VALUES AND IDEALS FOR A FOSSIL FUEL NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY

Civil society perspectives on the values and ideals that should drive a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and what a successful Treaty would mean

A global network of governments, civil society organisations, academics, scientists, youth activists, health professionals, faith institutions, Indigenous peoples and hundreds of thousands of other citizens globally is working towards a new Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty that will accelerate international cooperation to stop the expansion of fossil fuels in line with equity and science. International coordination of a fast and just transition away from coal, oil and gas can ensure no worker, community or country is left behind.

These guiding values were collected through extensive consultations with civil society representatives, experts and frontline activists across Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, North America and the Pacific in English, French and Spanish, along with representatives of key constituencies, including Human Rights, Peace and Security, Health, Labour, Youth, Faith, Gender, and Indigenous Peoples.

The consultations, and the principles from them, seek to build on the three pillars of the Treaty Initiative:

  • JUST TRANSITION

    Fast track the adoption of renewable energy and economic diversification away from fossil fuels so that no worker, community or country is left behind

  • NON-PROLIFERATION

    Stop building out the problem by ending the expansion of coal, oil and gas production

  • A FAIR PHASE-OUT

    An equitable plan for the wind down of existing fossil fuel production, where nations with the capacity and historical responsibility for emissions transition fastest, providing support to others around the world

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VALUES AND IDEALS

Consultation Participants identified the following Ideals

Public Good

A Fossil Fuel Treaty must benefit public, not private, interests, with a focus on community renewable energy and fossil fuel phase out policies with measures that enable the decarbonisation of key sectors, including food, transport, education, health and other systems, in order to enable a faster global phase out of fossil fuels while reducing reliance on measures like carbon markets, carbon capture and storage, gas, nuclear or other false solutions. Any use of such technologies should only support deeper emissions reductions in addition to, not instead of, a global fossil fuel phase out to reduce escalating and deepening loss and damage.

  • A Fossil Fuel Treaty has the potential to foster public engagement and civil society movements that could address energy poverty both within and between countries and that by centering of the public good, it would also prioritise green energy access for those in need.

  • To address disproportionate corporate influence, those with conflicts of interests should be precluded from participating in negotiation processes. Industry lobbyists would otherwise water down provisions until proposals are cosmetic and do not propose systemic solutions that meet the scale of change that is required.

  • Energy transitions must not preclude access to land for local communities, and instead must foster self-determination. Due to certain management rules, land sometimes becomes inaccessible to the locals including Indigenous and tribal communities. Such rules are often brought in, to promote “solutions,” which have (potentially unintended) harmful consequences.

  • Centering the public good means both recognising historic responsibility for emissions that have been taking place quite disproportionately from the Global North and also addressing the continued neocolonial practices that allow some states and corporations to profit from the resources of others. The Fossil Fuel initiative is rooted in anticolonial principles that not only address past inequalities but preclude new ones from being developed.

  • While the Fossil Fuel Treaty alone could not reform the international financial architecture, it could include provisions around finance and means of implementation designed to enable more equitable transfers of finance to support the global just transition from fossil fuels.

  • It is important to note the role that trade and investment agreements play more broadly, in enabling corporations to get away with tax avoidance, poor working conditions, environmental contamination, carbon emissions, excessive water use, contributing to displacement, among other things which push against a well-being centred society. A Fossil Fuel Treaty could include provisions and principles aimed at mitigating the chilling effect that international economic law may currently have on countries aiming to implement fossil fuel supply-side policy measures.

Justice

Nearly half the global population is already exposed to climate change impacts. Wealthy industrialised nations are most responsible for total emissions and continue to be responsible for disproportionately high levels of per capita consumption emissions. The Treaty must aim to redress global imbalances while filtering equity based responses through at the regional, national and local level. A response that is equitable, enforceable, holistic and post-extractive is key to justice.

  • Requiring wealthy countries that have used up most of the carbon budget to take the lead in cutting down their fossil fuel production and acknowledging their historic responsibility, protecting the principle of sustainable development and embedding Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC)

  • Being able to hold signatories to account to their obligations relating to the three pillars of the Treaty, i.e. ending expansion, phasing out production and support for a global just transition, such as through compensation and reparation. This must be consistent with principles of international environmental law, including polluter pays, for example. In addition, participants felt that enforcement should be pursued justly at the local level.

