Activists from NGOs including FridaysForFuture protested on the sidelines of the UN COP28 climate talks in Dubai to demand climate justice and an end to fossil fuels.

With the world experiencing its hottest year on record and devastating heat, wildfires and flooding battering communities across the planet, negotiators at the COP28 talks hosted by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates are under pressure to hammer out a historic agreement on fossil fuels.

Vanessa Nakate, Ugandan climate justice activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador said: "Leaders here in Dubai have a historic opportunity, they must follow the 1.5°C North star as COP28 president Al Jabar repeatedly calls it and declare a just and equitable fossil fuel phase-out."

"If after allowing over 2,400 fossil fuel lobbyists to attend a climate negotiation, if after all of this, leaders still don't have the courage to agree upon a fossil fuel phase-out, then it will put in question the credibility, not only of COP28, but of the entire COP process," she added.

 Nakate continued: "We saw at the start of this COP the operationalization of the loss and damage fund, which we see is a good step in the right direction. However, like I say the cost of lost and damage is in billions, it is not in millions, but many of the pledges that has been made, have been made in millions. What the communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis need right now are billions to address the worst impacts of climate change."

Eduardo Giesen Amtmann, a climate activist from Collectivo VientoSur said: "We are asking for more financing for a just transition, led by the communities and people, to wean us off fossil fuels around the world, and with adequate financing and support from everyone and the states and industries that are historically responsible for the climate crisis, which are the industrialized nations."