

Mexico is folding its own transition planning into its existing climate architecture rather than producing a standalone document, says López. “It’s a sectoral plan tied to its national climate pledge, coordinated across ministries,” she said.

Andreas Sieber, head of global political strategy at the NGO 350.org, says national roadmaps are the logical next step once the global one is unveiled. But he wants the countries most engaged in the process to move faster than that. In April, an informal coalition of 57 national governments willing to act outside the UN climate negotiation process met in Santa Marta, Colombia to discuss accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.

Sieber says if at least 50 of the countries involved in the Santa Marta process arrive at COP31 with their own national plans in hand, that alone would be a significant outcome. “We should ask countries to commit to or present roadmaps before COP,” he adds.

Financing any such roadmap is a particular challenge for developing countries of course. BOGA and the NDC partnership, a coalition of countries and climate organisations, are helping some of these countries to build their plans, with Kazakhstan, Chad and Trinidad and Tobago the first to sign up. All three rely on fossil fuels for a large share of their export revenue, with officials from these nations framing their support as a way to plan an inevitable economic diversification.

For Bradley, the global roadmap must work as a process rather than a single deliverable. “It’s about dialogue, about enabling mechanisms, and about profiling what’s already happening across different jurisdictions. It has to be country-led and built on real practice and experience,” she added.