Carbon emissions are going in the wrong direction. This is despite efforts by COP after COP to find a path away from fossil fuels. According to climate.gov, in 2023, the global average carbon dioxide level reached a new record high of 419.3 parts per million.
This is 50 per cent higher than the level before the Industrial Revolution. According to the Global Carbon Project, emissions from fossil fuels and cement will rise around 0.8 per cent this year.
The results have been record temperature levels across the world, triggering violent storms and heatwaves in other instances. In the shadows of such startling figures, there is a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (FFNPTI) underway across the world.
Only 14 countries have so far signed on, but the tentacles of the campaign are far-reaching, engaging governments, civil society, and the private sector. Antigua and Barbuda is the only English-speaking Caribbean nation to have signed.
Alex Rafalowicz, the executive director of the FFNPTI, told the Sunday Guardian this past week that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sets a high-level goal such as the 1.5-degree warming limit or the $300 billion annual climate finance target.
However, Rafalowicz said it doesn’t get into specific details of how countries and governments are going to collaborate on specific parts of the transition. Further to that, he added that other protocols, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Montreal Protocol, don’t focus on fossil fuels.
“There isn’t a space where countries are negotiating on the production of fossil fuels and then the connection of that production to different countries’ energy needs,” Rafalowicz stated.
This is the gap the FFNPTI is seeking to fill. He further explained, “The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty proposes to create a slightly smaller, more focused conversation with the countries that are interested in having a higher climate ambition and a higher justice vision for addressing the climate crisis.”
Getting countries to join that “slightly smaller, more focused” group is easier said than done. Gillian Cooper, who is the political director of the FFNPTI, also spoke to the Sunday Guardian, admitting she understands the fear of some nations and groups to develop such a treaty.
However, she said it must be understood that the block of countries that sign on will have the opportunity to design the terms so they can have more say and control over the mechanisms of the treaty. The dilemma of signing on to such a treaty initiative is as complex for developing countries as it is for developed countries. Oil and gas-based economies such as T&T, Suriname, and Guyana depend on revenue from fossil fuels to bolster their economies.
Committing to reducing carbon emissions could hamper their growth. Cooper said fossil fuel producers in the Global South are at “a really challenging and difficult point,” but she added it is also a major part of why the FFNPTI was started in September 2020.
She further explained, “Many countries—their fiscal needs and their economies are dependent on the revenues that come from fossil fuels—Trinidad isn’t alone. But there is a need for greater international cooperation for countries like T&T to be able to transition fairly and have a managed transition from fossil fuels into other energy sources.”
Conversations are ongoing with various sectors of society, both public and private, to get more Caribbean nations to sit at the table and develop a Non-Proliferation Treaty as it pertains to fossil fuels. Despite making slow inroads, both Cooper and Rafalowicz are confident more countries will sign on in the future.
“We are at a stage where officials are open to hearing more about what the treaty initiative is about. They are very open to speaking about what some of the requirements are that countries like T&T, which are dependent on their fossil fuel revenues, might require in terms of support from the international community,” Cooper added.
In a conversation with the Sunday Guardian, former energy minister Conrad Enill labelled the FFNPTI as an “important tool in going forward.” Enill now serves as T&T’s High Commissioner to Guyana, which is reaping revenue from its oil and gas fortunes. However, he warned the treaty initiative has to face the problem head-on.
Enill said, “When I was in energy and we were looking at this issue, we found that the European Union had a target for the reduction of carbon emissions, and when we looked at their total reduction, China was putting that back into the system in one month, so that’s the scale of the problem, and therefore, to solve the problem, you have to get the large countries that are the problem to take responsibility for it.”
He, however, said that small island states like T&T do have a role to play in such an initiative. Enill added, “We have to actually commit to doing better what we have established. In the case of T&T, we have to move some of our plants that are very much contributing to the issue because they are based on oil, so we have to move them to gas, and some of the activities we are involved in, we have to green it, and that is going to put us in the same space the world is asking countries to go.”
He said this must happen despite T&T contributing less than one per cent to global greenhouse gas emissions, ensuring the country “does not add to the problem, but at the same time we don’t interfere with our economic future.”
Enill insists T&T is in an advanced state in its preparation for the energy transition, having moved from oil to natural gas over the last six decades.
As the FFNPTI gains momentum across the world, it will also encounter hurdles in its campaign to move towards a treaty that is in black and white and holds signatories to account. The organisers are confident more countries will come to the table in the future, even while some require more coercing than others.
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This story was originally published by The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, with the support of Climate Tracker’s Fossil Fuel Reporting Fellowship.
