A fortnight before the commencement of the COP 28 Climate Summit in Abu Dhabi, there is evidence that an agreement on the phasing out of fossil fuel remains on centre stage, the occupancy by the United Arab Emirates of a strong strategic position at the summit table notwithstanding. As the opening of the summit draws closer, the research, communications, and advocacy organization named Oil Change International, which focuses on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy, has signaled its intention to mount a pushback against what has been appearing, increasingly, to be a robust intervention by the fossil fuel lobby to use COP 28 to seek to place the climate change lobby in mothballs.
The group, which says that its advocacy is “rooted in community solidarity and principled policy analysis”, claims the backing of a group of countries “including France, Spain, Ireland, Kenya, and 11 other countries” all of which, it says, are calling for “a phase out of fossil fuel production, as well as an agreement to end new oil and gas explorations while tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency.” Oil Change International is of the view that “abatement technologies such as carbon capture and storage cannot be used to delay climate action.” Not only is Oil Change International seeking a phase out of fossil fuel production and an agreement to end new oil, it will also be using the occasion of the COP 28 forum to amplify its call for the tripling of renewable energy and the doubling of energy efficiency.
Simultaneously, while the call for a fossil fuel phase out, characterized by huge public protests and demonstrations that has been gaining momentum in the run up to COP 28, the question is whether or not lobby groups like Oil Change International can effectively make their way through the bureaucratic barricade which the Middle East fossil fuel ‘bosses’ and the rest of the global oil lobby has created is unclear. Even underdeveloped and developing countries (like Guyana) who are aware of the climate change threat but focused on the economic transformation that inheres in oil and gas economies are not about to embrace a lobby that is as robust as Oil Change International’s uncompromising position.
Oil Change International seemingly takes the position that abatement technologies are the fossil fuel industry’s “favourite tool to distract from the need for a full phase out of all fossil fuels,” contending that any inclusion of it (abatement technologies) in a COP28 agreement to phase out fossil fuels represents “a grave risk to international climate goals.” Contextually, it advocates that countries hold a firm line against it (abatement technologies) to maintain credibility and integrity at COP28 and beyond.
Oil Change International says it wants governments to arrive at the negotiations prepared to take action “commensurate with what the science is telling us,” that is, agreement on a “managed, planned decline of fossil fuel production” as a tool for the avoidance of “the worst impacts of the existential climate crisis.”
