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Two headlines published this year, which speak for themselves:

“2023-2027 will probably be the hottest five-year period on record”.
“Exxon posts record $56bn profit for 2022 in historic high for western oil industry”.

The first refers, as published on its website France24 (05.17.2023), to “It is near-certain that 2023-2027 will be the warmest five-year period ever recorded, the United Nations warned Wednesday as greenhouse gases and El Nino combine to send temperatures soaring”.

Let’s remember that 1.5 degrees is the cornerstone of the Paris Agreement, and its only objective. All actions to combat climate change derive from this. Let us also remember that the goal for not exceeding 1.5 degrees is the year 2100.

If the UN alert is fulfilled, we will be advancing the target date of the only climate agreement we have by more than 70 years. Although some indicate that the increase would be temporary, but when did the Earth’s thermometer rise and then go down and stay there? According to the graphs, the average global temperature curve since the 1970’s is almost a perfect rising straight line.

If the predictions come true, 1.5 degrees would be reached no less than seven decades earlier than expected. It would be the biggest failure of the world climate authorities, countries and the 197 parties involved in the COPs. A very hard blow to the Paris Agreement, and therefore to humanity and the other species that make life on Earth.

For those who don’t know, the global temperature has already broken its records 17 times in this recently begun 21st century. We have seen the consequences of this through floods, landslides, mega forest fires, which from time to time occur with increasing virulence and frequency.

An oasis in the midst of the bad: At the end of March 2023, Europe unanimously approved the regulation that prohibits the sale of new gasoline, diesel or hybrid cars throughout the European Union from 2035, with the exception of vehicles that use synthetic fuels (e-fuels ), which are climate neutral.

This is a gigantic step and it is just around the corner. In 12 years, not one more vehicle “from before”, CO2 emitters, will be able to leave European factories. Undoubtedly, an example to follow.

To this we must add the production of wind mills, solar panels, electric cars and green hydrogen, with which the long-awaited energy transition is slowly being achieved.

The second piece of news is perhaps of greater concern than the first. Earlier this year we read on the The Guardian (Jan 31, 2023): “Exxon posts record $56bn profit for 2022 in historic high for western oil industry. Company took home about $6.3m an hour last year as oil majors expected to break their own annual records”. Incredible but true.

It seems that the big hydrocarbon producers do not want to understand that pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere is a sword of Damocles held by threads, the point of which hangs over our heads and also over theirs.

This refusal to look a little further than their noses represents a serious danger and hydrocarbon producers undoubtedly bear a high responsibility for the 17 temperature records and their consequences. Announcements like this one automatically call into question climate agreements, congresses, conferences and summits. In addition to creating uncertainty in the population, the school and among environmentalists who dedicate ourselves full time to our responsibility, which is to create climate awareness among young people and adults.

As if that were not enough, what is narrated here worsened after the end of COP27 in November 2022. It was when it was announced that the venue and presidency of COP28 fell to the United Arab Emirates, a country that produces an average of 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. Its designated president is Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates, as well as CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Read to believe!

Sandor Alejandro Gerendas-Kiss
Editor of SGK-Plantet.com