For decades ECO has watched in dismay as world governments came to COP after COP promising more climate action, only to go home and continue producing and burning more coal, oil and gas.
The world has known for over a century that the combustion of these fossil fuels causes climate change. Yet try as you might to find a mention of the need to phase-out the use and production of fossil fuels in the Framework Convention on Climate Change – or even in the Paris Agreement itself – you’ll come up empty-handed. So far, ECO’s beloved COP process has had everything to say about the need to reduce emissions, and almost nothing to say about the need to reduce our reliance on the dominant source of those emissions: fossil fuels.
ECO thinks COP26 has the chance to change this.
We have come to a breaking point in the implementation of the Paris Agreement where it is no longer possible for countries to ignore the necessary escalation of the energy transition and the need to phase-out fossil fuels. This has driven the series of major announcements last week focused on curbing the production and financing of fossil fuels. In Glasgow, Parties are finally saying the F-words.
ECO is here to give the delegates of COP26 a vision of the work that lies ahead now that we’re ready to have a serious conversation about energy.
A major test of credibility for COP26 will be its ability to break from the decades-long tradition of COP decision texts being conspicuously silent on the cause of climate change: production and combustion of coal, oil and gas.