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How the light gets in
If you were expecting a breakthrough of global sanity from climate talks led by an oilman in Dubai, you’re probably new around these pixels.
The most hopeful spin I can offer leans on the great troubadour, Leonard Cohen, and our unofficial Anthem: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The crack, in this case, comes after 30 years of wrangling, with all the nations of the world finally agreeing to "transition away from fossil fuels.”
On one hand, that crack simply illuminates the most butt obvious step in halting climate change — stop doing the thing causing it. That it took three decades for the world to formally utter the words “fossil fuels” is a scandal in its own right.
On the other hand, “this result would have been unheard of two years ago, especially at a COP meeting in a petrostate,” says Mohamed Adow from Power Shift Africa. “It shows that even oil and gas producers can see we’re heading for a fossil-free world.”
Climate advocates have long relied on scientists, agencies and think tanks to buttress the demand to phase out fossil fuels. Now, every nation in the world has agreed on the direction. Every national government those advocates square up against will already have agreed to the overarching goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels.
“That sentence will hang over every discussion from now on — especially the discussions about any further expansion of fossil fuel energy,” writes Bill McKibben. “It is — and this is important — a tool for activists to use henceforth.” It will be their job to take up chisels and crowbars, chipping away at the crack, splitting it ever wider to let the sun shine in.
The international climate process does have the ability to produce crack-widening tools. The global focus on 1.5 degrees emerged from the meetings in 2015 when the most vulnerable nations succeeded in shifting the terrain towards keeping their countries above water. So, too, the whole project of passing laws for deep carbon cuts and net zero, which supplanted nebulous gestures about reducing emissions.
Despite the concerted efforts of OPEC, western oil producers and their politicians, more than 127 countries pushed for more decisive fossil fuel commitments than merely “transitioning.” They wanted the declaration from Dubai to call for a clear fossil fuel “phaseout.” That’s well over half the countries in the world, including the biggest pumper of oil and gas — the United States — and others in the top 10, like Canada.
After so many years as that-which-shall-not-be-named, the hottest topic at this year’s climate negotiations was the debate over phasing “out,” phasing “down” or transitioning away from fossil fuels. And the initiative for a new Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty was the talk of the town.
If you catch the crack at just the right angle, you start to see a world falling out of thrall with oil and gas. A bit shout out to John Vaillant for his conception of a world in thrall, and for the tantalizing suggestion we might be falling out. Vaillant’s book Fire Weather has been winning awards and making some very prestigious best-of lists. (If you’re out hunting gifts, you might still be able to find a copy.)
Fire Weather tells the story of “The Beast” — the monstrous Fort McMurray fire of 2016. And Alberta’s current government is a poignant example of a government in thrall. The provincial conservatives managed to erase The Beast from memory, whistling past this summer’s raging fires and pinning the blame on arsonists.
Currently in stage four out of five on its drought scale, the provincial environment minister is warning farmers and other residents to prepare for a fourth consecutive summer of drought. Still no mention of climate change from the enthralled — advance blame for the coming summer is being pinned on El Niño even though the past three years of drought occurred under its opposite, La Niña.
But the most fulsome evidence of thrall comes when any dare question the supremacy of oil and gas. After COP28 gavelled to a close this week, a fully-triggered Danielle Smith raged against Steven Guilbeault’s “treachery” for pushing a phaseout of fossil fuels.
The Alberta premier demanded the federal climate change minister be fired for aligning with “radical activists” in his “misguided personal obsessions” — an odd description for what is now the stance of over half the countries on the planet.
Guilbeault had been tasked by the summit president with brokering agreement on the fossil fuel semantics. The UN climate process works by consensus, so countries like Saudi Arabia were able to block “phaseout” and insist on a more ambiguous “transition.”
But even the oiliest of petrostates are recognizing a world falling out of thrall. Pressure from the majority of countries, civil society, scientists and Mother Nature has built to the point that it is no longer possible to avoid acknowledging the need to transition away from fossil fuels.
COP28 is getting headlines as a “landmark” or even as “historic” because it finally acknowledges the main cause of climate change. It is, at the same time, grossly inadequate.
