As my recent blackboard talk emphasized, climate stability means fossil fuel abolition. Arguments to the contrary are cynical mechanisms to keep the petro profits coming, regardless of the consequences for the climate.
Unfortunately, despite endless talk about ‘net zero’ and ‘ensuring’ climate stability, essentially everybody is still chasing fossil fuels:
- It’s easy to blame petrostates – but self-proclaimed ‘climate leaders’ like the US and UK are driving the crisis
- Revealed: wealthy western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion
- Guyana banks on future as a ‘new Qatar’ in high-stakes gamble over oil production
- ‘Will you stop exploring yours?’: Latin America forges ahead on new oil frontier
- Pristine forests and grinding poverty: why shouldn’t Brazil’s Amapá state embrace oil wealth?
Remember: it takes decades for the full effects of our greenhouse gas pollution to be fully manifest. That means much worse is still to come, even if we start making the right choices, and a nightmare looms if we persist with our current approaches.
UN head admonishes wealthy countries for expanding fossil fuel production
The UN secretary general called world’s dependance on oil and gas an ‘addiction’ and called for phase-out of fossil fuels
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/25/un-speech-fossil-fuel-climate-crisis
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2024/08/11/japan-us-lng-projects/
Australian fossil fuel exports ranked second only to Russia for climate damage with ‘no plan’ for reduction
Coal and gas exports expected to remain roughly at current level until at least 2035 with 4.5% of emissions linked to Australia, report finds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/12/australian-fossil-fuel-exports-ranked-second-globally-for-climate-damage-with-no-plan-for-reduction
Countries are ignoring commitments they made less than a year ago to shift away from fossil fuels and to provide aid to those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, a host of leading figures have admitted during a gloomy start to a major climate summit in New York.
Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and climate envoy, have led the condemnation of the largest greenhouse gas emitters, led by China and the US, for failing to follow a UN pact signed in Dubai by nearly 200 countries in December to “transition away” from oil, coal and gas.
“We made an agreement in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels,” said Kerry, who was the US lead climate negotiator at the time. “The problem? We aren’t doing that. We’re not implementing. The implications for everybody, and life on this planet, is gigantic.”
Kerry, who in his previous position defended the US’s role as it became the world’s leading oil and gas producer under Joe Biden, admitted that the US needed to do more and said a pause placed on booming liquified natural gas export permits by the US president should remain.
“The demand is what is crushing us right now,” Kerry said of the surge in gas exports. “I have to tell you all around the world people are falling short or not even trying. In Dubai almost 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in a way that’s fair, equitable and orderly … and they [fossil fuel companies] are just plowing ahead, like it’s business as usual.”
Asked to give oil and gas companies a grade in their efforts to transition to cleaner energy, Kerry said: “Is there a letter underneath Z?”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/23/new-york-climate-week-al-gore-john-kerry-condemn-fossil-fuels