Why we need new laws to end coal, oil and gas

Katherine Quinn is policy lead at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. 

BP has ditched its pledge to curb oil production by 2030 – a plan that was once the most ambitious in the industry – switching instead to developing more fossil fuels in the Middle East.   

The new approach means we’ll see 2 million more barrels of oil per day by the end of this decade, Reuters reported earlier this month.  

You might think the energy giant would be lambasted for the decision, but BP shares jumped following the news. Insiders confirmed the move was designed to “regain investor confidence”.   

Shell also weakened its 2030 carbon reduction target earlier this year, selling renewable assets by divesting its leases for developing floating wind farms off the coast of Scotland, among others.  

Now it is doubling down on natural gas – another fossil fuel which it keeps trying to tell us is ‘clean’, even though burning and extracting it releases carbon dioxide, methane and particulate matter.   

It’s a bit like that classic meme from the Princess Bride, when Inigo Montoya says, ‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.’  

Climate advocates have long urged for humans to care more about the Earth we inhabit – even in the face of sceptics – hoping that common sense would prevail.  

But it’s only recently that market conditions are starting to make fossil fuels less profitable. Last year’s COP28 UN climate conference marked the ‘beginning of the end’ of the fossil fuel era – with a phase-down agreement, although it could have gone a lot further.   

Fossil fuels still king

Closer to home, the UK closed its last coal-fired power plant at the start of this month. But there’s no denying that fossil fuels still dominate our planet. In 2023, they accounted for 81.5% of the global energy mix.  

Managing climate change holistically is a marathon – not a sprint – and we need to get in the right headspace for the long run. In fact, we need to run like our lives depend on it, because they do.  

Despite solar surge, world off track for COP28 renewable energy target

We’re already seeing extreme weather that is both more intense and more frequent than many of the predictions of climate science. Just look at recent floods, wildfires and droughts in Austria, Myanmar, Poland, Germany, Australia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Nigeria. We saw the catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in the US. And that’s just in the last month.   

Things are so dire that meteorologists are crying as they report the weather.  

So how do we shift the wider economy to change at the pace we need it? We need to accept that businesses and investors are primarily driven by financial returns. Many CEOs are prone to saying, “you get what you incentivise”.   

Change through legal reform

You get what you incentivise – and you also get what you mandate. Introducing strong policies to accelerate the implementation of renewables, coupled with the rapid, legally implemented phase-out of fossil fuels, may be our best hope for ensuring global warming doesn’t rocket off the charts.  

We must get this message across. The new model of ‘competitive sustainability’ is one way.  

Forward-thinking businesses – those that get the reality of climate change – need to support changes in the market, while at the same time they compete to be the greenest. That way they can help prompt the changes needed, get ahead of upcoming regulations and mitigate a set of huge risks they won’t be able to avoid.  

Climate godfather Al Gore was shouting about this as early as 2008, when he told business leaders gathered in Davos that beyond individual actions, “it is far more important to change the laws and to change the treaty obligations that nations have”.   

The Global South is surging ahead in the renewables revolution

We need law reform that is simultaneously widespread and targeted. At the international level, we need strong treaty language on renewables. We need to look at agreements and commitments around investor protection and make sure they can’t be weaponised unreasonably to protect an unsustainable status quo at the cost of a green future.  

At both national and subnational levels, we need to expedite permitting and grid access, phase out fossil fuel subsidies and redirect money towards clean fuels. Across the board, a legal framework is also crucial to ensure that climate, nature and human rights are embedded in environmental impact assessments.  

We need carrots, but we also need sticks.   

Instead of clobbering those lagging behind on climate action, we’re throwing protestors in jail for (often peacefully) raising awareness of the gravity of this crisis. Meanwhile, the majority of nations still financially incentivise oil and gas through record high fossil fuel subsidies.  

Things need to change – and fast. Only by holding fossil fuel companies accountable and demanding urgent climate action can we secure a liveable future for generations to come – because the cost of inaction is far greater than the price of change.