A new front in the push to phase out fossil fuels |
Fifty-five countries is a lot of countries. Especially given that their gathering next week is an oblique middle finger to the lumbering madman currently deranging the world with his shambolic wars and “drill, baby, drill” agenda.
Ministers and diplomats from all those countries are about to convene on the Caribbean coast of Colombia for what’s billed as the “First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.” The representatives of nation states will be joined by subnational governments and other stakeholders and their meeting in Santa Marta, Colombia could hardly have sharper timing.
The governments of Colombia and The Netherlands had actually been planning this conference before Donald Trump gave the world a crash course on the dangers of relying on fossil fuels. The meeting was formally announced at last year’s UN climate negotiations, where a group of petrostates vetoed proposals for a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. The petrostates went further, vetoing any mention whatsoever of “fossil fuels” from the global agreement.
It is a truly Kafkaesque situation. The global summit designed to tackle climate breakdown is unable to name its primary cause. Eighty-five countries were openly calling for a roadmap off fossil fuels and others would surely have supported the move. But a small cabal of fossil fuel extracting countries have been able to stymie the rest using procedural rules.
And so, Colombia and The Netherlands announced they would be co-hosting an international process for the phase out of fossil fuels. It is........