Last year, the world pledged to move away from fossil fuels. This year, not so much.

BAKU, Azerbaijan — It was the most trumpeted achievement of last year’s climate conference. One year later, it’s nowhere to be found.

The call to “transition away” from coal, oil and gas that came out of December’s COP28 summit in Dubai was historic — the first time 200 countries, including major oil and gas producers such as Saudi Arabia and the United States, had explicitly agreed on the need to wind down fossil fuels.

But in Baku, Azerbaijan, COP29 is taking place after a U.S. election that handed the presidency back to Donald Trump, who has vowed to massively expand oil and gas production. And the host country’s president, Ilham Aliyev, used his keynote address to call fossil fuel resources a “gift of the God.”

Against that backdrop, even getting this summit to reiterate last year’s nonbinding agreement has faced “pushback,” Lars Aagaard, Denmark’s climate minister, told reporters on Thursday. And some advocates for strong climate action appeared to be accepting defeat.

Money is still the most contentious issue at the Azerbaijan summit: Less than 24 hours before talks were scheduled to conclude on Friday, negotiators were still battling behind closed doors about how many hundreds of billions of dollars in climate aid for poorer nations should come from wealthy governments such as the U.S. and the European Union. But the question of how to handle the 2023 fossil fuel pledge is a symbol of how far global climate politics have shifted.

A group of 22 Arab countries has refused to accept any mention of the fossil fuel language, according to three European negotiators, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

During a public meeting on Thursday, Saudi Arabian negotiator Albara Tawfiq, speaking on behalf of the Arab group, said any reference to fossil fuels would be “unacceptable.”

“The Arab group will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels, and no proposal on economic policies in developing countries even on an encouragement basis,” he said.

Ugandan Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa told POLITICO the country wanted the freedom to exploit its own energy resources: “Any statement which would be towards phasing out completely of fossil fuel, that Uganda does not support. It is not just. It is not just.”

Failing to repeat the fossil fuel language from COP28 would be disappointing, said Colombia’s minister of environment and sustainable development, Susana Muhamad. “What is the point of having an agreement and a convention if we cannot deal with the issue that creates the problem?” she asked.

An early draft of the final deal for the COP29 talks, released early Thursday, contained no mention of fossil fuels and no commitment to the broader Dubai agreement. G20 leaders who met this week in Rio de Janeiro said they “welcome and fully subscribe” to last year’s agreement, but declined to repeat its contents.

At a press conference on Thursday in Baku, Aagaard would say only that the fossil fuels pledge was “close” to a red line for Denmark.

“Everybody’s going to go away somewhat unhappy tomorrow,” said Ireland’s climate minister, Eamon Ryan. “There’s going to be red lines crossed.”

And while rich countries and those nations vulnerable to climate change insist that the talks must also send a clear signal on cutting greenhouse gas pollution, Ryan suggested that the talks on delivering a new finance goal should not collapse over it.

Failure to get a deal “would be unforgivable, would be historically shameful,” he said. “And we can’t do that, we have to reach compromise.”

The European Union has insisted that the final agreement in Baku needs a strong component on cutting emissions, describing any backtracking as a “red line.” But senior European negotiators appeared open to not repeating the fossil fuel language this week.

“What we would like to avoid — that’s a red line — is watering down the agreed text,” said Attila Steiner, co-leader of the EU’s COP29 team, in an interview on Wednesday. The EU could “live with” just restating last year’s language, he added. When asked whether there needs to be an explicit reference to fossil fuels again, Steiner said: “What we agreed in Dubai … it’s a package. The exact wording is a different question.”

Instead, Europeans appeared keen to focus their attention on a deal that describes how countries will move away from fossil fuels.

In a statement to reporters Wednesday, German climate envoy Jen Morgan said COP29 needs to speed up the implementation of the energy goals agreed in Dubai, but did not mention the fossil fuel transition call when enumerating what that means.

“Concretely, we are looking for a decision on the need to cooperate on the expansion of electricity grids and energy storage, as well as the promotion of green skills, the tackling of all fossil fuel subsidies [and] agreeing no new coal,” she said.