‘Turn the valve off’: Climate activists push for an abrupt end to the fossil fuel era

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• Calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground are anathema to leaders in the oil and gas industry, who insist the world will continue “to be thirsty for all energy sources” in the years ahead.
  
• Tom Goldtooth, a climate activist and executive director of the North American Indigenous Environmental Network, described the burning of fossil fuels as like filling a bathtub with far too much water. “It is overflowing with too much carbon. The world can’t absorb any more.”
  
• At COP26 in November, the so-called Glasgow Climate Pact sought to build on the Paris Agreement and prevent the worst effects of the climate crisis, although it faced sharp criticism over plans to “phase down” coal, fossil fuel subsidies and financial support to low-income countries.
  

Climate activists and campaign groups are pursuing an abrupt end to the fossil fuel era, condemning the latest round of net-zero pledges from many governments and corporations as a smokescreen that fails to meet the demands of the climate emergency.

Calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground are anathema to leaders in the oil and gas industry, who insist the world will continue “to be thirsty for all energy sources” in the years ahead.

To be sure, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis and researchers have repeatedly stressed that the best weapon to tackle rising global temperatures is to cut greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.


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