Planning For The End Of The Oil Age |
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Welcome back to Current Climate. As U.S. president, Donald Trump hasn’t been a friend of clean energy, pushing federal agencies to prioritize oil, gas and coal projects, kill or stall offshore wind farms and slow-walk approvals of solar and wind installations on public land. But as his war in Iran stretches on and oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz remain stalled, he’s inadvertently accelerated a global shift away from fossil fuels.
With global energy prices spiking, the first-ever international Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels convened last week in Santa Marta, Colombia, to begin charting a path toward making that a reality. Nearly 60 countries, as well as NGOs, trade unions, representatives of Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent, private companies, development banks, social movements and subnational governments participated. The U.S. government, which pulled out of the United Nations Climate Accords last year with an executive order from Trump, wasn’t there.
The week-long event highlighted the rapid growth of renewable energy worldwide, up 50% from 2023. But the bad news is that carbon emissions, overwhelmingly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, continue to grow. At the same time, the war in the Middle East has highlighted the economic and national security danger of overreliance on carbon-based energy.
The conference identified the need for financial and technical assistance, especially for at-risk developing nations, to get off oil as soon as possible, and the scale of the challenge ahead.
“Transitioning away from fossil fuels is more than replacing one energy source with another. It requires broad economic transformation to overcome structural dependencies, overcome debt constraints, expand reliable energy access, and support diversified, resilient economies,” the organizers said in a summary statement.
“The transition itself is complex, requiring time and careful management. It needs to ensure that communities and economies dependent on fossil fuel production and consumption can move to new economic........