The Fossil Question

The Fossil Question

Context: The article talks about how COP summits over the years have never talked about the role of Fossil fuels in global warming, or need to eliminate their use.

The Fossil Fuel Debate:
• Fossil fuels — oil, gas, coal and their derivatives — account for at least 80 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions. There is no way that emissions can be reduced without substantially cutting down the use of these fuels. But that is exactly what influential countries have been attempting to do in the climate negotiations — aiming to cut emissions without touching its source.
• Efforts to cut emissions have so far been focused mainly on reducing the relative consumption of energy or on improving energy efficiencies. While in the background global production of fossil fuels continues to rise.
• It isn’t surprising that none of the climate targets have been achieved.

The concerns:
• According to the latest projections, all the current climate actions being taken by countries are estimated to bring down annual emissions by just 2 per cent from 2019 levels by 2030 — science says this figure must be at least 43 per cent if any hope of keeping global temperature rise to within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial averages is to be entertained.
• Installation of renewable energy sources like solar or wind, which do not have emissions, are now outpacing new fossil fuel projects, but most of these are meant to cater to increased demand. The replacement of fossil fuel capacity with renewable energy is not happening at a fast enough pace.

What initiative did India take?
• At COP27, India initiated to include ‘phase out of fossil fuels’ when in that summit phasing out of Coal was the ultimate purpose while natural gas and oil got a free pass.
• India supported the Phasing out of all fossil fuels.

What is likely to change at COP 28?
• Fossil fuels are most likely to finally make an entry into the climate negotiations at COP28. The pressure to do so is intense — not least because the world is nowhere close to achieving its 2030 targets.