Small islands, big stakes in global fossil fuel transition talks

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

As gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and civ­il so­ci­ety ac­tors de­scend­ed on St Lu­cia this month, oil prices were ris­ing, buoyed on by a war in the Mid­dle East that has over­shad­owed the one in Eu­rope. St Lu­cia was the des­ti­na­tion for some of the finest minds in the re­gion to con­vene for a meet­ing on a glob­al just tran­si­tion from fos­sil fu­els. A pre­cur­sor to the much-an­tic­i­pat­ed First Con­fer­ence on Tran­si­tion­ing Away from Fos­sil Fu­els, in San­ta Mar­ta, Colom­bia be­tween April 24 and 29. The con­ven­ing would ul­ti­mate­ly har­monise the Caribbean's po­si­tion ahead of the in­ter­na­tion­al sum­mit.

But even in the qui­et re­treat of the Bay Gar­dens con­fer­ence room, the world's in­sa­tiable ap­petite for fos­sil fu­els could not be hid­den. It gave cre­dence to the up­hill task the Fos­sil Fu­el Treaty Ini­tia­tive faces in its mis­sion. The Fos­sil Fu­el Treaty Ini­tia­tive is an al­liance of 18 na­tion-states, 193 sub­na­tion­al gov­ern­ments, up­wards of 4,200 or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­sti­tu­tions work­ing to se­cure a glob­al just tran­si­tion from coal, oil and gas. But the Caribbean del­e­gates weren't alone. At the same hour, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and civ­il so­ci­ety ac­tors were al­so meet­ing in Nairo­bi, Kenya, chart­ing a sim­i­lar path.

Yet, those lead­ing this Fos­sil Fu­el Treaty Ini­tia­tive have been re­al­is­tic and hon­est in their ex­pec­ta­tions; they don't ex­pect to leave Colom­bia with a phase out plan.

An al­ter­na­tive to the UN­FC­CC

The Colom­bia sum­mit is seen as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak ex­clu­sive­ly about fos­sil fu­els. At the an­nu­al Con­fer­ence of Par­ties (COP), the top­ic of fos­sil fu­els of­ten tends to get lost in a myr­i­ad of is­sues on the agen­da. Po­lit­i­cal Di­rec­tor of the Fos­sil Fu­el Treaty Ini­tia­tive, Gillian Coop­er, said, "It is go­ing to pro­vide a space for coun­tries to come to the ta­ble and have an hon­est dis­cus­sion about what is re­quired to tran­si­tion from fos­sil fu­els. The struc­tures of the UN­FC­CC [Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change] space have be­come too rigid, and the rules of pro­ce­dure, where it is a con­sen­sus-based de­ci­sion-mak­ing process means that we are di­lut­ing our am­bi­tion every time."

It is a point that cli­mate change ex­pert and re­silience ad­vi­sor to gov­ern­ments across the re­gion, Una­May Gor­don, backed up. She added, "The Paris Agree­ment it­self, while it was a call to ac­tion, does not ad­dress the ele­phant in the room, that is the fos­sil fu­els that are caus­ing the prob­lems."

The con­fer­ence is ex­pect­ed to bring to­geth­er over 24 coun­tries that signed the Belém De­c­la­ra­tion on the Just Tran­si­tion Away from Fos­sil Fu­els, in­clud­ing Aus­tralia, Bel­gium, Chile, Den­mark, Fi­ji, Kenya, and Pa­cif­ic is­land na­tions. From the Caribbean, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, The Ba­hamas, and St Kitts and Nevis are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Fos­sil Fu­el Treaty Ini­tia­tive, and more na­tion states are en­cour­aged to join.

But Cari­com Cli­mate En­voy, Dr James Fletch­er, has been quick to recog­nise the Caribbean is not a ho­mo­ge­neous place where fos­sil fu­els are con­cerned. Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, and Suri­name are all oil and gas-based economies.

