Opinion

Editorial: No more half measures on climate change. The next generation is right to demand an end to fossil fuels

The Times Editorial Board
Fri, September 15, 2023 

Activists walk through lower Manhattan for the Global Climate Strike protests on Sept. 23, 2022 in New York. (Brittainy Newman / Associated Press)

Thousands of people are mobilizing for what could be the biggest climate march in the U.S. in years in New York City on Sunday. It's one of many protests across the globe over the next few days with a simple demand: President Biden and other world leaders must phase out fossil fuels.

You have to respect the uncompromising clarity of the March to End Fossil Fuels message: Stop approving new fossil fuel projects, phase out drilling on public lands, declare a climate emergency and provide a just transition to renewable energy.

Because you’re not seeing such a clear vision from the men and women with the power to do something about the climate crisis, only weak-kneed language and half measures.

In the run-up to the COP 28 United Nations climate summit in November in Dubai, nations are talking instead about phasing out “unabated” fossil fuel emissions. This would allow countries to keep burning oil, gas and coal as long as they also use some kind of carbon capture or removal technology to offset its effects on the atmosphere.

Read more: Editorial: Biden says he’s ‘practically’ declared a climate emergency. Why won't he do it for real?

This kind of double-speak is revealing, because it shows how many politicians are unwilling to buck powerful fossil fuel interests. Like oil and gas companies, they want to suggest we can have it both ways and fight the climate crisis without dismantling the fossil fuel based-system that is causing it. But that sets a dangerously low bar. If we don’t at least aim for the end of fossil fuels, where do you think we’ll actually end up a generation from now?

By contrast the young people spearheading the climate protests are quite clear about what actions are required to ensure a livable planet for future generations. In addition to marches and rallies on Sunday, they are also staging a global, youth-led strike on Friday, actions that are timed to take place in advance of a U.N. Climate Ambition Summit in New York on Sept. 20.

World leaders should take their cues from these young activists. They have the most at stake and are explicit about the need to abandon the fossil fuels that are polluting the air and overheating the planet. They are tired of broken promises, incrementalism and spineless politicians who won’t stand up to their fossil fuel industry backers.

Read more: Editorial: The 2022 heat wave killed 395 Californians. It shouldn't have taken so long to find out

Activists are right to call out Biden for climate hypocrisy. He has broken his campaign promise of “no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period,” by approving ConocoPhillips’ massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. Earlier this year he signed legislation to fast-track the Mountain Valley pipeline to move methane gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia. He hasn't declared a climate emergency, while claiming he has “practically” done so already.

That’s disheartening to Keanu Arpels-Josiah, 18, a high school senior and organizer with Fridays for Future NYC who spent hours phone banking for Biden in 2020 and will be marching in Manhattan on Sunday. “We're the generation that got him elected to take action on the climate crisis; we didn't elect someone to continue fossil fuel expansion,” he said.

Read more: 

Editorial: Hoping fossil fuel giants will see the light on climate hasn't worked. Change only comes with mandates and force

Biden has certainly made progress, notably by signing the first major U.S. climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. Globally, there has been encouraging growth in renewable energy, booming demand for electric vehicles. Nations have made meaningful climate pledges under the Paris agreement, but avoiding catastrophic warming still depends on actually delivering those pollution cuts, and going further and faster.

But there aren’t many other hopeful signs to point to, while the bad news piles up. Greenhouse gas emissions reached another all-time high in 2022. This summer was the hottest ever recorded. The U.S. has already experienced a record number of billion-dollar disasters this year — and it’s only September.

And there are good reasons for skepticism about how much will actually be done at COP 28. It’s being hosted by Sultan Al Jaber, the head of the country's national oil company, which is such an obvious conflict that it’s like an arms dealer brokering peace talks.

Some will say that activists’ demands are unreasonable or that their focus on eliminating the fossil fuels causing climate change is naive. The world economy, after all, is still overwhelmingly powered by oil, gas and other fossil fuels and it may be impossible to replace 100% of them with pollution-free alternatives, at least in the near term.

But this push for the end of the era of fossil fuels is a principled stand that has helped this important grassroots movement focus and gain traction recently. Youth climate activists scored a landmark victory last month in Montana, winning a case in which the judge found there is a “fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment” and climate.

When we see people marching through the streets of Manhattan, we should all listen and join them in demanding a world without fossil fuels.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Big Climate March Returns in an Era of Soup-Throwing Protests

Kendra Pierre-Louis
Sat, September 16, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- In September 2019, an estimated 250,000 people took to the streets of New York City. The marchers, who helped kick off a week of global protests timed with the United Nations Climate Action Summit, aimed to send world leaders a message: Do more to fight climate change.

On Sunday — nearly four years later to the day — climate activists will fill the streets of New York with the March to End Fossil Fuels. The march, part of three days of worldwide protests ahead of another UN climate summit, hopes to recapture some of the momentum that dissipated in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic halted most of these kinds of mass actions.

“We have hopes of it being one of the biggest climate marches since 2019,” says Bree Campbell. A senior at New York’s Frank Sinatra High School, Campbell is also an organizer with Fridays for Future, the movement started by Greta Thunberg that is one of the conveners of the march.

“We’re marching to make clear to President Biden that we expect him to uphold his campaign promise for him to be the climate president that we elected,” says Campbell. Those taking part want him “to stop approving fossil fuel projects and leases, phase out fossil fuel production on public lands and waters, and to declare a climate emergency so that he could halt crude oil exports and investments in fossil fuel projects abroad.”

Large mass protests serve two functions, according to Colin Davis, chair in cognitive psychology at the UK’s University of Bristol and a researcher of protests. “One is a message to politicians,” Davis says. “One is as a message to the public reminding people that this is an issue that lots of people care about.”

