Dear Friends,
COP30 ended with a fizzle. Fossil fuels – the driving cause of global heating – were not explicitly mentioned in the text, only in side-conversations about a future fossil fuel phaseout.
As The Guardian reported this past weekend, ‘The world edged a small step closer to the end of the fossil fuel era…but not by nearly enough to stave off the ravages of climate breakdown. Countries meeting in Brazil for two weeks could manage only a voluntary agreement to begin discussions on a roadmap to an eventual phase-out of fossil fuels, and they achieved this incremental progress only in the teeth of implacable opposition from oil-producing countries.’
While multi-lateralism held and some progress was made at the annual UN climate summit, we also saw the limits of multi-lateralism, with a gap between what science indicates must be done in order to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis and what countries can agree upon.
Fortunately, the incredible rise of renewables – particularly solar – means the fossil fuel era will end sooner rather than later; in the meantime, there are important questions, such as: How long will it take for global greenhouse gas emissions to begin falling? How quickly can emissions fall – and what damage will have been done in the meantime? And in the absence of political leadership, how can civil society – especially Churches – hasten the transition to renewables?
