In 1968, the nations of the world signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, aimed at reducing, if not eliminating, an existential threat: annihilation by nuclear war.
The treaty — ultimately ratified by more than 190 nations, though not, notably, India, Israel or Pakistan, all nuclear powers — had three basic pillars: to limit the production of new weapons, commit signatories to a partial disarmament and call for the transfer of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes — namely, the production of electricity.
The treaty is widely seen as a landmark of international diplomacy that significantly ratcheted down the potential for one of humanity’s worst nightmares and became the model for other treaties, covering everything from landmines to ozone-depleting chemicals.
So, could the same thing happen for oil, gas and coal?
That’s the premise of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, introduced last month by a global coalition of activists and academics. Last week, the Canadian city of Vancouver became the first in the world to sign on to the treaty — the start of what the organizers hope to be a bandwagon of cities, states, provinces and nations.
If the coalition behind the treaty has its way, the private sector will be right behind them.
And, if the coalition has its way, the private sector will be right alongside them.
The treaty, launched during Climate Week, parallels the nuclear treaty, with three similar pillars:
- Non-proliferation: End expansion into new reserves of coal, oil and natural gas to limit carbon emissions.
- Global disarmament: Phase out current stockpiles to keep the world under 1.5 degrees Celsius, given that existing oil and gas fields and coal mines contain enough embedded carbon emissions to easily pass that limit.
- Peaceful transition: Promote economic diversification, renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions in a way that "leave no workers, communities or countries behind."
The group behind the fossil-fuel treaty includes civil society organizations, research institutions and grassroots activists. There are three basic workstreams, according to Rebecca Byrnes, the group’s deputy directory, speaking at the September launch event: a “diplomatic engagement” strategy to convince progressive governments to champion the need for international cooperation to curb fossil fuels; a campaign to support movements around the world in holding governments and corporations accountable; and a research strategy that underpins all of this work.
Declining fortunes
The rationale behind the treaty is pretty clear: The projected growth of the oil, gas and coal sectors, while slowing, remains hugely misaligned with the greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed to meet the goal of 1.5 degrees C maximum temperature rise set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Since market forces are increasingly sidelining fossil fuels in favor of renewables and other technologies, the oil and coal industries seem hell-bent on continuing to exploit the remaining untapped reserves.
Studies released in the past few weeks from the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and OPEC all point to declining fortunes for fossil-fuel companies despite continued growth. For example, OPEC concluded that its members will need to pump between 600,000 and 2.2 million fewer barrels a day through 2021 than was thought necessary just a few months ago to meet global demand. Still, the cartel projected that oil use will rise to about 98 million barrels a day next year, and to 102 million barrels by 2024.
That was one of the rosier scenarios. Last month, BP released a report saying that demand for oil may have peaked in 2019, and that the market for crude may never recover from the blow delivered by the coronavirus, as fewer people travel and less economic activity translates into lower energy demands.
Coal has similarly been taking its lumps. It has declined precipitously in the United States, along with its political clout, as plant and mine closures are announced on a regular basis, along with bankruptcies of key industry players. And China, the world’s biggest coal consumer, committed last month to become carbon-neutral in 40 years, in what some analysts have called a death knell for King Coal.
In that context, could a “non-proliferation treaty” accelerate these trends and fuel the already-impressive rise of renewables and energy storage?
“We can't ensure a safe climate and focus on building solutions if we're still pouring all of our political and intellectual and financial capital into expanding oil, gas and coal,” said Tzeporah Berman, the longtime Canadian activist who is one of the principal organizers behind the treaty. “We have a system where we know fossil fuels are 80 percent of the climate problem. And currently, we don't constrain fossil-fuel production.”
“We can't ensure a safe climate and focus on building solutions if we're still pouring all of our political and intellectual and financial capital into expanding oil, gas and coal."
The Paris Agreement, after all, only curtails carbon emissions. It says nothing about curbing the production of the fuels that cause most of those emissions.
“Despite the global climate emergency — the fires, the floods, the droughts, the heat waves — the world continues to expand the production of oil, gas and coal,” Berman said. “Despite the fact that we have 120 percent more expansion planned than the world can burn under a 1.5 degrees scenario. We know now that the world has enough fossil fuels already in production and construction to make the transition to clean, low-carbon energy.”
The treaty organizers are preparing to develop a “Global Registry of Fossil Fuels,” a public database of all “fossil fuel reserves, licensed resources and production globally,” which it says will “provide the missing baseline of fossil fuels that are known, estimated and planned for extraction” and provide the transparency needed to link them to the companies seeking to drill or mine them.
Another project is an “Oil Exit List” of companies and investors moving out of fossil fuels, along with public- and private-sector investment backing those efforts.
Cards on the table
The entire project is focused on the supply side — the producers of fuels and the value chains that support them — and not yet on the demand side — companies and other institutions that are their biggest customers. But I wouldn’t be surprised if activists soon ramp up pressure on large energy consumers to press their suppliers to curb further oil and coal extraction.
After all, one common refrain of the producers is “We’re just providing what the market wants.”
So, how would a treaty even work? “Essentially, everyone has to agree to lose,” Mark Campanale, founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative and one of the treaty organizers, explained to me.
“If I hand back my license [to drill], will you hand back some of your licenses? And if you hand back your licenses, your neighbor is going to hand back their licenses. And it begins to look like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, where the Americans and the Chinese and the Russians and the French and the Brits said, ‘We’d better cut back our missiles and cancel them. And by the way, we'll allow inspectors to come and inspect that we're doing that.’
"So, the fossil-fuel treaty has been set up on the same basis, where everyone has to agree to lose to allow everyone to win. And the way you do it is by everyone putting their cards on the table.”
And, presumably, finding ways to underwrite or subsidize companies that choose to pump or extract less.
Associations and metaphors
It will be fascinating to see how much the “non-proliferation” meme catches on among the public and their elected representatives, and whether that contributes to a further acceleration of clean-energy supply and demand.
At the September launch event, the author and activist Bill McKibben called the treaty “an exquisitely important idea,” citing the need to trigger “associations and metaphors and images in people's minds.” The link between our understanding of nuclear weapons and fossil fuels could help create the public will for such a radical idea, he said.
Seem far-fetched? Well, the Green New Deal, once a pipe dream, is now part of the current U.S. presidential campaign rhetoric. And regardless of its fate, at least in the political short term, it has become a discussion point, albeit a highly charged one, in the national conversation. Seemingly crazy ideas can come to life — and this one isn’t that crazy.
Of course, the nuclear treaty upon which this is modeled has seen only partial results. The five countries that, at the time of the original treaty, were the primary nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom — still have 22,000 warheads in their collective stockpiles.
Still, let’s give credit where it’s due: The nuke treaty has helped head off mutually assured destruction for more than half a century, during which the world saw some of its greatest economic growth and advancements.
To the extent that a fossil-fuel version could ensure the goals of the Paris Agreement, not to mention the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the treaty could become a key strategy for surviving, if not heading off, the mutually assured destruction brought on by Mother Nature's wrath.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter, subscribe to my Monday morning newsletter, GreenBuzz, and listen to GreenBiz 350, my weekly podcast, co-hosted with Heather Clancy.
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