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vanessa nakate
Industry-Dominated COP28 'Unacceptable,' Says Vanessa Nakate
"As time runs out in Dubai, it feels as though the lifeboat of our shared humanity is sinking."
Dec 12, 2023
As negotiators worked on the final agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Ugandan campaigner Vanessa Nakate on Tuesday called out world leaders for continuing decades of inadequate action on planet-heating fossil fuels at COP28.
While the United Arab Emirates-hosted summit winds down, "I find myself thinking of a 6-year-old boy called Desmond I met in Turkana county, Kenya, who died from severe acute malnutrition on the same day," Nakate, also an author and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) goodwill ambassador, wrote in a Guardian opinion piece.
"His death was the result of a climate-induced drought that has left millions of people on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa," she explained. "I want the negotiators deciding the outcome of COP28 to know Desmond's story. Because in the end, the climate crisis is not about pledges, statistics, reports, or activists. It's about human suffering and ruined lives. It's about death."
The draft COP28 deal released Monday fails to mention a fossil fuel phaseout that global scientists warn is necessary to prevent more climate chaos. According toAgence-France Presse, Nakate called the latest text a "death sentence for communities."
"It can be tiring to keep coming to these places and to be constantly disappointed by the decisions that are made," the campaigner said during a Tuesday press conference. "For this COP to be truly a success, it has to address fossil fuels."
"If leaders fail to address the root cause of the climate crisis after 28 years of climate conferences, then they aren't only failing us, but they're making us lose trust in the entire COP process," the 27-year-old said. "What is happening here is unacceptable. What is happening is unjust. What is happening is unfair."
"There are over 2,400 fossil fuel lobbyists that have a lot of control and power over this process," Nakate noted. "And we must call out that sabotage, we must call out the power. We must hold the fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate crisis."
In remarks to reporters and her Guardian piece, she stressed the stakes by describing the draft text as "sinking the lifeboat for humanity."
"As time runs out in Dubai, it feels as though the lifeboat of our shared humanity is sinking," she wrote for the newspaper. "And fossil fuels are also not the entire story here. The 'home' the majority of us will return to when COP28 is over is not the home we once felt safe in. Many of our homelands are already being decimated by extreme weather. Huge changes are already with us and even more are inevitable—even if countries had agreed to a fossil fuel phaseout. So we must adapt."
The Ugandan declared that "COP28 needs to be the COP that finally delivers a Global Goal on Adaptation—a map for the world's attempts at adaptation and clarity on how we will fund them. At an absolute minimum, developed countries need to double adaptation finance to $40 billion per year by 2025."
Noting the "selfish, short-sighted actors... once again sabotaging our collective fate in the name of profit," Nakate argued that "in the final hours of COP28, progressive states and activists need to fight with all we have for a phaseout of all fossil fuels, without distractions. We also need to see a real and tangible outcome on adaptation. They are connected. And neither can be sacrificed for the other."
"To those at COP28, I say this:People around the world are watching you—including people who have watched their children die as a direct result of your decades of inaction," she warned. "There is nowhere to hide."
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5 Reasons to Phase Out Fossil LNG
People and our planet should not bear the brunt of the socioeconomic, human rights, and environmental harms of expanding global LNG trade.
Dec 06, 2023
Liquefied natural gas, or LNG, derived from cooling fossil gas to store and transport over long distances, is part of the array of fossil fuels standing in the way of climate progress. Its expansion is derailing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5°C.
Industry likes to call it “transitional” or a “bridge” fuel, but endorsing it that way is detrimental, especially when LNG is neither clean nor low in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Both people and our planet should not bear the brunt of the socioeconomic, human rights, and environmental harms of expanding global LNG trade.
Energy Insecurity Caused by Fossil LNG
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine contributed significantly to the global LNG industry’s resurgent growth and social license to operate. Under the guise of “energy security,” the United States worked closely with European allies to supply LNG amid sanctions on Russian gas. Yet continued fossil fuel dependency makes us energy insecure, especially when soaring prices of fossil gas are passed on to households.
LNG is neither a secure nor reliable fuel source, particularly for less wealthy countries.