“We did not come here to sign our death warrant. We came here to fight for … a fossil fuel phaseout,” declared the Republic of the Marshall Islands. “We will not go silently to our watery graves."
The lead negotiator for Samoa spoke on behalf of small island nations decrying a “litany of loopholes” in the final text. “The course correction that is needed has not been secured,” said Anne Rasmussen.
Although governments agreed to triple renewable energy and double the rate of energy efficiency, the agreement ducked the stronger “phaseout” language for fossil fuels or any firm schedule. And there was little progress on financing the transition in less-developed countries.
The loopholes included Russia’s insistence on a role for “transitional fuels” (code for fossil gas) and some fuzzy wording around carbon capture. In one telling moment, Norway’s negotiator intervened to say, "We do carbon capture and I can testify it's not the solution to everything."
Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, underlined the same point to Reuters: “Some companies, some oil-producing governments say that ‘we do want to reach the climate targets, but we want at the same time to continue to produce fossil fuels with our current business as usual plans and we will fix the gap by using carbon capture and storage.’ This is impossible.”
Scientists wanted a much more comprehensive and explicit agreement from Dubai. Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-founder of the World Weather Attribution Group, has a knack for translating statistics into stakes.
“The lukewarm agreement reached at COP28 will cost every country, no matter how rich, no matter how poor. Everyone loses,” she said. “With every vague verb, every empty promise in the final text, millions more people will enter the front line of climate change and many will die.
“Until fossil fuels are phased out, the world will continue to become a more dangerous, more expensive and more uncertain place to live.”
If you just can’t get enough of the deliberations in Dubai, John Woodside has you covered: “Countries have agreed to signal the end of the fossil fuel era. But the coal, oil and gas industries are making it clear they won’t go without a fight.”
The slow pace of climate talks is building momentum for a new Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. “It will be the roadmap for how we start aligning fossil fuel production with our climate goals,” Tzeporah Berman told Canada’s National Observer.
The number of countries endorsing the treaty increased to 12 this year. One new member is Colombia — over half the country’s exports are fossil fuels. “Today we face an immense confrontation between fossil capital and human life. And we must choose a side,” announced President Gustavo Petro. “I have no doubt which position to take between fossil capital and life. We choose the side of life.”
Max Fawcett thinks it's game over for oil and gas. “Now that the world has declared the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel age, it’s time for the oil and gas industry and governments in its thrall to act accordingly.”
Within hours of finalizing the UAE consensus, climate summit president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber resumed his role as oil company CEO. “The president of the COP28 climate summit will continue with his oil company’s record investment in oil and gas production,” reports The Guardian. Two Canadian oilsands majors also “unveiled capital plans to spend more than $10 billion next year,” according to the Calgary Herald.
Medical professionals, writing in The Lancet, say climate change is “putting the survival of millions of people at risk” and declared a fossil fuel phaseout could be “the most important public health intervention of our time.” Further delays, say the authors, “will be an act of negligence.”
I particularly appreciated David Fickling’s take in Bloomberg: “Climate Talks Always Fail, But They Are Failing Better.” And his colleague Javier Blas unpacks “why Saudi officials emerged from the COP28 summit smiling.”
“If you’ve been feeling angry … that the outcome delivered is far weaker than what is needed to align with the science, know that your outrage is productive,” writes Britt Wray in Gen Dread. “It is a sign that your sense of being morally transgressed is alive and kicking, and is itself a renewable resource for taking action.” Wray provides resources for processing that anger and channelling the renewable resource.
The oily backroom campaign to sink the federal emissions cap
“Oil industry players averaged more than two lobbying meetings per workday over the past year. Collectively, Pathways Alliance, the Canadian Association for Petroleum Producers and Canada’s six largest oilsands companies recorded 499 meetings from January through October,” Canada’s National Observer found.
Imperial Oil CEO gets grilled at federal committee
MPs on the federal environment committee “remain skeptical that the toxic oilsands byproduct (leaked by Imperial Oil) did not enter any of the tributaries that lead to the Athabasca River,” reports Natasha Bulowski.
Meanwhile, Alberta’s auditor general found the province’s accounting doesn’t reflect the price Albertans will have to spend cleaning up abandoned sites and the government isn’t following through on years-old recommendations.
