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26.11.2015 Feature Article

Leaders Need To Kick Out Fossil Fuel Corporations To Achieve Ambitious Climate Deal

Leaders Need To Kick Out Fossil Fuel Corporations To Achieve Ambitious Climate Deal
26.11.2015 LISTEN

Leaders around the globe, perhaps at this very moment, are putting the final touches together as a new climate deal is expected to be reached next month, December, in Paris, during the United Nations climate change conference. The governments of more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change.

The Paris climate deal is very critical to environmental sustainability and growth of national economies in a manner that is responsible taking into consideration rapid population growth. The demand on resources and supply needs therefore to done through environmentally friendly approach. This is even more crucial given that according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global warming of more than 2°C would have serious consequences such as sea level rising, food insecurity, etc.

Scientists have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the planet will pass the threshold beyond which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible. That threshold is estimated as a temperature rise of 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and on current emissions trajectories the world is heading for a rise of about 5°C.

That may not sound like much, but the temperature difference between today’s world and the last ice age was about 5°C, so seemingly small changes in temperature can mean big differences for the Earth. A huge contributor to greenhouse emissions comes from fossil fuels and the corporations engaged in that industry.

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals. In common dialogue, the term fossil fuel also includes hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are not derived from animal or plant sources. Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have significantly increased since 1900.

Since 1970, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by about 90%, with emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributing about 78% of the total greenhouse gas emission increase from 1970 to 2011, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Civil society organisations argue that international corporate influence undermines climate policy progress. In the run to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations civil society organisations are creating awareness on the need to excluded fossil fuel corporations from the deliberations in the French capital. According to a new report from Carbon Tracker, a non-governmental organisation, the world’s largest polluters are peddling misleading fossil fuel demand scenarios, in a desperate bid to remain relevant in a world on the clean energy transition.

Civil society organisations have consistently called on leaders at past climate change conferences to work towards an ambitious legally binding agreement, but the past conferences have not resulted in a desired outcome.

"If we are to deal with the climate change problematic then the people who are the most serious polluters or contributors accounting for the larger portion of the greenhouse gases emissions especially carbon dioxide must be kept out from the COP21 negotiations, ” says Kingsley Ofei-Nkansah, General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

They will be working to proof all the time that the claims to the effect that they are accounting for the bigger portion of greenhouse gases emissions are not true and it is their work to do that, he explained.

"In the process there are few people who may water down their expectations because given the commitments that countries are making to reduce greenhouse gases even if all of them live up to them we will still not have greenhouse gases reduced to the level which will prevent further global warming at level that the world civilisation can live with and will be a disaster for the current generation.

"Indeed the least we can do is to say that all of us are committed to avert the situation, historically the people who have contributed the most are also the people who have done a lot to prevent us from having an ambitious legally binding agreement and we can put the blame largely on the fossil fuel corporations, ” Ofei-Nkansah emphasised.

Nearly 400,000 people have signed a petition to bar “big polluters” from the talks.

The petition, organized by Corporate Accountability International, argues the summit should be protected from corporate interests and becoming a platform for companies intending to “block progress, push false solutions and continue the disastrous status quo.”

The petition is just one of a number of public efforts designed to showcase the negative influence of industry groups on climate talks, their historic bad behaviour and a growing international impatience for meaningful climate action.

Recent investigations reveal Exxon knew about the existence of ‘potentially catastrophic’ climate change since the 1970s but chose to keep that information hidden. The company is being widely criticized for misleading the public about the influence of human activity and the use of fossil fuels on the global climate.

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