Category: 2. Energy Transition and Divestment
Seventy percent of the carbon driving climate change comes from the use of fossil fuels globally. This is sustained by 90 corporate and state entities known as the carbon majors, who are responsible for an estimated 65 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from 1751 to 2013. This needs to be reduced drastically and transitions made.
There is a need to respond to the human rights abuses occurring in many resource-rich countries in fossil fuel extraction, as well as to the resulting land and water degradation. As storms in Asia Pacific and the United States continue to grow in number and intensity each year, and as intense droughts steadily loom over areas in Africa and India, the urgency for action has become apparent. The prevailing economic model focused on growth will continue to be subjected to instability until it shifts to massive reduction in the use of fossil fuels and a cyclical relation that is not based on stockpiling waste in the environment.