United Nations General Assembly Takes Historic Step in Adopting Climate Resolution
May 20, 2026
The United Nations General Assembly has made a significant legal breakthrough by voting in favor of Resolution A/80/L.65, which transforms climate commitments into international legal obligations.
The text was adopted with a landslide majority of 141 votes in favor, while Tunisia chose to abstain. Tunisia's decision to abstain aligns it with a bloc of 28 countries, including nine other Arab nations: Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria.
This stance reflects a strong concern over Article 4 of the resolution, which explicitly urges states, within the framework of the Paris Agreement and taking into account their different situations, trajectories, and national approaches, to "implement measures to achieve the collective temperature goal, namely to maintain the global average temperature at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in accordance with the best available scientific data."
As a result, Article 4 calls for tripling renewable energy capacities and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030. It also advocates for a gradual phase-out of fossil fuels from energy systems through a just, orderly, and equitable transition, aiming to achieve the goal of "net-zero emissions" by 2050, in line with scientific data.
Finally, it demands the progressive elimination, and as soon as possible, of fossil fuel subsidies that encourage waste and do not allow for fighting energy poverty or ensuring a just transition.
This is an explicit call to "break free from fossil fuels" in an equitable and orderly manner, as well as to eliminate "ineffective" subsidies in the hydrocarbons sector.
For Tunisia and its regional partners, the provisions of this article touch the very heart of their energy policy. Tunisia's abstention from this UN resolution can be explained by its refusal to engage in a path that it believes may hinder its development efforts and compromise the stability of prices on its domestic market, despite the urgency of the climate crisis.
In fact, this new commitment directly affects the issue of energy security and development trajectories for Tunisia, as well as for other countries. The country finds itself at a crossroads between the need to achieve global climate justice and the fear that a brutal transition may become a burden for vulnerable populations.
