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Global economic development is largely chained to the use of fossil fuels that hinder humanity’s development through equity, health and prosperity. Despite the urgent need to reduce the impacts of climate change, in 2024 global emissions from the energy sector amount to 3 billion tonnes of methane and 37.4 billion tonnes of CO28.9 times higher than emissions resulting from deforestation. This, without a doubt, represents a cry of urgency for COP30 to produce decisions that allow strong actions towards the decarbonisation of the global energy matrix.
Of global CO2 emissions2 from fossil fuels, coal is responsible for 41%, oil for 32% and natural gas contributes 21%, according to 2023 data (Global Project Carbon). A fifth of global temperature rise is due to the use of natural gas, so it is inconsistent to say it should be part of a sustainable energy transition.
The use of fossil fuels produces large inefficiencies that generate losses in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Rocky Mountain Institute has stated that energy waste represents $4.6 trillion per year, 5% of GDP that is not used to generate value, but wasted in the processes of extracting raw fuels from the ground, in converting raw fuels into molecules usable by combustion engines, in transforming fuel molecules into electrical energy, in transporting those fuel molecules to places where they will be used by sea, pipelines and/or electrical cables. 45% of goods moved by global maritime transport are made up of fossil fuels.
As humanity, we are faced with a great contradiction globally as we have the scientific certainty of requiring an installed capacity of 11.2 terawatts of renewable energy by 2030 so that the temperature does not exceed a 1.5 degree increase, while 111.2 million gigawatts are lost per year due to inefficiencies in the use of fossil technology. All these resources could be used to finance the accelerated energy transition. The impressive thing is that, although 2025 is not over, the 1.5 degree threshold has already been exceeded.
On the other hand, health also has something to do with this matter. According to a 2021 study from Harvard University and the University of Birmingham, air pollution from burning fossil fuels such as coal and diesel was responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths worldwide.
Furthermore, the number of people who have lost their lives due to the impact of the deadliest hurricanes, cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and floods exacerbated by climate change in the last 20 years rises to 570,000. And as if that wasn’t enough, as I write these words, I hear the cry for support and solidarity that the Jamaican people ask for when struck by Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane; people who ask for solutions to “live and not just survive”.
COP30 has the opportunity to become the turning point in the history of humanity, and to bequeath to the planet a concrete path that consolidates the foundations of an economy that protects its ecosystems, an economy based on renewable energy, where what fossil development has cost to health, biodiversity, soil, water resources and humanity is internalized.
COP30 is timely to recognize that renewable energy is critical to the well-being of our people, to resilience in the face of a changing climate, and to energy security in the midst of unstable geopolitics.
Ten years ago, the Paris Agreement called for a progressive and effective response to the pressing threat of climate change, based on the best available science. Today we know that countries around the globe have abundant resources to produce renewable energy of all types, offering a strategic opportunity to reduce the addition of fossil fuels and the import dependency they entail. It is technically certain that 90% of renewable energy production is less expensive than fossil energy production; The world knows that renewable energy stabilizes energy costs and promotes the democratization of access to sustainable, self-sufficient energy that stimulates job creation and local economies.
Renewable energies today represent the best economic option for our countries, they embody a path for the survival of ecosystems, to reduce the warming and acidification of our oceans. Renewable energy can be generated with very low losses due to inefficiencies and significantly reduces the consumption of fossil energy and its transportation in ships around the world.
COP30 must prioritize the use of renewables as an essential catalyst that drives the competitiveness and sustainability of a new development architecture conceived, designed and planned to last and maximize the quality of life of the population globally. A development in which the right to life is respected, in which a restructuring and redirection of the 7 trillion dollars that subsidize fossil fuels every year is guaranteed, towards investments that revitalize nationally determined contributions.
As a citizen of the world, I call on the decision makers and negotiators who will be present at COP30 to call for coherence and harmonization between governments’ development plans, the commitments presented in the NDC, what science tells us the planet needs to sustain human life, and the enabling conditions that the Global South requires so that lives do not continue to be extinguished due to dependence on fossils.
