DUBAI – World leaders arrived in Dubai on Friday for U.N. climate talks, under pressure to step up efforts to limit global warming as the Israel-Hamas conflict casts a shadow over the summit.

United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan welcomed Britain’s King Charles III, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Emanuel Macron and other leaders at the sprawling Expo City Dubai complex in the sun-drenched Gulf metropolis.

The COP28 conference began with an early victory on Thursday as nations agreed to set up a “loss and damage fund” for vulnerable countries devastated by natural disasters.

But delegates face two weeks of tough negotiations on a range of issues that have long plagued climate negotiations, starting with the future of oil, gas and coal.

A first draft of the agreement, currently being negotiated by nearly 200 countries, includes language calling for a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, which are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions.

The sense of urgency was heightened by a U.N. warning that 2023 was on track to be the hottest year on record, raising fears that the world would miss the target of warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius limit, not achieve.

“Now the real work begins,” COP28 president of the oil-rich UAE Sultan Al Jaber said on Thursday.

“I will roll up my sleeves, get involved and help address this challenge and deliver real, actionable results,” Jaber said, although he claimed there was “positivity” and an “optimistic” mood following the loss and damage report.

Jaber, who heads the UAE’s national oil company ADNOC, said the “role of fossil fuels” must be included in UN climate negotiations.

The draft text sparks a battle between those calling for a “phase-out” and those favoring a less drastic “phase-out” of fossil fuels. But observers said the inclusion of such language was significant.

“It is more ambitious than anything ever presented at COP27 (negotiations in Egypt last year), so even including it among the options is a big step forward,” said Lola Vallejo, an expert at French climate think tank IDDRI.

GAZA WAR

The spotlight will now be on more than 140 kings, presidents and prime ministers who will address delegates on Friday and Saturday.

The British King Charles III. will open these speeches, followed by heads of state from countries such as Brazil, Kenya and Tonga.

But the climate crisis will have the same agenda as the conflict in Gaza.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog met his United Arab Emirates counterpart Sheikh Mohammed on Thursday and will be among the speakers at the COP28 conference on Friday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was also due to give a speech, but his office told AFP that he would no longer be going and that his foreign minister would be in Dubai instead.

The conference began Thursday with a minute’s silence – at the request of Egypt’s head of last year’s COP – for the civilians who died in the conflict.

The war began on October 7 when Hamas and other Gaza militants poured across the border into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 240, according to Israeli authorities.

Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel responded with an air and ground offensive that, according to the Hamas government, killed more than 15,000 people, mostly civilians, in Gaza and reduced large parts of the territory’s north to rubble became.

Herzog is using his COP28 visit to launch a diplomatic push to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.

He “appealed” to his Emirati counterpart “to use his full political weight to encourage and expedite the return of the hostages to their homeland,” the Israeli president’s office said.

According to the White House, US Vice President Kamala Harris, who will represent the United States at COP28, will meet with regional officials on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

As part of a week-long pause in fighting, Hamas released dozens of hostages captured in last month’s attack on Israel, in return for the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.