But unlike in 2019, this march will occur amidst a global crackdown on direct-action protests. Countries including Australia, Germany, France and the UK have passed laws, increased fines and jail time or invoked statutes typically used in cases of organized crime to curb protest activities. This follows an uptick in what some call disruptive protests by groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Blockade Australia, which have blocked roads and airport runways, deflated SUV tires and thrown tomato soup on a (glass-protected) Vincent Van Gogh painting. Recently, protestors sporting “End Fossil Fuels” t-shirts disrupted the women’s semi-final at the US Open for an hour after one of the protesters glued his bare feet to the stadium floor.

The rise of disruptive protests is, in part, a reaction to the feeling among some activists that traditional mass actions aren’t effective. Marches — even quite large ones — don’t always get widespread media coverage, limiting their usefulness in garnering attention. And even when turnout is very high, it doesn’t necessarily change policy.

“We had 2 million people on the streets [in the UK in 2003], protesting against the invasion of Iraq. Obviously, it happened anyway, despite the people coming out against it,” says Davis. “Then we had over a million people coming out against Brexit. That also happened anyway. Things like that have led people to have a loss of faith in the ability of that kind of protest to bring about change.”

Research suggests that many people dislike disruptive protests, but Coco Gauff, the tennis star whose set was interrupted, had a more nuanced perspective when asked about it after the match.

“I always speak about preaching about what you feel and what you believe in,” Gauff said at a press conference. “It was done in a peaceful way, so I can’t get too mad at it. Obviously, I don’t want it to happen when I’m winning, up 6-4, 1-0. I wanted the momentum to keep going but, hey, if that’s what they felt that they needed to do to get their voices heard, I can’t really get upset at it.”

The public’s short-term discomfort with disruptive protest tactics doesn’t necessarily mean they undermine protestors’ long-term goals, says Davis.

In the case of the US Civil Rights Movement, for example, the emergence of Black militant groups in the 1960s made organizations like Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference seem moderate in comparison — or at least less militant. The end result was it made it easier for them to fundraise even though the groups’ positions hadn’t changed.

Research on whether these kinds of large protests move the needle on public policy is mixed, Davis says, but they can be important psychologically.

“The problem people often have with climate change is not that they don’t think the threat is real, but they quite rightly recognize that this is a global issue, and that their personal behavior doesn’t actually have that much direct impact,” he says. “Part of what can be achieved by a mass protest is people saying, ‘Well, actually, maybe there is something we can do about it.’ It expresses a belief in collective efficacy.”

“It’s very necessary to see everyone in action together, especially after the pandemic,” agrees Campbell. “Because you get that connection with people that, ‘Hey, we’re fighting on the same side. I’m not alone, I’m not the only one with climate anxiety. I’m not the only one who’s scared for our future and for the sake of our planet.’”

 Bloomberg Businessweek

Cop28 and the fight to reach the Paris Agreement climate goals

Chas Newkey-Burden
Fri, September 15, 2023 

Climate change

A UN report on progress towards the long-term goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement is expected to drive the debate at Cop28.

A "global stocktake" on the progress of the Paris climate deal produced 17 key findings, "all leading to the conclusion that more action must be taken to mitigate the effects of climate change" and meet the "long-term goals" agreed eight years ago, said Forbes.

Sultan Al Jaber, who will preside over the Cop28 summit that begins in Dubai on 30 November, said: "The world is losing the race to secure the goals of the Paris Agreement and the world is struggling to keep 1.5 within reach," said EuroNews.
What does the stocktake say?

The UN report stated that although the Paris Agreement has "driven global climate change action through goals", countries "must rapidly accelerate action and support", said Forbes.

Global emissions have not been reduced enough to meet the goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5C by 2030, warned the report, and countries need to aggressively focus on domestic mitigation efforts through policymaking.

It also called for a scaling up of renewable energy, reforms at local level, a rapid increase in funding made available for resiliency and green projects, and a scaling back of fossil fuels and ending deforestation.

What about fossil fuels?

Fossil fuels, which are coal, oil and gas, are expected to be high on the agenda in Dubai. A "global push" to commit to phasing out fossil fuels is "gathering new momentum" ahead of the conference, said The Observer, despite "stiff opposition" from oil-producing countries.

The campaign has had an "unexpected boost" in the "fine print" of the UN draft report, it said, which recommended "transformations across all sectors and contexts, including scaling up renewable energy while phasing out all unabated fossil fuels". Experts said these words in a key UN document would have a "galvanising effect on the talks".

MPs have urged Rishi Sunak to do more than "just turn up" when he attends Cop28, reported The Independent. Chris Skidmore, a former Tory energy minister, said the UK "must show it's a serious, trusted partner in these discussions by joining our international allies in calling for an end to the fossil fuel era".

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said that unless Sunak "supports our allies by championing an urgent and fair global phase-out of fossil fuels" then attending this summit amounts to "nothing more than gesture politics".

What problems could there be?

The climate campaigner and former US vice-president Al Gore has criticised what he called the fossil fuel industry's "capture" of global UN negotiations on climate change "to a disturbing degree", said the Financial Times.

This includes "putting the CEO of one of the largest oil companies in the world in as president of COP28”, referring to the appointment as president of Al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Also, more than 200 civil society groups have written to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and all participating governments with a string of demands concerning the Gulf nation's human rights record, said Reuters.

The UAE has defined a "narrow list of talking points" for its officials around climate issues and is "aiming to avoid discussion of human rights abuses in the country", said Amnesty International.

The UAE's priority for Cop28 "appears to be greenwashing its fossil fuel expansion plans and massaging its own reputation by seeking to avoid discussion of its dismal human rights record and continuing abuses", Amnesty's Marta Schaaf said.