PARIS: One year after world leaders issued the landmark call for a global move away from fossil fuels, nations are failing to turn that promise into action, say climate diplomats, campaigners and policy experts.
Countries are being urged not to lose sight of that historic agreement ahead of November’s COP29 climate negotiations, where fossil fuels are not top priority.
Despite last year’s climate deal calling for the first time on countries to “transition away from fossil fuels”, major economies are still planning oil and gas expansions in the decades ahead.
Renewable technology like solar and wind is being rolled-out at breakneck speed but not fast enough to stop burning more oil, coal and gas, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in October.
Global emissions — caused mainly by fossil fuels — are at record highs, pushing concentrations of planet-warming greenhouse gases to unprecedented levels, two UN agencies reported.
Since inking the watershed COP28 pact in Dubai “leaders have been grappling with how to turn those commitments into reality”, said Katrine Petersen from E3G, a policy think tank.
“There has been a bit of a vacuum of political leadership on some of this… and a potentially worrying trend that this landmark energy package has been slipping off leaders’ political agendas.”
Countries threatened by climate disaster were “waiting in vain to see the sharp decline in fossil fuel production that was heralded”, said Pa’olelei Luteru, a Samoan diplomat.
“Alas, saying something is one thing and actually meaning it is quite another,” said Luteru, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).
‘Weakening support’
Papua New Guinea, an impoverished Pacific nation vulnerable to climate shocks, says it is “sick of the rhetoric” and is boycotting this year’s UN-led talks in Azerbaijan altogether.
AOSIS lead coordinator Toiata Uili said they were concerned about “weakening political support” for tough fossil fuel commitments, but would not let bigger countries off the hook.
Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev has acknowledged that many countries want “clear next steps” at COP29 to show progress on the Dubai pledges.
Behind the scenes, this has faced strong pushback from oil-rich nations, said one western diplomat.
Some of these countries felt they were led into over-committing at Dubai and were very reluctant to agree anything more on fossil fuels, the diplomat added.
Azerbaijan is accused of being reluctant to prioritise fossil fuels during the climate talks to protect its own oil and gas interests.
The COP29 host denies this, but says its focus during the November 11-22 conference is finalising a contentious deal to boost climate finance.
“Yes, this is the finance COP… but it is also essential that the progress that leaders made last year on the energy front isn’t lost,” said Petersen.
‘Empty words’
Despite political obstacles, there are signs the transition is beginning.
In October, the IEA said clean technology was attracting twice the investment of fossil fuels and by 2030, half the world’s electricity would come from low-carbon sources.
“But with higher energy use even fast renewables growth doesn’t translate to fast falls in CO2 emissions,” said Dave Jones from think tank Ember.
In October, G20 leaders — whose economies account for three-quarters of global emissions — reaffirmed they would shift away from fossil fuels.
But the gap between what countries say and what they do is significant, said Anne Olhoff, co-author of a damning UN scorecard published in October.
In the past year, just one country — Madagascar — had announced tougher climate policies, it said.
“If we look at action and ambition, nothing much has happened at the global level since last year’s report,” Olhoff said.
Countries face pressure to articulate what concrete steps they are taking to wean off fossil fuels in their next national climate plans, due early 2025.
Many are promising bold policies that align with agreed warming limits, but are approving new oil and gas fields — an impossible contradiction, says the UN’s expert climate panel.
The “worst culprits” were rich Western nations, said Oil Change International and other activist groups in October. But the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Brazil — the COP28, COP29 and COP30 hosts, respectively — were also ramping up fossil fuel production, they said.
Meanwhile, global temperatures continue to rise, unleashing devastating impacts on people and ecosystems.
“When we talk about climate pledges we are talking about more than just arbitrary, empty words,” said Andreas Sieber from activist group 350.org.

