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The world for the first time on Wednesday approved a call to transition away from fossil fuels as UN negotiations<\/a> in Dubai tackled the top culprit behind climate change, but at-risk countries said far more action was needed.<\/p>\n After 13 days of talks and several sleepless nights in a country built on oil wealth, the Emirati president of the COP28 summit quickly banged a gavel to signal consensus among 194 countries and the European Union.<\/p>\n \u201cYou did step up, you showed flexibility, you put common interest ahead of self-interest,\u201d said COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber, whose role as head of the United Arab Emirates\u2019 national oil company had raised suspicion among many environmentalists.<\/p>\n Describing the deal as bringing \u201ctransformational change\u201d, Jaber said: \u201cWe have helped restore faith and trust in multilateralism, and we have shown that humanity can come together.\u201d<\/p>\n EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra called the agreement \u201clong, long overdue\u201d, saying it had taken nearly 30 years of climate meetings to \u201carrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels\u201d.<\/p>\n But with the UN talks requiring consensus, Jaber carefully calibrated the text to bring onboard countries from islands that fear extinction from rising sea levels to oil giant Saudi Arabia, which led the charge<\/a> to keep exporting its petroleum.<\/p>\n Toughening language from an earlier draft that was roundly denounced by environmentalists, the agreement calls for \u201ctransitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner\u201d.<\/p>\n It asks for greater action \u201cin this critical decade\u201d and recommits to no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in hopes of meeting the increasingly elusive goal of checking warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.<\/p>\n