Over 250 scientists urge COP30 prez to make fossil fuel phaseout top priority of UN climate talks

New Delhi: Over 250 scientists from 27 countries, including India, have written to the president of this year's UN climate conference, urging him to make the transition away from fossil fuels a top priority for COP30.

Climate physicist and signatory Bill Hare handed over the letter in person to COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago during the mid-year climate conference in Bonn, Germany.

"We strongly urge you to use your substantial global platform to champion a fast, fair, effective and full phaseout of fossil fuels. The science is clear: the burning of fossil fuels is driving climate change and its disastrous impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people all around the world," the letter read.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the rise in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"Yet, a decade later, we remain well short of our goals. The last 10 years were also the 10 hottest years in history. The world has now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming in a single year for the first time on record," they said.

Citing major findings from the past decade of scientific literature, the scientists said that existing fossil fuel infrastructure alone makes the 1.5 degrees Celsius target unattainable.

The signatories, including renowned physicist Paulo Artaxo and Friederike Otto, a professor at Imperial College London, said it will be impossible to avoid severe socioeconomic impacts, which will affect humanity for centuries, without a fast, just and planned transition away from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels -- coal, oil and gas -- account for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, countries reached a landmark agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. However, not much progress was made on the issue at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Brazilian government has come under fire for auctioning oil blocks in the Amazon, which is set to host COP30, without consulting local communities and ignoring the climate crisis.

The mid-year UN climate meetings held annually in Bonn help countries work out technical details before the annual UN climate conferences, known as COP.

If countries do not make enough progress in Bonn, it becomes much harder to agree on anything at COP.

This year, the Bonn talks are taking place amid geopolitical tensions, military conflicts, trade disputes, the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and the failure of developed countries to deliver climate finance, all of which have weakened trust among nations and made climate action more difficult.

The talks also come amid a stark warning from the World Meteorological Organization, which said last month that there is a 70 per cent chance the average global temperature between 2025 and 2029 will exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.