WASHINGTON: Hurricane Helene‘s torrential rain and powerful winds were made about 10 percent more intense due to climate change, according to a study published Wednesday by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.
Although a 10 percent increase “might seem relatively small… that small change in the hazard really leads to big change in impacts and damage,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto, who heads the research organization.
The study also found that fossil fuels — the primary cause of climate change — have made hurricanes like Helene 2.5 times more likely to occur.
In other words, storms of Helene’s magnitude were formerly anticipated once every 130 years, but now the probability is closer to once every 53 years, on average.
To conduct the study, researchers focused on three aspects of Hurricane Helene: precipitation, winds and the water temperature of the Gulf of Mexico — a key factor in its formation.
“All aspects of this event were amplified by climate change to different degrees,” Ben Clarke, a co-author of the study and researcher at Imperial College London, told a press conference.
“And we’ll see more of the same as the world continues to warm,” he continued.
The research by WWA, an international group of scientists and meteorologists who study the role of climate change in extreme weather events, comes as the southeastern US state of Florida prepares for the arrival of another major hurricane, Milton, just 10 days after it was hit by Helene.
Destruction
Helene made landfall in northwestern Florida on September 26 as a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 140 mph (225 kph).
The storm then moved north, causing heavy rain and devastating floods in several states, including North Carolina, where it claimed the highest death toll.
The authors of the study emphasized that the risk posed by hurricanes has increased in scope beyond coastal areas.
Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at NGO Climate Central, said Helene “had so much intensity” that it would take time for it to lose strength, but the “storm was moving fast… so it could go farther inland pretty quickly.”
This study utilized three methodologies to examine the three aspects of the storm, and was conducted by researchers from the US, the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands.
To study its rainfall, researchers used an approach based on both observation and climate models, depending on the two regions involved: one for coastal areas like Florida, and another for inland areas like the Appalachian mountains.
In both cases, the study found precipitation had increased by 10 percent because of global warming, which is currently at 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
To study Helene’s winds, scientists looked at hurricane data dating back as far as 1900.
They determined Helene’s winds were 11 percent stronger, or 13 mph (21 kph), as a result of climate change.
Lastly, the researchers examined the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico, where Helene formed, finding it was around 2 degrees Celsius above normal.
This record temperature was made 200 to 500 times more likely due to climate change, the study asserts.
Warmer oceans release more water vapor, providing more energy for storms as they form.
“If humans continue to burn fossil fuels, the US will face even more destructive hurricanes,” Clarke warned in a statement.

New Delhi: Dominance of fossil fuels in electricity generation in India will end by the end of the decade said Reserve Bank of India in its latest report. The report also noted that the renewable energy is expected to cross 50 per cent share in electricity generation globally. It added that the energy transition has accelerated in recent years, with the pace of clean technology deployment and capital investment surging to record levels.

“The era of fossil fuels’ dominance is coming to an end, with renewables expected to cross 50 per cent share of electricity generation globally by the end of this decade” said RBI. It added that the rise of cleaner power generation offers a valuable window to address “hard-to-abate” sectors such as steelmaking and aviation, where low-carbon alternatives are still in their nascent stages. The central bank also highlighted that the importance of increasing investments in low-carbon energy.

“Cleaner power generation can drive bulk of the aggressive emissions cuts that are urgently needed, enabling more time to tackle ‘hard-to-abate’ areas like steelmaking and aviation, where cost competitive low-carbon solutions have yet to scale” added RBI.

The report pointed out that for every dollar invested in fossil fuels, an average of three dollars needs to be allocated to renewable energy in the coming years, a substantial increase from the current ratio, where both sectors receive equal investment. A tripling of renewable energy capacity by 2030 is seen as essential to meeting net-zero emission targets by mid-century.

“On the energy supply side, for every US dollar that goes to fossil fuels, an average of USD 3 needs to be invested in low-carbon energy over the remainder of the decade” RBI said. The RBI highlighted that a fully decarbonized global energy system by 2050 will come at an estimated cost of USD 215 trillion, the report projects.

However, the report remains optimistic about the ongoing efforts in greening the financial sector, stressing that finding the right balance between public policy interventions and market-based competition will be key to achieving this ambitious energy transition. The central bank also noted that financial inclusion has seen significant improvement as the world continues to advance toward a more sustainable energy future.