Future negotiations should focus more on reshaping incentives for oil and gas producing countries, and less on fulminating at their villainy.

Daniel Litvin is the founder of Critical Resource and a visiting senior fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE. He is the author of “Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility.” He writes here in a personal capacity.

The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, has ended with what its host, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), described as an “historic” agreement — but what many activists feel is a whimper.

Calling on countries to “contribute” to “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” the agreement is a step forward compared to previous U.N. summits. But with no imminent death knell sounded for fossil fuels as some had hoped, it is still far from a hard and fast commitment.

Oil, gas and coal currently supply some 80 percent of the world’s energy. If the world is to keep within the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, their use likely needs to be cut swiftly and radically. And while COP28 saw the unveiling of positive initiatives on renewables and other green topics, on the central challenge of the world’s fossil fuel dependency, it delivered a fudge.

Read more: politico.eu

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