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.

PARIS: Nations could agree in December on a world-first treaty to reduce the amount of plastic leaking into the environment which, if nothing is done, is forecast to triple by 2060.
How did we get here? And what are the impacts on the environment and the climate?
Plastic boom
Global production of synthetic polymers — which form the building blocks of plastic — has increased 230-fold since the 1950s, says the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Total production doubled between 2000 and 2019 to 460 million tons, faster than commodities like steel, aluminium or cement.
By 2060, if left unchecked, that figure will have almost tripled to 1.2 billion tons, according to the OECD.
The growth in plastic production has mainly occurred in the United States, the Middle East and China.
Demand
The Covid-19 pandemic and the economic crises that followed have had two notable — and opposing — impacts on plastic consumption.
The first is a surge in consumption of single-use plastics in healthcare, food retail and e-commerce.
The second is a decline in sectors affected by inflation and the global economic downturn such as the automotive and construction industries.
Trash problem
The sheer volume of plastic garbage produced around the globe has more than doubled in 20 years, from 156 million tonnes in 2000 to 353 million tonnes in 2019.
It is expected to almost triple to just over one billion tonnes by 2060.
More than two-thirds of this trash is made up of objects with a lifespan of less than five years like plastic packaging, consumer products and textiles.
In 2019, 22 million tonnes of plastic found its way into the environment, including six million tonnes in rivers, lakes and oceans, according to the OECD.
Plastics account for “at least 85 percent of total marine litter“, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The majority of the world’s plastic trash is caused by poor waste management, with other lesser sources including littering, the abrasion of car tyres, and microplastics.
By 2060, the OECD predicts the volume of waste in the environment will double to 44 million tonnes, mostly larger plastics but also tiny particles that have been detected in blood and breast milk.
Just nine percent of the world’s plastic waste is recycled; 19 percent is burned; and nearly 50 percent ends up in controlled landfills.
The remaining 22 percent is abandoned in illegal dumps, burned in the open air or released into the environment, putting human health at great risk.
‘It’s everywhere’
The impact on the environment, climate and human health is getting worse, the OECD says.
The plastic that accumulates in the environment is non-biodegradable, takes hundreds of years to decompose and breaks down into tiny microscopic particles.
They “asphyxiate marine species, have a negative impact on soils, poison groundwater”, and can have serious repercussions on health, according to UNEP.
“Plastic particles are everywhere, in tap water, in drinking water, in groundwater”, adds Greenpeace.
Plastics also bear a significant carbon footprint.
In 2019, plastics generated 1.8 billion tonnes of planet-warming greenhouse gases, or 3.4 percent of the global total, said the OECD and UNEP.
Around 90 percent of these emissions came from the production and processing of plastics, which are derived from crude oil and natural gas, according to the OECD and UNEP.

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, the UN warned on Monday, with countries falling “miles short” of what is needed to curb devastating global warming.
Levels of the three main greenhouse gases — heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — all increased yet again last year, said the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nation’s weather and climate agency.
Carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, up more than 10 percent in two decades, it added.
And a separate report by UN climate change found that barely a dent is being made in the 43 percent emissions cut needed by 2030 to avert the worst of global warming.
Action as it stands would only lead to a 2.6 percent reduction this decade from 2019 levels.
“The report’s findings are stark but not surprising — current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.
The two reports come just weeks before the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, and as nations prepare to submit updated national climate plans in early 2025.
“Bolder” plans to slash the pollution that drives warming will now have to be drawn up, Stiell said, calling for the end of “the era of inadequacy”.
– ‘Alarm bells’ –
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to cap global warming at “well below” two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible.
But so far their actions have failed to meet that challenge.
Existing national commitments would see 51.5 billion tonnes of CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases emitted in 2030 — levels that would “guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception,” Stiell said.
As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.
Last year, global temperatures on land and sea were the highest in records dating as far back as 1850, it added.
WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world was “clearly off track” to meet the Paris Agreement goal, adding that record greenhouse gas concentrations “should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers”.
“CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence,” the report said, adding that the current atmospheric CO2 level was 51 percent above that of the pre-industrial era.
– Sea levels 65 feet higher –
The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, when the temperature was two to three Centigrade warmer and the sea level was 10 to 20 metres (65 feet) higher than now, it said.
Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.
In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.
CO2 accounts for about 64 percent of the warming effect on the climate.
Its annual increase of 2.3 ppm marked the 12th consecutive year with an increase greater than two ppm — a streak caused by “historically large fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the 2010s and 2020s”, the report said.
Just under half of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the rest are absorbed by the ocean and land ecosystems.
Climate change itself could soon “cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases”, WMO deputy chief Ko Barret warned.
“Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming.
“These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society.”