FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Nicole Rodel, Oil Change International – nicole@priceofoil.org
COP29 Presidency Must Prioritize A Fossil Fuel Phase-Out With Fair Financing.
17 July 2024 – Today COP29 president, Mukhtar Babayev published the first letter to Parties to set out the principles of focus and outline the vision for this year’s UN climate talks.
In response, Laurie van der Burg, Public Finance lead at Oil Change International, said:
“The COP Presidency is centering the new climate finance target, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), in this year’s UN climate talks. To deliver on last year’s groundbreaking commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, rich countries must raise trillions of dollars to support climate action in developing countries. While the COP29 host recognizes the need for a significant increase in finance, it fails to emphasize that this must be provided on fair terms to countries that need it most.
“The Presidency’s letter also exposes the cognitive dissonance at the heart of international climate diplomacy: on one hand, pledging to submit national climate plans in line with the 1.5°C limit, while at the same time ramping up fossil fuel production. Unless the COP Troika– a partnership between former, current, and future COP hosts UAE, Azerbaijan, and Brazil– recognizes there is no such thing as 1.5-aligned climate plan with more coal, oil, and gas infrastructure, it risks making a mockery of the unprecedented mobilization that led to the COP28 decision to phase out fossil fuels.
“To drive progress the Presidency should underline that there is plenty of public money available to end the fossil fuel era and build a renewable energy economy that works for everyone in its place.”
We keep uttering the words that everyone wants to hear, but alas, there is no action to back up that which we all agree on. Why?
Why must we beg for Clean Air and Water for our families? Why must we beg for irrigation that is free of pollutants, which are contaminating the very food we eat? Why do we continue to support the fossil fuel industry, the gas industry, and the coal industry, when we have an immense amount of proven statistics and science, to openly show the harm these industries have, and are continuing to create in our WORLD? Why?? I’ll tell you why. So that these Industries can amass fortunes of currency, including government subsidies, for the few, that control these industries, at the expense of the masses, who are subjected to its harm. Why?
Make no mistake, our illustrious GOVERNMENTS in many parts of this WORLD, are complicit in this endeavor, else it could not have come to fruition.
This has been written by an unprejudiced, well traveled, educated, retired businessman of eighty-five, with Children, Grandchildren and Great grandchildren, who I care about deeply.
CC: Wew, Asl, Dy.
Allan Weiss
The cops are a failure, if not a fraud.
We have breached 1.5°C for 12 months now and no reaction.
Stop that circus.