“GOOD FAITH”
The conference was announced late last year but organisers say the US-Israel attacks on Iran had bolstered the case for a fossil fuel phaseout as nations confronted a sudden shortage of oil and gas.
“Fossil fuels are now clearly to be seen as a source of instability,” Kyte told AFP in an interview.
Many nations “are here in good faith to really work through what is a very complex challenge made more urgent by the crisis”, she added.
This includes developing nations highly dependent on fossil fuel revenue like Colombia, which is co-hosting the conference with the Netherlands.
Among other agenda items, nations will consider how to equitably reduce fossil fuel production and consumption, and reforming subsidies that throw up barriers to renewable energy investment.
Analysis by the International Institute for Sustainable Development on Monday showed that governments still spent five times more public money on fossil fuels than renewable alternatives.
“FOSSIL FUEL BAN”
On Sunday, a scientific panel released a 12-point “menu” of policy options that included “halting all new and expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure projects”.
“Without a doubt, there is no justification whatsoever for any new exploration of fossil fuels,” the Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre, a former member of the UN’s climate advisory panel, told AFP in Santa Marta.
Even as record amounts of investment flows into renewable energy, scientists warn the pace is still too slow to keep global temperature rises to safer levels.
“Even if we carried out no new exploration, the amount of fossil fuels – oil, coal, and natural gas – that already exists will push temperatures up to two and a half degrees by 2050,” Nobre said.
The world has already warmed about 1.4°C above pre-industrial times and is tracking to blow past 1.5°C in a matter of years.
Above that threshold, scientists warn that coral reefs and Greenland ice sheets could disappear, among other catastrophic and irreversible impacts.