How the light gets in

Written By Peter Allan
 

By Chris Hatch

If you were expecting a breakthrough of global sanity from climate talks led by an oilman in Dubai, you’re probably new around these pixels.

The most hopeful spin I can offer leans on the great troubadour, Leonard Cohen, and our unofficial Anthem: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The crack, in this case, comes after 30 years of wrangling, with all the nations of the world finally agreeing to "transition away from fossil fuels.”

On one hand, that crack simply illuminates the most butt obvious step in halting climate change — stop doing the thing causing it. That it took three decades for the world to formally utter the words “fossil fuels” is a scandal in its own right.

On the other hand, “this result would have been unheard of two years ago, especially at a COP meeting in a petrostate,” says Mohamed Adow from Power Shift Africa. “It shows that even oil and gas producers can see we’re heading for a fossil-free world.”

Climate advocates have long relied on scientists, agencies and think tanks to buttress the demand to phase out fossil fuels. Now, every nation in the world has agreed on the direction. Every national government those advocates square up against will already have agreed to the overarching goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels.

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