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Fossil Fuel Extraction

In this global week of advocacy for fossil fuel non-proliferation, I call on the Government to deliver on the climate leadership that was promised, while the UK still has the COP26 presidency, by helping to initiate a negotiation process on an international fossil fuel treaty to phase out fossil fuels. I will set out the context for this treaty, the idea for which originated several years ago with parliamentarians in the global south and that has now been endorsed by more than 200 worldwide. I will lay out some of the reasons why such a treaty is necessary and ask the Minister some key questions about the Government’s strategy for ending fossil fuel production.

According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the burning of coal, oil and gas accounts for around 86% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade. There is global consensus that, on scientific, economic, public health, justice, moral and countless other grounds, we have to end our deadly addiction to fossil fuels, and we have to do it fast. At the Glasgow climate summit, under the UK’s ongoing COP presidency, for the first time since the original UN framework convention on climate change was negotiated in 1992, fossil fuels were finally referenced in the outcome text, albeit by committing only to a “phase down of coal”. But the fossil fuel age is well and truly over, and the only debate to be had is how quickly, successfully and fairly we act: whether we urgently transition to a zero-carbon economy or decline into climate chaos.