Eliminating fossil fuels: it can be done, and must be done
Enrique Dans
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Enrique Dans
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3 min read
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1 day ago
IMAGE: Gerd Altmann — Pixabay
Ending the use of fossil fuel technologies is the only way to tackle the climate emergency we have created.Let’s be clear: burning coal, oil and gas got us into this mess, and the only way to get out of it is to stop doing so.
The chronology of the climate emergency runs parallel to the exploitation of fossil fuels as our primary energy source. The oil companies have lied about this for decades, but increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere follow the progress of industrialization, and get worse and worse as we introduce multiplicative technologies such as the automobile.
As of today, power generation by fossil fuels such as coal, oil or gas is responsible for the climate disaster, followed immediately by transportation. Privately owned cars are the main source, mainly because they are tremendously inefficient and, above all, because there are so many of them, but we cannot ignore airplanes and ships. What’s more, 40% of all products transported by large ships are oil, coal or gas, so if we were to stop using these products, we would immediately reduce a very significant part of the pollution generated by these large ships.
How realistic is it to stop using fossil fuels? Obviously, doing so overnight would trigger a global crisis and starve millions of people, but a gradual phasing-out and leaving a significant part of our reserves in the ground is increasingly seen as realistic by a significant part of the business world.
In fact, more than 130 companies, among them Astra Zeneca, Ikea, Nestlé, Unilever and Volvo, have just signed a declaration calling on world leaders to phase out fossil fuels, which will be presented at the upcoming climate summit in Dubai. The signatories say they are “taking action and actively working towards phasing out their use of fossil fuels,” adding the caveat that they “cannot make this transition safely or efficiently on their own,” and so are calling on heads of state to set policies that will accelerate the use of renewable energy.
The simple truth is that we have all the technologies necessary to carry out this technological transition and consign fossil fuels, as directly responsible for the climate emergency, to the oblivion of history, to the archive and closure of that era that has…