It is "frustrating and disappointing" University of Calgary associate professor of law Martin Olszynski told CBC News. "Albertans increasingly are going to say, 'Who is minding the store?'" he said. "These are serious, chronic issues that need to be addressed."
Olszynski and other researchers say there needs to be a public inquiry “so oilsands companies clean up, pay up.
Amnesty International reports human rights violations on Wet'suwet'en territory
The Coastal GasLink pipeline should be stopped and the RCMP’s notorious CIRG division withdrawn, says Amnesty International. On Monday, the global human rights group detailed a "years-long campaign of violence, harassment, discrimination, and dispossession" of Wet'suwet'en members.
Today the world’s largest human rights org @Amnesty published a report saying what the Wet’suwet’en Nation has been saying for years: the CGL pipeline has proceeded without our free, prior and informed consent. Their report can be read here: https://t.co/fwziBMIJtn pic.twitter.com/KcAyrMwZ2k
— Gidimt’en Checkpoint (@Gidimten) December 11, 2023
Chained against Trans Mountain
“While some of the last of the pipeline expansion tears through Pípsell in Secwepemcúl’ecw, a last-ditch effort is made to defend the sacred site,” reports Brandi Morin for IndigiNews.
Breaking into TMX: Secwépemc allies, wrapped in chains, drop tobacco into a pipeline borehole.
— IndigiNews (@IndigiNewsMedia) December 15, 2023
While TMX tears through Pípsell in Secwepemcúl’ecw, a last-ditch effort is made to defend the sacred site.
Story by @Songstress28 with photos by @aaron_hemenshttps://t.co/GaQjOK2qrN
Cutting Canadian emissions
Canada could get within 85 to 90 per cent of its target for cutting carbon pollution if all announced policies get legislated and enforced, according to an independent assessment by the Canadian Climate Institute. “But stronger action from all orders of government is needed to close the gap.”
Your pension on fossil fuels
“Canada's big pension funds would have made more money without fossil fuels and even more had they invested in green companies over the past 10 years,” according to Corporate Knights.
Buses on track
“The Government of Canada will achieve its goal of introducing 5,000 zero-emission buses (ZEBs) by 2026,” according to number-crunching by the Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC). Tip of the hat to Catherine McKenna, who set the goal when she was infrastructure minister and lined up the financing.
🚨NEW REPORT from @CUTRIC_CRITUC finds that zero-emission bus adoption in Canada increased threefold since last year and Canada is on track to meet its target of 5,000 electric buses on the road by 2026. 🚍⚡️ https://t.co/2SnFystXLG
— Joanna Kyriazis (@joannakyriazis) December 14, 2023
London’s black cabs go electric
Half of London’s iconic black cabs are now battery electric vehicles. Almost 8,000 cabs, mostly manufactured by Geely’s LEVC.
Transport for London has been requiring all new cabs be zero emissions and cabbies with existing licences have been switching to avoid the daily fee charged in London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone. London’s other main taxi operators have committed to go fully-electric by 2025.
After the breakup
This will be the last Zero Carbon newsletter until the new year. Thank you for all your encouragement and your dissentions. For sending along suggestions and forwarding the newsletter along to others. And most of all, for your good company in frightening times. My very best wishes to you and our pale blue dot for the year to come. May the cracks widen and more light get in.
If you appreciate our climate reporting, please make a donation to the year-end fundraising campaign. You can also buy a gift subscription. Just click here and you’ll help drive the climate debate forward.
I’ll leave you with Linda Solomon Wood’s goodbye note to Meta. “Each year, Nieman Lab asks some of the smartest people in journalism what they think is coming in the new year.” The founder of Canada’s National Observer responded with a satirical breakup letter to Meta and a P.S. for Google: After the breakup, Canadian news orgs learn to live without Facebook.
“Things were so great at first.
“Remember… you took that story about Canada’s police spying on citizens protesting oil pipelines and sent it to hundreds of thousands of people around the world? Remember the one about the leader of the Conservative Party calling a press conference and then telling reporters they couldn’t ask questions?
“We had such good times together!”