AS WE start into the year 2024 after COP28, there is a very troubling realization that the future stability of planet earth’s climate is in the control of very few powerful people.
They are the few money moguls and politicians of nations that control the fossil fuel industry. They are so influential they were able to influence a change in the words of the final statement of the almost 200 international COP28 national delegates.
The key phrase in the statement of commitment by all nations was changed by the producers and major users of fossil fuels from “phasing out fossil fuel” to “transition away from fossil fuel.” This last phrase is weaker and less urgent.
Many protested but in the end the delegates called it a historical breakthrough. It was, they said, the “beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.” In all previous 27 meetings of COP (United Nations Climate Change Conference), phasing out was not on the table.
In the Philippines, some energy corporations are seriously investing in renewables, thanks to Republic Act No. 9513 of 2008 giving tax breaks to the investors. More should take advantage of this law.
The government gives incentives to development of renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, etc. New coal plants are on hold. An experimental compensation deal, called The Coal to Clean Credit Initiative (CCCI), is on-going called.
Fossil fuels are the main source of energy to generate electricity for the world’s industrial economy. They are the main cause and source of CO2 emissions that cause global warming and ever increasing deadly and destructive climate change.
Was COP28 really the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era? It is unlikely. The pledges and promises are unenforceable. The fossil fuel lobby and corporations are giving lip-service to the lofty goals of the climate conference.
It is hard to believe that the oil corporations and oil-producing nations would “transition away” from such a rich source of revenue, the basis of their political and economic power. It’s like asking a jewel trader to throw all his diamonds into the sea one by one. For them, the only thing that talks sense is money and lots of it.
Climate change activists and environmental and climate scientists have been forecasting climate disasters for 30 years. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, “a one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all of the oceans, the atmosphere, and the land masses by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age. A five-degree drop was enough to bury a large part of North America under a towering mass of ice 20,000 years ago.”
The United Nations World Meteorological Organization confirmed that this year 2023 the world reached 1.4 degrees C of warming above pre-industrial level. The year 2023 has been the hottest ever in human history. This is because the uncaring politicians and their tycoon cronies in the fossil fuel business are in denial and block every move to “transition away” from fossil fuels worldwide.
For them, it is a battle for their economic survival. For the climate activists protecting the planet, it is survival of life on earth. Yet, there is little we can do but protest and force governments to legislate a phase out of fossil fuel against the politicians’ and their corporate backers’ personal interests. (To be continued)/PN
