Cancel fossil fuel extraction contracts to combat climate change

The countries participating in the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), currently taking place in Brazil, must cancel fossil fuel concessions in order to keep the Paris Agreement alive. This is the main message of a paper published in the journal Nature and signed by experts Martí Orta, Gorka Muñoa and Marcel Llavero, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, and Guillem Rius, from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

Committing to renewable energy

As the experts point out in Nature magazine, the Paris Agreement requires countries to work to limit global warming to well below 2°C and to make efforts to limit it to 1.5°C, in order to avoid climate tipping points with devastating consequences.

“This latter objective requires drastic action, even if we assume a temporary overshoot 1.5°C and later reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations to lower temperatures, the most optimistic scenario for most climate scientists,” says the team, which also participated in COP29 in 2024, held in Azerbaijan.

To have any chance of achieving the Paris targets, the team urges the nations gathered at COP30 to mobilize massive investments in renewable energy and urgently redefine international legal frameworks so that fossil fuel licences can be revoked.

“The world must stop exploiring more fossil fuels, stop granting licences for new concessions, and cancel most existing oil and gas concessions and coal mines that exist today,” the experts conclude.

A threat to indigenous communities in the Amazon

In a new study published in Energy Research and Social Science, the team warns of the high levels of oil pollution suffered by indigenous communities in the region, as well as the impunity with which transnational companies extract oil in the area. This is one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet and is key to the global fight against climate change.

The study is led by the UB and ISGlobal, in collaboration with the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands). It focuses on oil blocks 1AB/192 and 8, in northern Peruvian Amazon and it analyses data on the environmental impacts associated with oil extraction, compiled through indigenous environmental monitoring and records from Peru’s environmental agency between 2008 and 2018

The study documents 1,184 environmental impacts, including oil spills and discharges of polluting production water. Of all recorded impacts, only 17% result in penalties — and even when sanctions are imposed, fines are often reduced or overturned through appeals and lengthy legal proceedings. The conclusions indicate that fines should be proportional to the profits earned by companies, so that operating with low environmental standards is no longer economically advantageous for the industry. The authors also propose revoking licenses in cases of repeat offences. In fact, they go further and question the continuation of global fossil fuel extraction in the current climate emergency, particularly in areas of high ecological and social value.

To curb these abuses, they warn that it is essential to strengthen environmental monitoring, increase resources for public agencies in countries such as Peru, and integrate local indigenous monitoring — which is far more effective and knowledgeable about the territory — into the environmental oversight network.