The potential amendment to an agreement between 190 nations under discussion is symbolic and would have no enforcement mechanism. Instead, just as the existing climate agreement, the Glasgow Climate Accord, calls on participating countries to pursue a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal of phasing out the use of fossil fuels will be ambitious. Climate change campaigners who campaigned for the climate change conference, known as COP27, to include a target to move away from fossil fuel use hailed the news as a triumph. At previous climate change conferences, the United States and other major oil and gas producers have refused to sign similar language. “It’s a breakthrough for the United States to support a global phase-out of fossil fuels after nearly three decades without reference to these climate agreements,” said Jean Su, director of the energy justice program at the Center for Biological Diversity. statement emailed to Yahoo News. The president’s special climate envoy John Kerry at the UN Climate Change Conference on November 9 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Peter Dejong/AP) But the new US support comes with a condition: that the phase-out only applies to “unstoppable” fossil fuels, meaning those burned without technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions in the stack. This technology, known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is used in just 18 facilities worldwide, almost all of them industrial. CCS has only been used in one coal-fired power plant in the United States, but it could potentially allow the continued use of fossil fuels with less climate damage if widely adopted. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which will spend $369 billion to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions over 10 years, includes funding for research and development of carbon sequestration technology. The story continues The president’s special climate envoy John Kerry, who leads the U.S. delegation to the conference, known as COP27, told Bloomberg News on Wednesday that the Biden administration would accept a broader call for phasing out fossil fuels than what was incorporated at COP26 in Glasgow. Scotland, last year. At that conference, the Glasgow Climate Accord included only a commitment to phase out the use of unabated carbon. “Oil and gas must be unabated,” Kerry said in an interview in Sharm el-Sheikh. “Gradual collapse, unabated, over time. Timing is a question, but the language we advocated is “phasedown.” The use of “phasing out” – which is softer than, say, the “total end” of fossil fuel use that many environmental and indigenous rights activists seek – also gives leeway to countries like the US. Participants outside the main entrance of the COP27 climate conference on November 6 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) However, at this year’s conference, India also pushed a broader amendment against fossil fuels. On Tuesday, the European Union said it would join the United Kingdom and a coalition of small island nations backing India’s proposal. Climate change activists, many of whom oppose the use of carbon sequestration because it is seen as a way to keep fossil fuels in the energy mix, expressed reservations about Kerry’s terms. “Limiting this phase-out to ‘unstoppable’ fossil fuels could open a Pandora’s box of polluters with bogus solutions like carbon sequestration that only extend catastrophic damage,” Su said. “We need words that reflect the reality that new fossil fuels are condemning us to an unlivable planet.” Whatever the words in the final text at the end of this week, none will guarantee that any country will actually shut down its gas-fired power plants and replace them with solar panels or wind turbines. No one is discussing specific hard targets for phasing out fossil fuel use, and even if they were, the climate agreement under discussion is not a legally binding treaty. But many nations, including the US, have previously resisted the anti-fossil fuel language because the direction set in the deal affects policy. The Biden administration, for example, has been steadfastly committed to trying to get the U.S. to meet the goal first pledged in the 2015 Paris climate accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2030. The proposal was designed of President Biden for strengthening the best to reach this goal. After opposition from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., forced Biden to drop some of the climate provisions, Manchin agreed to support the Cut Inflation Act, which is slated to curb emissions emissions by 40% by 2030 through subsidies for electric vehicles and clean energy. Similarly, a coalition of countries including the US and Japan announced on Tuesday that they would provide $20 billion in public and private grants and loans to help Indonesia phase out coal plants and replace them with clean energy generation, though not there are binding agreements. Since the fracking boom, the United States has become the world’s largest oil producer and the world’s largest producer of natural gas, making opposition to the production and use of fossil fuels difficult for American politicians. Projecting the death of the coal industry, which has been in decline for decades, has drawn strong backlash from Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. Earlier this month, Biden said “we’re going to shut these down [coal] plants across America and have wind and solar power.” That prompted Manchin to call the president’s remarks “outrageous and disconnected from reality,” forcing the White House to back down. Kerry’s demand that the provision only apply to fossil fuels at an unabated rate could potentially assuage domestic criticism. However, other major oil and gas producing countries may reject the proposal. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said in interviews at COP27 that the country continues to see a role for oil and gas for the foreseeable future and that it is working to minimize emissions from oil and natural gas production. gas while increasing the capacity to produce and export one day of clean energy. And in the US, the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives on Wednesday will likely mean the end of new clean energy spending, regardless of what this year’s climate deal includes. The conference is scheduled to end on Friday, but observers are already predicting it will go into overtime as thorny issues such as the future of fossil fuels and compensation for poorer countries suffering natural disasters linked to climate change are tackled.
