By John Beard
December 22, 2023
From the article:
After going into overtime negotiations, a historic agreement by delegates from more than 200 countries attending the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference made global headlines last week for referencing the need for a transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”
As my fellow climate and community advocates, including many who joined me at COP28 to push for a fossil fuel phase out, were quick to point out, the agreement in Dubai was simultaneously groundbreaking and not nearly enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, or even to keep the world under 1.5 degrees of warming.
What’s more, the agreement leaves giant loopholes for costly emissions reduction technologies that are unproven at best and that more likely will increase dangerous pollution.
The promise that fossil fuel operations will capture and store the carbon they produce is repeated by the industry and governments alike, including the Biden administration. In reality, carbon capture has overwhelmingly been used to produce more oil and gas, and more greenhouse gases. An industry report showed that, of a dozen U.S. commercial carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects in operation in 2021, over 90% were engaged in the process of “enhanced oil recovery.”