  • Justice centred fossil fuel phase out efforts are complemented with recognition of the climate impacts already underway, the responsibilities of those that have disproportionately contributed to them through historic emissions, and the needs of those least responsible but most exposed.

  • In addition to phasing out existing coal, oil and gas production, and preventing new exploration and expansion, communities have self-determination over the use of any raw earth minerals and metals required in a renewable energy transition.

  • Reductions in emissions have the ability to significantly reduce the likelihood of climate tipping points as well as limit the scale of climate harms underway.

  • Sites of fossil fuel extraction have also been linked to increased insecurity among communities facing extractivism. There are also increasing levels of gendered violence being linked to fossil fuel extraction, and climate change impacts.

  • Energy transitions have the potential to create millions of new climate jobs. Decent work can also be promoted in increasing resilience to climate change impacts and addressing the consequences of climate impacts.

  • While nearly half the world’s population is already vulnerable to climate change impacts - and these are felt disproportionately in the Global South - future generations will face increasingly unmanageable impacts that have the potential to overwhelm communities, societies, economies and regions.

  • All peoples have a right to health benefits associated with cleaner air, land and water which would result from decarbonisation efforts in energy, food and transport.

  • Existing notions of rights, the rights of nature initiatives, and ensuring Indigenous Peoples’ and tribal communities have the opportunity to give full prior and informed consent (or refrain from doing so) in projects on their lands, must be protected and promoted.

  • Impoverishment, living with a disability, younger and older people, Indigenous peoples, People of Colour, and those marginalised by gender, national or social origin, health or other status, experience magnified exposure to climate change linked harms. A Fossil Fuel Treaty will require human rights compliance to protect the rights of marginalised groups, and to ensure an intersectional approach.

  • Not only must non-proliferation solutions seek to protect and promote human rights, but meaningful participation of all impacted communities and individuals in design, implementation and monitoring is key. A prerequisite of participation is information to enable meaningful engagement. At the very least, civil society actors need not to face threats to their safety. More ambitiously, the role of civil society in ensuring accountability needed to be promoted. 

Rights

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human rights of our generation, posing a serious risk to the rights to life, health, food, self-determination, development, water and sanitation, housing, education and training, decent work, culture, social protection and an adequate standard of living. Participants spoke of the need to ensure that states take appropriate precautionary measures to ensure risks are meaningfully mitigated, and that rights are upheld, promoted and protected.  

Watch the testimonies from participants in the consultations around the Values and Ideals for a Fossil Fuel Treaty

VISIONS OF A FOSSIL FREE FUTURE

Although a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty may not explicitly cover all these concepts and goals, envisioning the desired future can serve as a crucial ‘beacon’ to guide countries to apply relevant values, concepts, and principles effectively during the negotiation process. The consultation participants articulated the following vision for the future

  • Thriving economies and societies

    On envisioning a post fossil fuel era, the earth will be a place where physical, economic, social, emotional and psychological well-being prevails. Such a world would see reduced political instability, and resource related conflicts.

    Well-being needs would escalate in areas particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, with structures and systems required to address this, from rehabilitation, reconstruction, recovery, and relocation, for example. 

  • Self-determination

    Self-determination places the importance of having access to resources to be able to direct them towards community needs and the public good. It additionally allows for constituting freedom from corporate coercion or corporate power.

    A Treaty Initiative that is led by marginalised communities and continues to promote mechanisms to ensure needs assessments from those with intimate knowledge of these as well as design, implementation and assessing roles is one of the only ways to futures of greater autonomy.

  • Thriving ocean and ecosystems

    A post fossil fuel era will certainly see ocean and ecosystems thriving once again. Working against fossil fuels is also about protecting the beauty and restorative power of landscapes from extraction, and therefore we must use the language of love of land and love of biodiversity while we are advocating for a greener future.

