Perhaps the most positive outcome of last November’s UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland was the move by France, Ireland, Sweden, Wales and Quebec to join the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), which had been established by Denmark and Costa Rica in September 2021, just two months prior to the confab. Greenland, which had suspended all new oil and gas exploration in July last year, also joined the alliance, as well as New Zealand, Portugal and California.
BOGA’s aim is to see the phasing out of oil and gas production including ending new concessions, licensing or leasing rounds, along with subsidy reform or ending international public financial support for oil and gas exploration. The ultimate objective being a socially just and equitable global transition to green energy in alignment with the Paris Agreement and climate neutrality targets.
With only eight core members, three associate members and Italy participating as a ‘friend’, BOGA is to date a very small coalition targeting a gargantuan task. Although it has thus far been given the cold shoulder by the United States, which is currently the largest oil producing country in the world, the US state California is an associate member. Canada, the fourth largest, has also not joined BOGA, but Canadian province Quebec is a core member. The UK, which hosted the climate conference, and is a significant oil and gas producer, also steered clear of BOGA. However, its constituent Wales, is a core member.
Given the general global lack of political will to definitively address what is already known and has been seen with regard to the role of fossil fuels in the vicissitudes of the climate crisis, the self-determination displayed by the states mentioned above is to be applauded. Closer to home, Chile’s new President Gabriel Boric, elected in December 2021, wants the country to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and is moving towards enforcing limits on emissions and pollution. What that means for the country’s tiny oil and gas industry is yet to be seen. In Colombia, where elections will be held on May 29, Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez, who are leading in the polls, have pledged to stop oil exploration if they win. Colombia’s oil reserves are about a tenth of Guyana’s, but up to last year it had been in the process of signing new exploration contracts.
These moves offer only a small measure of hope for the planet, because realistically one might expect policies to change in four or five years, after a new election, if the party championing a greener way is voted out. The most emphatic example of this occurred in the US in 2016, when the climate-ambivalent Donald Trump won the presidency. The reversals now transpiring under the Biden administration will not cover the ground lost back then and whether they will continue or will be rescinded after 2024 is up in the air at this point. The target to decarbonise the US economy by 2050 could falter or fail if there is much deviation from the current path.
At the risk of restating the obvious, it is worth repeating here that the production and use of fossil fuels are the dominant causes of global warming and pollution. Emitting nearly 90% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today, fossil fuels are the primary cause of current climate change and ongoing human and environmental health problems. On the other hand, the fossil fuel industry, aside from being materially superior, is politically powerful and history has proven that money and power are possibly the strongest aphrodisiacs to humans and governments. Hence the difficulty in which the planet finds itself.
Even if there were no vacillation the change that is needed would not happen overnight, not for a great many years in fact. Global dependency on oil and gas means that for the foreseeable future it will be necessary to continue to use what is currently available. However, the International Energy Agency’s call last year for no new investments in fossil fuel extraction should be heeded if there is to be any chance of curbing the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius and by extension preserving life on this planet. In short, oil is still vital, but phasing it out is more than essential. None of this is new information, governments know this. That they choose not to act on it reveals the extent to which they remain blinded by power and the possibility of fame and lucre.
The current political line, particularly in poorer countries, is that continued oil exploitation is necessary as the wealth derived from it will stimulate development and thus eliminate poverty. That has become the mantra of many governments including ours. What actually happens is not that picture perfect. A look at the top oil-producing countries reveals that they all have percentages of their populations living in poverty, with China having the lowest poverty rate. Further, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, they all have varying percentages of homelessness; Russia appears to have the highest level of homelessness. Despite being developed, oil rich countries also have slums.
The fact is that while in every instance infrastructure tends to boom, social inequality blossoms right alongside it; the rich get richer, the poor, not so much. So yes, oil exploitation offers countries a level of prosperity, but in reality, not much of it trickles down to the citizenry. Politicians never spell this out when they are touting oil prosperity. Ours certainly didn’t. They neglected to mention that nurses and teachers’ salaries, for example, would by no means reflect the affluence being touted, or that senior citizens’ pensions and government welfare would remain pittances in the face of rising costs.
The real question that governments like ours, still intent on pursuing oil exploitation should be asked is were there no oil, would there still be development? Would they still be as gung-ho about leading the country? Please don’t expect a straight answer. It’s politics after all.
