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Author: Guillem Rius Taberner, Investigador , Universitat de Barcelona
Original article: https://theconversation.com/trumps-success-and-cops-failures-have-placed-us-firmly-on-the-highway-to-climate-hell-248942
2023 was the hottest year on record, until 2024 broke that record and took us, for the first time, over the 1.5C global heating threshold. This will not be the last time this record is broken – under current emission reduction policies, we can expect an increase of 3.1C above preindustrial levels by 2100.
However, things could get even worse if national governments do not take the necessary measures. US president Donald Trump, for instance, has announced plans for the US to leave the Paris Climate Agreement, and to extract more fossil fuels.
The consequences of failing to reduce emissions are already devastating, and they will only get worse – we are now at risk of passing various climate tipping points, all of which will have irreversible consequences for the planet.
COP29 falls short
The United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP) is one of the only spaces capable of bringing together representatives of the world’s 8 billion inhabitants with the aim of reversing the most devastating effects of global warming. Yet after almost 30 years of these summits, there is still resistance and unwillingness to address the main cause of the problem: the year-on-year increase in fossil fuel burning.
The most recent of these (COP29), was held last November in Baku, Azerbaijan, and ended with an underwhelming commitment to mobilise at least $300 billion annually by 2035 to finance developing countries’ climate adaptation and mitigation. This figure is less than a quarter of the $1.3 trillion that these countries need annually.
The other main outcome of COP29 was the resolution of the Paris Agreement’s outstanding provisions on carbon markets. These mechanisms allow companies and governments to buy credits to offset their emissions through initiatives. This can be through measures such as foresting areas without previous forest cover, supporting energy transition projects, or the (still largely undeveloped) industrial capture and storage of carbon dioxide.
Carbon markets have thus far not been proved to reduce emissions, though they are profitable for private capital. By buying carbon credits, large emitters are allowed to continue polluting while discouraging the adoption of ambitious climate targets. The overall lack of oversight, transparency and methodological integrity in these systems has been well documented.
Cases of double-counting avoided emissions have also been reported, and there is uncertainty about the guarantees that captured CO₂ will be stored in the long term. In addition, there is evidence that some forestation projects are violating local communities’ rights.
The ‘end of the fossil fuel era’?
In Baku, a lack of public ambition on climate finance and the increasing role of private capital in mitigation were compounded by the absence of regulatory agreements to follow through on the COP28 commitment to move towards “the end of the fossil fuel era”.
If 83% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions come from burning these fuels, and the most effective way to mitigate global warming is to stop their extraction and use, why in 29 years has the main cause of the problem not been directly addressed?
The answer lies in the enormous pressure exerted by actors linked to the fossil fuel industry. They refuse to give up a very profitable business that has generated $2.8 billion per day for the last 50 years.
More than 1,700 industry lobbyists participated in COP29, outnumbering the combined total of delegates from the 10 nations most vulnerable to climate change.
Additionally, representatives of countries such as Saudi Arabia obstructed agreements aimed at limiting fossil fuel extraction.
At the summit’s opening, Azerbaijan’s president himself even described his country’s fossil fuel resources as a “gift from God”, and the country has announced plans to actually increase gas production over the next decade.
To this we can now add Trump’s promise to give free rein to oil and gas extraction.
How to make climate solutions stick
Multilateralism is key to finding global solutions to the climate crisis. International agreements made under the United Nations – such as the Montreal Protocol and the subsequent recovery of the ozone layer – prove that we can overcome collective challenges, but if summits like the COPs are to be effective, their agreements must be guided by scientific evidence rather than corporate interests.
According to the International Energy Agency, we need to avoid all new investments in gas, oil or coal extraction, and to preemptively halt a significant number of ongoing extraction projects.
The first step is to eliminate the fossil industry’s large subsidies, which amount to 70 billion dollars per year in G20 countries alone. This move would significantly boost the energy transition – without economic support many extraction projects will become economically unviable.
In order for governments to act more firmly and avoid the fear of millions in compensation, contractual clauses that protect foreign investors from early termination of contracts must also be revoked.
To ensure that the transition does not perpetuate existing inequality between countries, decarbonisation needs to be guided by principles of equity, environmental justice and solidarity. This means prioritising the end of extraction in countries with high transition capacity and potential to support developing countries. It also means immediately shutting down projects where they violate human rights and have serious socio-environmental impacts.
Tools such as the Atlas of Unburnable Fossil Fuels and its interactive platform, a project led by the University of Barcelona, can show us where to focus these efforts.
International coordination for fossil project decommissioning can be strengthened through initiatives such as the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.
The fossil fuel industry, for its part, can play a key role in leading the transition, leveraging its investment capacity and technical expertise to reorient its portfolios towards massive clean energy deployment. Today, investing in renewables is not only more profitable than the fossil sector, but also generates quality jobs.
Current plans to save the planet can still work, but only if collective decisions are free from industry interference. They must also focus on robust measures, such as eliminating fossil fuel extraction.
There is no plan B, and failure to act decisively now will lead us onto, in the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “the highway to climate hell”. It will be catastrophic for the global economy, and even for the companies and governments that continue to prioritise short-term extractive profits.