A Global Stocktake is happening, more countries are signing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and a free award-winning K-12 educational resource.
Here are the highlights – and lowlights – so far.
The latest draft calls on countries to “take further action in this critical decade towards” either: 1) “A phase out of fossil fuels in line with best available science,” 2) ”Phasing out of fossil fuels in line with best available science, the IPCC’s 1.5 pathways and the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement,” 3) “A phase-out of unabated fossil fuels recognizing the need for a peak in their consumption in this decade and underlining the importance for the energy sector to be predominantly free of fossil fuels well ahead of 2050,” 4) “Phasing out unabated fossil fuels and to rapidly reducing their use so as to achieve net-zero CO2 in energy systems by or around mid-century,” or 5) leaving out language on the future use of fossil fuels.
As I talk about here, “unabated” is what I refer to as a weasel word: it allows fossil fuel producers to weasel out of reductions by promising to capture their carbon at some time in the future (and when they get to that time, they’ll most likely claim it was too expensive/too hard to do what they promised). So as you can imagine, the precise language to be included on future fossil fuel use is the most contentious issue at COP28 right now. And make no mistake, it is a huge fight.
Read Dr Hayhoe’s whole piece here: talkingclimatenewsletter@
Beki & Richard Halpin, Green Sanctuary Ministry, green@austinuu.org (512) 658-2599
