This is the question of the decade: how can we limit or even stop our greenhouse gas emissions for good? The most effective solution could well be that defended by the group chaired by Alex Rafalowicz, which pleads for the establishment of a non-proliferation treaty for fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas.
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The idea was born in 2015, it is the fruit of long discussions between associations, collectives, local and indigenous communities, and it has seen the birth of a movement chaired by Alex Rafalowicz, 37, and which defends a relatively simple principle: the countries signatories would undertake not to open any new coal mines, to not issue any new permits for the exploitation and exploration of oil and gas deposits, and finally, not to authorize the extension of existing sites.
“It is clear that a Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty must be established. to phase out the production of fossil fuels, eliminate subsidies, and ensure a just transition to a zero carbon future.”
— alex rafalowicz (@alexraf) November 14, 2022
Clearly, we draw on what we already have, and we redirect the funding that was dedicated to fossil fuels towards renewables, solar, wind, geothermal energy. It could not be more concrete, and it is so concrete that at the moment, at COP27 in Egypt, several States are pleading for the implementation of this treaty. This is the case for the archipelago of Tuvalu in the South Pacific, its neighbor Vanuatu, but also the European Parliament which voted in favor of this treaty, the cities of Paris, London, the World Health Organization Health, a hundred Nobel Prize winners and more than 3,000 researchers, physicists, climatologists, engineers, signatories of an open letter.
Alex Rafalowicz recalls the numbers. To limit global warming to 1.5°C, global coal production must drop by 10%, oil production by 8% and gas production by 4%, each year until 2030. the opposite way, but it is nevertheless the only solution to preserve a livable planet. And our lawyer knows the subject well: a graduate in economics and law, he was born 37 years ago in the kingdom of coal, Australia, the world’s leading exporter, and it was when he saw his neighbours, the Pacific states, fight against rising waters that he became interested in the climate, and therefore in the defense of this treaty on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels.
A treaty based on the same model as the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which entered into force 52 years ago in 1970, signed by 190 States and still respected today. Proof that this type of international agreement can work, “in any case, it is a peace plan that interests more and more Statesconfides Alex Rafalowicz to franceinfo, and for which we will continue to push after COP 27.“