PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 5, 2023
Last year, I asked the sustainability lead for one of the world’s biggest oil companies, “You have two young kids. How do you sleep at night?” “The best would be if we all die in some sort of crash before they are old enough to understand my job,” he replied. How is it that, in 2023, with everything we know about climate science, corporations are still headstrong on convincing the world’s population that petroleum not only has nothing to do with environmental change but is even a net positive? Leaked documents show that the United Arab Emirates intended to use its COP28 presidency to broker deals supporting its oil industry with 20 countries, including the U.S.. On Nov. 17, the world topped +2°C for the first time. And it did again the next day. Will the COP28 presidency keep the foot on the gas (literally), plowing through any phaseout of fossil fuels? ~ Susana Hancock, an international climate scientist and polar explorer living in Maine