Rafalowicz outlines vision for fossil fuel transition talks

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Fos­sil Fu­el Treaty Ini­tia­tive, Alex Rafalow­icz, says the up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence on tran­si­tion­ing away from fos­sil fu­els will mark the first time gov­ern­ments gath­er to dis­cuss in de­tail how to plan and man­age a just tran­si­tion. The event, host­ed by Co­lum­bia and the Nether­lands, is ex­pect­ed to in­clude gov­ern­ments, in­dige­nous peo­ples, civ­il so­ci­ety ob­servers, aca­d­e­mics, and trade union­ists.

Rafalow­icz ex­plained that Caribbean coun­tries have been in­vit­ed and many have shown lead­er­ship on re­lat­ed is­sues. He cit­ed the Ba­hamas, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Bar­ba­dos as ex­am­ples of states that have ad­vanced re­form of the in­ter­na­tion­al debt sys­tem and ad­dressed methane emis­sions. He said he ex­pects strong Caribbean at­ten­dance and hopes gov­ern­ments will com­mit to lim­it­ing fos­sil fu­el ex­pan­sion.

Speak­ing af­ter a re­gion­al con­ven­ing in St. Lu­cia to form the Caribbean's po­si­tion, Rafalow­icz said he hopes the voic­es of par­tic­i­pants there will be car­ried to San­ta Mar­ta, Colom­bia. He not­ed con­cerns about risks to fish­eries, ma­rine life, air qual­i­ty, and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. He said the San­ta Mar­ta con­fer­ence should ad­vance a new in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment with eq­ui­ty and jus­tice at its core.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism that the event could re­sem­ble an­oth­er talk shop, Rafalow­icz said the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC) has been im­por­tant in set­ting stan­dards such as the 1.5 de­gree lim­it. He ar­gued that while the UN­FC­CC cov­ers emis­sions, adap­ta­tion, loss and dam­age, fi­nance, and tech­nol­o­gy, it does not pro­vide a fo­cused space for fos­sil fu­el sup­ply. He said the San­ta Mar­ta con­fer­ence would com­ple­ment ex­ist­ing agree­ments by cre­at­ing a more ad­vanced dis­cus­sion on im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Rafalow­icz said the con­fer­ence could be sig­nif­i­cant for coun­tries in the re­gion ex­plor­ing fos­sil fu­els, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, Suri­name, Grena­da, and Ja­maica. He point­ed to a rul­ing by the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice that is­su­ing new li­cences or sub­si­dies for fos­sil fu­el ex­pan­sion could be con­sid­ered an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly wrong­ful act. He said the con­fer­ence could pro­vide a path­way for those coun­tries to align with cli­mate ac­tion and com­mit to ad­dress­ing ex­trac­tion plans.

Look­ing ahead, Rafalow­icz out­lined three hopes for the process. First, that the sec­ond con­fer­ence in Tu­valu will de­fine a more spe­cif­ic agen­da. Sec­ond, that the re­port from San­ta Mar­ta will pro­vide gov­ern­ments with clear op­tions for ad­dress­ing fos­sil fu­el sup­ply. Third, that the out­comes will be tak­en up in the UN­FC­CC and de­bat­ed as part of the Brazil­ian roadmap process. He said the con­fer­ence could im­pact in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion through its own process, through the UN­FC­CC, and by in­spir­ing more coun­tries to act.