As millions of Europeans are struggling to afford their energy bills, anti-gas campaigners are exposing the fossil gas industry’s culpability in Europe’s cost of living crisis. This is a critical juncture for European leaders to achieve true energy security by focusing on scaling up renewable energy deployment and energy efficiency gains. Decoupling from Russian gas should ultimately signal an end to extractive fossil gas industries in Europe.
Derailing Energy Access in Developing Countries
When LNG prices surge, energy access in many developing countries is compromised. Last year, the breakdown in the long-term LNG supply from Eni forced Pakistan to purchase LNG at high spot market prices, further jeopardizing its economy. Similarly, Bangladesh had to suspend purchases of LNG, leading to frequent power outages and a decrease in national industrial output. In such volatile market conditions, LNG is neither a secure nor reliable fuel source, particularly for less wealthy countries.
Continued extraction of fossil gas perpetuates energy inequity for large segments of the population, especially for the millions without reliable access to energy. In Africa, extracting fossil LNG and gas is touted as the panacea for energy poverty and development in the region. But 92% of the $103 billion channeled into gas-rich countries—such as Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tanzania—is earmarked for LNG export terminals. Gas extracted from the African continent benefits Europe’s short-lived dash for gas, and not the 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who live without access to electricity.
As youth climate activist Vanessa Nakate has said, African countries that are persuaded to pursue fossil gas projects could face economic instability when demand for gas dries up. The message from the Don’t Gas Africa movement is clear: Reversing the systemic energy inequality faced by Africa’s poor and rural communities must be achieved through sustainable development of renewable energy and not through ill-gained LNG profits.
Fossil LNG Expansion Violates Human Rights
Violence afflicts the global value chain of fossil gas extraction, transport, liquefaction, and shipment of LNG. North American LNG exporters liquefy the region’s abundant fracked methane gas, which has devastating implications for air pollution and water contamination. The LNG Canada project, the country’s first export terminal, has faced significant resistance in its development. Indigenous land defenders from Wet’suwet’en territory have opposed TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink project, the pipeline intended to supply LNG Canada with fossil gas. Hereditary chiefs faced intimidation and militant action against them as they strove to protect their unceded, Indigenous homelands from the devastating impacts of gas expansion.
Deteriorating Community Health and Social Damage
Many new areas of sacrifice arise in LNG importing and exporting countries, compromising the health of marginalized and disadvantaged communities. LNG terminals release harmful air pollutants—such as volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter—that can contribute to increased incidences of respiratory disease, heart disease, and cancer.
Along the U.S. Gulf Coast, many communities are living at the epicenter of U.S. LNG export infrastructure development. Roishetta Ozane, an environmental justice champion, has called for the end to Louisiana’s LNG expansion that is disproportionately compromising the health and livelihoods of communities of color. Meanwhile, in neighboring Mexico, developers are planning to re-export natural gas from the Permian Basin that is imported into the country via pipeline. More than 6 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of LNG projects in development in Mexico would enable U.S. Permian gas to reach demand in Asia faster by bypassing the Panama Canal. Such build-out could result in similar social and community health risks In Mexico. In addition, three of the projects proposed—Saguaro Energía, AMIGO (American Mexican Integrated Gas Operations), and Vista Pacifico—would impact the rich marine biodiversity of the Gulf of California, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Compromising Climate and Biodiversity for Fossil LNG
Alongside the human impacts, we cannot forget the staggering climate and biodiversity threats from LNG expansion. Leaks and intentional releases of methane, the main ingredient in LNG and an extremely potent greenhouse gas, during the extraction and export of LNG can eliminate any climate benefits, even if LNG is used to replace coal in electricity generation. Massive LNG expansions will seriously compromise meeting the 1.5°C Paris agreement goals.
LNG terminals are situated around many biodiversity hot spots and continuous LNG cargo traffic causes significant disturbance to marine life. In Batangas, Philippines, the Verde Island Passage is commonly referred to as the “Amazon of the oceans” because its waters have the highest known concentration of marine life on earth. Eight of the 12 proposed LNG terminals in the Philippines are in Batangas. In the construction of two gas projects, the water quality degraded due to the presence of key pollutants and heavy metals. Simultaneously, the marine ecology in adjacent waters exhibited a reduction in fish biodiversity and abundance.