    This highlights the importance of ending the production and use of fossil fuels because of the immediate impacts on frontline communities where healthy environments are undermined.

RISKS AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES FOR A FOSSIL FUEL TREATY

Consultation participants identified the following risks

False Solutions

  • continuing financialization and other false solutions that are pursued over meaningful regulatory efforts to phase out fossil fuels and end expansion

  • governments must stop prioritising any new fossil fuel extraction projects, and plan an equitable and fair phase out from existing sites of extraction

Treaty Fatigue

  • the much exaggerated and delayed negotiation processes usually associated with such treaty formulations

  • the bottom up approach that would leverage expertise and energy from a wide range of backgrounds and emphasizing strong civil society voices

Dilution of Ambition

  • the scale of ambition envisaged for the Treaty Initiative and the vast landscape of visions that they have collectively  expressed

  • avoid repeating past mistakes and learning from past treaty initiatives and the need for ambitious and meaningful operational provisions

HOW TO OPERATIONALISE A TREATY AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

  • NATIONAL

    • holding corporations to account for phasing out fossil fuels

    • increased public and worker autonomy in workplaces and political decision making

    • the need to strengthen national human rights institutions, legislation and enforcement

    • comprehensive mainstreaming of intersectionality and just climate policy

  • REGIONAL

    • regional energy sovereignty when citizen led energy democracy efforts are prioritised

    • leverage climate finance solutions towards just outcomes, through for example debt cancellation or restructuring

    • engagement with regional bodies and development banks

    • environmental protections through binding obligations on the conduct of corporations

  • GLOBAL

    • fossil fuel phase out timelines and finance targets that centred equity and science based timelines

    • enforcement mechanisms to ensure decarbonisation and climate finance goals were met

    • ensure compliance with human rights frameworks, rights to self-determination, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, WHO Guidelines, and International Labour Organization conventions

Hear from the Consultants on the Values and Ideals for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

  • The Treaty needs to have a modality to support efforts for protection of activists because without local activists the governments aren’t always accountable. If we can figure out ways of protecting and supporting activists this would be one way to strengthen the treaty and locally making governments more accountable, making the job of stopping proliferation less risky and dangerous. So, the protection of land defenders and human rights is essential.”

  • It is very very important that right up front is the building of climate justice - climate justice isn’t just a thing - it needs to be built and also building peace within this. Fossil Fuel use really was part of the huge colonialist industrial expansion out of Europe, and we can only achieve climate justice through confronting that from the very beginning and then winding it back.”

  • Sometimes you can’t even get in to hear and understand to have a voice. There needs to be strong inclusive and participatory processes not only at global level but at local level. There should be agreements that engage with local people feeling impacts, they are the ones that know what is going on. Not just reporting and information, but implementation too.”

  • A huge foundational part of these principles is that we get to be in there right from the very beginning - from before the beginning. No Treaty text has been written yet, it hasn’t been taken to the UN yet. We want to make sure there are things already in motion and set in place that could be of benefit and for the protection of us and our people, so things like making sure that there is recognition of self determination, inherent sovereignty, free prior and informed consent... These are just a few ideas. Hopefully these principles will have the precedents for the Treaty text itself when countries take it to the next level. I’m looking forward to getting more of our communities on board to have a stake in the Treaty and to consult on these principles.”

  • Working on the supply side and working to end the production and use of fossil fuels is critical for human rights for a number of reasons. One is because of the immediate impacts on frontline communities affected by the extraction and use of fossil fuels. Their lives, livelihoods, health and healthy environments are undermined by our dependence on fossil fuels and thus efforts like this one that focus attention on ending the addiction to products that are harmful from their inception through their use and disposal is critical.”

  • Just as we had momentum for a waiver against the rules that big pharma and rich countries were protecting, we need a similar and successful campaign on climate and technology transfer. I would emphasise the power of fossil fuel corporations and neoliberalism that has got us into the dire situation that we are in now. We need a global public goods approach. The public sector and quality public services with rejuvenated democracies need to play a key role in this transition”

For inquiries and ways to get involved please contact Rebecca@fossilfueltreaty.org