The Caribbean's po­si­tion

Re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives will trav­el to Colom­bia with sev­er­al im­por­tant ques­tions for lead­ers. At the con­ven­ing, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials called for a clear un­der­stand­ing of what tran­si­tion­ing ac­tu­al­ly re­quires of our econ­o­my and so­ci­ety. They al­so called for in­ter­na­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion for leav­ing the re­source un­tapped while al­so say­ing that reskilling is vi­tal for the tran­si­tion.

Fletch­er was can­did in his ex­pec­ta­tions of the San­ta Mar­ta con­fer­ence. He said, "We're not go­ing to Colom­bia ex­pect­ing we're go­ing to come out with a Treaty. We're not there yet. Eigh­teen coun­tries do not form a glob­al treaty. The Paris Agree­ment was 196 coun­tries agree­ing. We are nowhere near that. So first of all, we want a grow­ing move­ment, more coun­tries com­ing on board, a lit­tle bit more clar­i­ty in what it is that we want this Treaty to ad­dress, and an un­der­stand­ing that a just tran­si­tion has to be just that. It has to be a tran­si­tion that works for every­one, not just for some of us."

Dr Fletch­er warned about the cre­ation of a new class of en­er­gy pover­ty if a prop­er just tran­si­tion isn't es­tab­lished.

He has set his sights on small wins in Colom­bia. He stat­ed, "One thing I hope is ac­com­plished is a con­sen­sus that many more coun­tries than the 18 so far that have signed on to it see this as some­thing that is a ne­ces­si­ty. Two, clar­i­ty that we know ex­act­ly what it is that we're look­ing to get from this treaty ini­tia­tive. An­oth­er thing is am­bi­tion, that it can't be some­thing that says, "Okay, yeah, we will." It has to be some­thing that re­al­ly says, "Okay, if we're go­ing to have a treaty, and the treaty is speak­ing about a de­cline in fos­sil fu­el use or phase out of fos­sil fu­els, that it's time-bound." It sets tar­gets, which is some­thing that when you sign on to it, you're com­mit­ted to do­ing it. The Paris Agree­ment is a gen­tle­man's agree­ment. The Paris Agree­ment speaks of na­tion­al­ly de­ter­mined con­tri­bu­tions, not com­mit­ments, na­tion­al­ly de­ter­mined con­tri­bu­tions, so you can't be held li­able if you do not meet these con­tri­bu­tions."

All eyes on Colom­bia

While it may seem the re­new­able move­ment is los­ing its mo­men­tum with sev­er­al geopo­lit­i­cal shifts, all eyes will still be on Colom­bia at the end of April for the First Con­fer­ence on Tran­si­tion­ing Away from Fos­sil Fu­els. When asked what a suc­cess­ful out­come would like for her, Gor­don said, "We are hop­ing that there are clear and de­fin­i­tive agree­ments, not just state­ments but agree­ments of how this tran­si­tion will take place. This is about both pro­duc­ers and re­cip­i­ent coun­tries. We're not talk­ing about stop­ping pro­duc­tion. This is not what San­ta Mar­ta is about. We're talk­ing about an or­der­ly tran­si­tion." Those con­ver­sa­tions in­clude how the tran­si­tion will be fi­nanced, how fos­sil fu­el-based coun­tries like Colom­bia can tran­si­tion along with the so­cial fac­tors that come with it.

For Coop­er, the mul­ti­lat­er­al process has been fail­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple af­fect­ed by cli­mate change. The con­fer­ence in Colom­bia of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a dif­fer­ent type of di­a­logue. She ex­plained, "The geopol­i­tics means that we have to be bold about bring­ing a new form of mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism that sits with a coali­tion of coun­tries that are more am­bi­tious, that can ac­tu­al­ly change the con­ver­sa­tion in the mul­ti­lat­er­al space, and they can't be afraid of the geopol­i­tics to see the progress."