Developing LNG comes at too high a cost on multiple fronts. LNG should be phased out in tandem with other fossil fuels, paving the way for renewable energy to meet international climate and sustainable development goals. Join NRDC to stand in solidarity with its global partners campaigning to put an end to LNG expansion.
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Sultan Al-Jaber Must Transform From Oil Executive to Global Climate Leader at COP28
It is hard not to be deeply sceptical of the idea that the head of an oil company will be able to drive the 28th summit of COP towards an outcome which gives the world hope about its future in the shadow of a devastating climate crisis.
Jun 02, 2023
There is a big difference between national leaders and global leaders. The former push national interests on the global stage, often using the rhetoric of global solutions. The latter carry a vision that extends beyond personal interests, election cycles or profit margins to do the best for humanity.
The position of president of the Conference of the Parties (COP), the United Nations’ annual climate summit, requires a global leader. This year’s conference will be held in the United Arab Emirates under the presidency of Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
It is hard not to be deeply sceptical of the idea that the head of an oil company will be able to drive the 28th summit of COP towards an outcome which gives the world hope about its future in the shadow of a devastating climate crisis. That is because fossil fuels account for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and, in order to have some hope, we must end the use of oil, gas, and coal in a rapid and just manner.
This year’s summit must signal the beginning of this rapid shift away from fossil fuels, towards clean energy. To do this, the UAE has to facilitate an agreement between the world’s nations on phasing out all fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, with only six months to go until COP28 begins in Dubai, al-Jaber is living up to widespread low expectations. In a speech earlier this month, he spoke of “phasing out fossil fuel emissions”—a reference to using carbon capture and storage technology to reduce the emissions from burning fossil fuels, instead of phasing out fossil fuels themselves.
Such an approach is unrealistic and incompatible with the Paris Agreement. The United Nations has made it clear that the world needs to cut its emissions by 45% by 2030 to have a chance at staying under the 1.5°C. warming threshold. Currently, carbon capture and storage technology is highly expensive and simply does not exist at the necessary scale to make even a scratch on that target. We do not have time for fairy-tale solutions designed to save the oil and gas industry.
The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called investing in new fossil fuel projects “moral and economic madness.” The International Energy Agency says we cannot afford to put in any new finance for coal, oil, or gas if we are to meet net-zero targets; instead, we need a massive deployment of renewable energy. The science is clear and the goal is clear, but we are still missing the global leadership to take us there.
COP28 must change that. For too long, U.N. climate summits have ignored the central cause of the climate crisis; no longer can they afford to. This year’s summit must signal the beginning of this rapid shift away from fossil fuels, towards clean energy. To do this, the UAE has to facilitate an agreement between the world’s nations on phasing out all fossil fuels.
COP28 also needs to ensure that finance going to the Global South to fund this transition is massively increased. Currently, Africa has 39% of the world’s potential for renewable energy, yet it receives just 2% of global investment in the sector.
COP28 should also secure real money for the Loss and Damage Fund which was agreed upon at COP27 and which still sits empty despite increasingly devastating climate events hitting the poorest countries.
Still, funding for loss and damage will never be enough to compensate for the chaos and destruction that the climate crisis will cause if we keep burning fossil fuels.
That is why we cannot have a COP presidency that puts national or corporate interests over the interests of humanity. In taking on this role, al-Jaber has promised to represent us all. His priority must be people—and particularly the people suffering the worst effects of climate change—not the fossil fuel industry.
In East Africa, the climate crisis is having a devastating impact. Last September, I went to Turkana, Kenya, with UNICEF to visit children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Twenty million people are currently facing starvation in the region, largely because of an unprecedented drought that, scientists say, was made 100 times more likely by climate change.
In Turkana, I met a six-year-old boy at a hospital where the worst cases of severe acute malnutrition are referred. His grandmother had not been able to access the life-saving care he needed in time. Tragically, he passed away later that same day.
We can no longer prevent the climate crisis, but every fraction of a degree of further warming will make heatwaves more intense, droughts more prolonged, and storms more powerful. Every year that passes without a rapid transformation of our economies away from fossil fuels means more will be lost to the climate crisis.
In June, the world’s climate negotiators will meet in Bonn, Germany, to assess progress towards COP28. Its president, al-Jaber, must head to Bonn with a credible plan for decarbonisation. This will be his opportunity to save countless lives, he must not miss it.
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