(The Guardian) The proposed fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is raising its profile at Cop27, with the US senator Edward Markey becoming the first US politician to back the call. The UN talks have set plenty of targets to cut fossil fuel emissions, but none to cut their supply. That’s the gap the treaty aims to fill, addressing the root cause of the climate crisis.
Without such a treaty, Tzeporah Berman, the chair of the initiative, told the Guardian “it is like trying to cut with one half of the scissors”. The treaty idea was inspired by nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaties and began with discussions between Berman and Mark Campanale, the founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, in 2016. The first article calling for the treaty was published in the Guardian in 2018, written by Andrew Simms and Peter Newell.
The US is one of the world’s biggest producers of fossil fuels and Markey told delegates at Cop27: “The US cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. We cannot tell other countries what to do if we’re not doing it ourselves. That’s why today, I am publicly supporting the call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.”
There is far more coal, oil and gas in company and government reserves than can ever be burned if global heating is to be kept to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Markey, a long-time supporter of climate justice, has also told the campaigner and writer Bill McKibben that he intends to organise Democratic senators to demand the firing of the World Bank president, David Malpass. Malpass, a Trump appointee, has been mired in controversy over his commitment to climate action, and faces calls from many nations for major reform of the institution.
-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/11/what-is-the-fossil-fuel-non-proliferation-treaty
Without such a treaty, Tzeporah Berman, the chair of the initiative, told the Guardian “it is like trying to cut with one half of the scissors”. The treaty idea was inspired by nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaties and began with discussions between Berman and Mark Campanale, the founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, in 2016. The first article calling for the treaty was published in the Guardian in 2018, written by Andrew Simms and Peter Newell.
The US is one of the world’s biggest producers of fossil fuels and Markey told delegates at Cop27: “The US cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. We cannot tell other countries what to do if we’re not doing it ourselves. That’s why today, I am publicly supporting the call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.”
There is far more coal, oil and gas in company and government reserves than can ever be burned if global heating is to be kept to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Markey, a long-time supporter of climate justice, has also told the campaigner and writer Bill McKibben that he intends to organise Democratic senators to demand the firing of the World Bank president, David Malpass. Malpass, a Trump appointee, has been mired in controversy over his commitment to climate action, and faces calls from many nations for major reform of the institution.
-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/11/what-is-the-fossil-fuel-non-proliferation-treaty
