EGN NEWS DESK
Earlier this 12 months, President Aliyev of Azerbaijan stood up on the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin and instructed ministers, fossil fuels are a “reward from the gods.” Having oil and fuel deposits is “not our fault” he went on, laying out additional plans to extend pure fuel manufacturing by greater than a 3rd.
But as chief of the host nation for the upcoming annual local weather talks in November, President Aliyev has a chance. He may be daring and clarify that fossil fuels are not a part of our collective future—and neither ought to they be part of our current.
We are standing on the precipice of a quickly warming world, perilously near crossing irreversible tipping factors. Wildfires blaze throughout the globe, floods engulf cities and houses, and droughts trigger hunger, leaving as soon as fertile land barren.
As U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly mentioned, any new funding in fossil fuels can be “financial and ethical insanity.”
The U.N.’s Summit of the Future going down on Sept. 22-23 is about defending future generations. We should guarantee they’re secure and safe, as an alternative of susceptible to local weather shocks.
What does that appear like? A complete fossil gasoline part out, a renewed dedication by developed nations to ship local weather finance—in addition to loss and injury funds—and a inexperienced, simply transition that places individuals and jobs first, particularly these within the Global South.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, we’re on the entrance traces of the disaster daily, via no fault of our personal. Polluters should pay.
Oil corrupts politics, empowers dictators, and erodes democracy, making wars extra frequent. It’s enmeshed in an internet of army offers and undermines international cooperation on the shared frequent risk to all life on earth: local weather change. Oil can be one of many world’s most unstable commodities, particularly now that the renewable market is booming and the worth of wind and photo voltaic is falling.
As we’ve seen, an absence of vitality safety breeds geopolitical pressure—simply have a look at Russia’s conflict in opposition to Ukraine and the chaos that ensued as a result of reliance of European nations on Russian pure fuel.
Climate-fuelled battle has triggered larger inhabitants displacement, which results in extra demand for meals in locations the place there’s already a scarcity. So we are saying this to leaders: cease investing in fossil fuels, cease digging up and burning fossil fuels, and cease forcing fossil fuels again into the bottom the place we develop the meals that sustains us.
We can’t eat coal. We can’t drink oil.
If we decarbonise the economic system, highly effective nations could have fewer causes to ship their militaries midway around the globe to safe the circulation of oil.
Ministers can be assembly on the U.N. General Assembly in New York City subsequent week, to signal The Pact for the Future, which requires sustainable improvement and worldwide peace. This is a pivotal second to strengthen international cooperation in an more and more fractured world—and an necessary precursor for the end result of COP29 in Baku.
Last 12 months, at COP28 in Dubai, nations applauded themselves for agreeing to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Since then this dialog has fallen off their radars.
As COP29 president-designate, Mukhtar Babayev’s latest letter makes clear, we are going to want “all arms on deck” to successfully advance the occasion’s two key pillars: elevating ambition and enabling motion. The know-how and finance are largely accessible, however nations are usually not shifting quick sufficient.
Last 12 months it was pressing. This 12 months it’s vital—we have to be dogged in our dedication and demand that our leaders pay attention. The longer we delay, the more severe it will likely be.
