Nobody deserves Fossil of the Day more than the world’s largest oil and gas producer, who also happens to be the largest gas and petroleum product exporter and is responsible for over one-third of all planned oil and gas expansion. We are, of course, talking about the USA.
The US is also weakening the possibility for COP28 to adopt a full, fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout. Their support for inserting unabated fossil fuels into the cover text ignores the science and the grave health and climate injustice impacts of carbon capture and storage and other dangerous “abatement” technologies. Any further expansion of fossil fuels endangers especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous residents in the U.S. and poisons Global South communities. Over two million people have died from climate-related disasters in the last 50 years, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Runner-Up – Russia
Our next deserving recipient of a Fossil is doing their best to undermine the Paris Agreement and our collective climate action as a whole. Russia, for the last time, gas is not green and it certainly isn’t a transition fuel. Despite your resistance at COP28 to the phase-out of fossil fuels in the GST, the renewable revolution is here, and countries are scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures.
We also need to talk about your carbon-neutral target. 2060 is 20 years too late as called for by the UN Secretary General, and 10 years later than most developed countries. Homework this late will definitely earn you a zero, you cannot hide behind your forests anymore.
Speaking of late homework, we need you to come to the front and submit your pledge to the Loss and Damage fund, if you fail to pledge, we will allocate an appropriate amount based on your historical contribution as the third-highest carbon emitter. We’ve seen your capacity to double military spending, how about placing value on lives and the planet for a change.
And if you thought we were going to forget about the elephant in the room, your war on Ukraine attributes to 150 million CO2eq of greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than the annual GHG emissions from some highly industrialised countries. There is no climate justice without human rights.
Runner-Up – Japan
Japan was just so thrilled to receive a Fossil of The Day award on Sunday that they took the initiative to get another! They clearly have their eye on the colossal fossil!
Instead of reflecting on their negative report card and looking to improve, Japan doubled down on their decarbonisation strategy. They “clarified” that their decarbonisation efforts focus on no longer constructing new unabated coal-fired power plants. But they missed the point.
Never mind the fact that this commitment was already made over six months ago at the G7 Leaders’ Summit. They conveniently forgot to mention that this policy doesn’t apply to the new coal power plants already planned, or to the future retrofitting of some of their oldest coal plants to extend their lifespan. They also forgot to mention that they have no plans to phase out Japan’s more than 170 existing coal-fired power units.
Even though Japan, as a developed country, needs to phase out coal power by 2030 in order to achieve the Paris 1.5 goal, it is still planning on using a whopping 19% coal power in 2030, with no coal phaseout date or roadmap!