An international group of activists here have issued impassioned pleas for a treaty to phase out fossil fuels, urging the Brazilian presidency of Cop30 to prod countries towards ending the era of coal, oil and gas that has caused the climate crisis.
The proposed Fossil Fuel Treaty is already backed by 17 countries and advocates in Belem said that countries needed to hurry up and act on the root cause of the climate crisis. In 2023, the Cop in Dubai resulted in countries vowing to “transition away” from fossil fuels, although there is little evidence of this happening as yet.
“If we continue to extract hydrocarbons from the Earth, we will exterminate ourselves,” said Olivia Bissa, president of the Chapra Nation in the Peruvian Amazon.
“We worry what will happen if we don’t have concrete action now. We as indigenous people in the Amazon are tired of being sacrificed by a group of powerful people who want to rule the planet. If we don’t do something together we will be complicit with ecocide and the assassination of humanity.”
Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, praised Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for urging a fossil fuel phase out but criticized the Brazilian president for allowing a new oil drilling project near the mouth of the Amazon, pointing to a recent International Court of Justice ruling that demands countries address the climate crisis.
“We know fossil fuel production continues to rise, pushing the world past planetary limits and deepening inequality,” said Berman, singling out the US, Australia, Norway and Canada for ramping up oil and gas drilling since the Paris agreement a decade ago. A treaty to end all this would be a “major act of love and justice for our time,” she added.
Given the format of this Cop, and pushback that is already happening from Saudi Arabia and other big oil producers, it’s unclear what, if any, language on fossil fuel phase out will be included in this year’s agreement.
A major opponent of any such pact would be Donald Trump, who has called for the US, and the rest of the world, to “drill, baby, drill.” Crystal Cavalier, a Native American woman from North Carolina, is at Cop30, unlike the US government, and said a new treaty would at least put international pressure on the US to kick its fossil fuel habit.
“We are being targeted in sacrifice zones that are pushing our ecosystems to the brink,” she said. “Our current government is aggressively rolling back environmental protections.
“The Fossil Fuel treaty can be a tool, a pressure point that frontline communities can wield when their governments avoid accountability. We need external pressure in the US, we can’t do this alone. The US isn’t showing up, but the rest of the world can show up for us.”
Source: www.theguardian.com