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A Devil’s Bargain Comes Due, Threatening the Planet [1]

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Date: 2023-12-01 13:00:00

So far, 2023 has been a year of devastating heat, fires and floods. It stands to reason that the global climate talks that have convened in Dubai should present the best chance yet to finally muster the ambitious response that is needed to avert climate catastrophe.

Yet, the jig appears to be up. The BBC has published leaked documents alleging that the national oil company of this year’s climate talks host, the United Arab Emirates, is leveraging its role into new oil and gas deals. The chairman of the company and COP28's president has denied seeing any such talking points or using them in his meetings.

The lack of ambition for the United Nations’ 28th global climate summit is especially frustrating considering the abundance of solutions available today that harness the wind and sun. Since 1992, the efficiency of solar cells has tripled, and the cost has declined more than 90%.

With so much opportunity to deploy renewable energy technologies that cut pollution, create jobs and save money for consumers, why is global progress so elusive? After all, fossil fuels account for three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. Phasing out fossil fuels with healthier, cheaper renewables should be at the epicenter of efforts to safeguard the planet.

The answer lies in the devil’s bargain reached at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Despite delivering the world’s first agreement set on stabilizing the world’s climate, the Rio agreement rejected any fossil fuel curbs. To the contrary, the agreement enshrined “fossil fuel production, use and exportation” as an economic necessity. That unworkable deal has mapped the course of ineffectual climate talks for the past three decades. Lofty climate ambitions could be announced as long as the agreements do not interfere with the fossil fuel industries at the heart of the problem.

The bill for the devil’s bargain has come due. Climate-altering pollution from fossil fuels has increased by 60% since 1992. Now, 2023 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record. There have been 25 climate disaster events in 2023 in the United States alone, each exceeding $1 billion in damages.

According to the secretary general of the World Meteorological Institute, “We have to reduce our consumption of coal, oil and natural gas dramatically to be able to limit the warming” to the limits set in the 2015 Paris climate accords.

A woman walks past a COP28 sign at the venue of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai on November 30, 2023. The UN climate conference opens in Dubai on November 30 with nations under pressure to increase the urgency of action on global warming and wean off fossil fuels, amid intense scrutiny of oil-rich hosts UAE. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images

We are heading in the wrong direction. According to a recent science update from the United Nations, the world is on track to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 that we should if we are serious about stabilizing the climate and avoiding the most catastrophic impacts.

The devil’s bargain from Rio has been jealously protected by fossil fuel companies and trade associations that send more delegates than any nation to the climate summits. They work with allied nations to water down the consensus-based negotiations. The fossil fuel foxes hold the keys to the global henhouse.

Oil and gas companies in the United States have profited greatly from the bargain. The United States has flipped from a leading importer of fossil fuels to one of the world’s biggest suppliers.

The good news is that America has an opportunity to stand in the way of corporate plans to expand exports even further. President Biden has a set of tools within easy reach that could help, and Americans want him to put them to use.

Petitions with 230,000 signatures were recently delivered to the Department of Energy (DOE) by community leaders from the Gulf Coast who are fighting the oil and gas industry’s plans to expand fossil fuel exports. These communities are burdened by the health impacts of toxic air and water from pollution violations made by the same industry that now wants to expand.

DOE has the power to halt permits designed to increase liquified methane gas exports. Recent science shows that these exports actually have a worse climate impact than coal, which makes it an especially bad substitute when we should be investing in renewable energy alternatives. Liquifying methane gas into LNG has an oversized climate footprint because methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a climate super-pollutant. Methane leaks into the atmosphere at every stage of the LNG process, including drilling, chilling and shipping overseas.

This is not a theoretical opportunity. Under the law, DOE must decide whether each new application to export LNG serves the public interest. There is a wave of new applications heading their way. If they are all approved and built, the resulting emissions from U.S.-sourced LNG are estimated to be larger than all greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union.

Biden took a positive step when he strongly opposed a bill in Congress that would have stripped DOE of its permitting responsibility. Now, DOE needs to put that authority to use. They can start by denying CP2, the largest LNG application DOE has ever received. The facility would take years to build and is designed to export fossil fuels for decades, largely to Asia. Europe already has all the LNG from the U.S. that it can handle.

The climate math is clear. “LNG projects currently under construction are not necessary,” according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. Stopping the next wave of proposals that haven’t yet broken ground and are awaiting permits should be an easy call.

Limiting LNG exports is a particularly smart place for the president to engage on fossil fuels. Gas exports increase the prices families pay for natural gas and electricity, especially in areas in the Midwest with high winter heating bills. Voters support limits on natural gas exports by a 2-to-1 margin, with especially strong support from independent voters and young voters.

Biden and Democrats in Congress have already taken a historically big step on climate by enacting the 2022 package of incentives that boost renewable energy and create clean energy jobs around the country. The legislation had a familiar gap, however. If corporate plans to increase American oil and gas production and ship the high-polluting fuels overseas are left unchecked, those emissions will more than erase the gains America is making domestically. The nation’s total carbon footprint — counting domestic emissions as well as exports — will go up instead of down. Pollution from U.S. LNG burned in Asia hurts the planet as much as pollution from methane gas burned here in the United States.

Climate action begins at home. Biden has a chance to finally break America free from under the thumb of fossil fuel corporations and kick the world’s pursuit of clean energy into overdrive.

Jeremy Symons was co-founder of Climate 21, a blueprint for President Biden’s “whole-of-government” presidential climate leadership. He is a climate consultant to philanthropies and non-profit organizations. He previously worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and for Democrats in the United States Senate.

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[1] Url: https://themessenger.com/opinion/devils-climate-change-bargain-comes-due-threatening-the-planet-cop28

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