The Beginning of the End of the Fossil Fuel Era

The Beginning of the End of the Fossil Fuel Era

French Activists

– Artist’s Website –

The reality is that the slowness of the transition to a fossil free, nuclear free energy economy is not only inconsistent with climate science but also inconsistent with the renewable energy technology that already exists. At a COP21 side event, a group showed that technology solutions for a 100% renewable energy are in place, finance options are available and scalable, and resource availability is plentiful. National Geographic published an interactive map of the world that showed the mix of renewable energy for each country and how much money would be saved per person in each country. A report this week showed 2015 will be the United States solar market’s best year in history with a record-breaking fourth quarter. If world leaders listened to the science COP21 would have set a goal of complete transfer to clean energy within a generation, the goal should be a just transition by 2030.

Instead polluting corporations who profit from selling energy that is causing the crisis of climate change had a display of false solutions at the COP21. Some of the biggest polluters were pushing false solutions like clean coal and fracked gas; nuclear power and agribusiness were pushing their wares, along with bioenergy and REDD. The latter is not forest protection but cover for an offset scheme that undermines Indigenous rights while allowing for mass tree plantations. Bill Gates was in Paris to push a new initiative that was exposed as a front for new nuclear plants. Activists organized “toxic tours” of the false solutions exhibit and were immediately arrested by undercover police. Even media covering the event were removed.

COP21 Greenpeace Climate Before Profit GlobeIn the final week of COP21 negotiations, a leaked document showed that there cannot be climate justice if the triad of trade agreements being negotiated becomes law. These agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)) and the Trade In Services Agreement (TiSA), create a polluter’s paradise of legal protections , have no enforceable environmental standards and encourage extreme extraction and export of carbon energy. The leak showed that EU negotiators were told not to agree to anything that would restrict trade – putting corporate profits ahead of the needs of the planet. People concerned with climate change must mobilize to stop these corporate trade agreements or all other work for climate justice will fail. Click here to take the action pledge.

The link between stopping corporate power and climate change is one that links critically important issues. We must fight corporate power to achieve climate justice. The illegitimate rise of corporate power parallels the rise of climate gasses in the atmosphere. In “Apocalyptic Capitalism” Chris Hedges forces us to face the reality of what we are up against:

“The global elites have no intention of interfering with the profits, or ending government subsidies, for the fossil fuel industry and the extraction industries. They will not curtail extraction or impose hefty carbon taxes to keep fossil fuels in the ground. They will not limit the overconsumption that is the engine of global capitalism. They act as if the greatest contributor of greenhouse gases—the animal agriculture industry—does not exist. They siphon off trillions of dollars and employ scientific and technical expertise—expertise that should be directed toward preparing for environmental catastrophe and investing in renewable energy—to wage endless wars in the Middle East. . . And as the elites mouth platitudes about saving the climate they are shoving still another trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), down our throats. The TPP permits corporations to ignore nonbinding climate accords made at conferences such as the one in Paris, and it allows them, in secret trade tribunals, to defy environmental regulations imposed by individual states.”

This is the harsh reality we must face if we are to act strategically to save the planet. Not only does the campaign for climate justice require all of us to act, it requires us to change everything – how government’s operate on behalf of corporations and how the economy is disfigured for transnational corporate profits rather than the betterment of humans and the planet.

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