What is that they say about “It is always darkest….”
It is times like these I want to believe that is true.

I’m finding hope lately.

If you were following the news from the annual climate summit of the Conference of the Parties (COP 30) out of Belem Brazil, you may have felt, as I did, a bit (or more) of despair tempered only by the low expectations we’ve grown accustomed to holding.

It turns out, again, that consensus among all of the participants – even when the United States is not participating – is elusive. 

In the final agreements:

• References to the need for phase out of fossil fuels was removed
• No roadmap to halt deforestation was determined
• Loss and damage – what we call Global Repair, or the mechanism for richer countries to help those countries who did little to cause the crisis – received less attention despite its ever-growing importance

But in the closing session, something incredible happened.
(Drawing and excerpting from the We Don’t Have Time blog by Ingmar Rentzhog)

To breakthrough the consensus that could not be achieved to do what needed to be done, COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago announced that he would create 2 roadmaps:

1. To halt and reverse deforestation;
2. To transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner

Watch his statement here.

To achieve this, he launched a working group of more than 85 willing countries and endorsed Colombia’s proposal for a Global Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Conference this coming April.

(The list of governments, organizations, and individuals who have joined this movement to end fossil fuel use is growing. You can endorse it, too.)

But here’s the thing.

There was a time when this vision to end fossil fuel use felt aspirational. Something we needed, something to strive for, but something that seemed to many to be based on a future we couldn’t see.

Today, this vision isn’t aspirational. It is inevitable.

Writes Bill McKibben in his latest call to action in the shape of a book 
“..right now, really for the first time, I can see a path forward. A path lit by the sun.”

McKibben’s Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization details the enormous shifts underway right now – across the globe – as the costs of solar and storage have fallen, and the innovations around each have grown. These shifts and innovations have made the sun the most economical, most practical way for people to power their lives.

And this shift to solar and wind doesn’t just have the potential to bend the climate crisis. It has the potential to build wealth for communities who would otherwise depend on perpetually paying others to find, mine, transport, then burn fossil fuels to give them energy.

McKibben cites Rajiv Shah’s opinion piece in the New York Times “Want to end poverty? Focus on One Thing”: 

Access to electricity determines fundamental aspects of individual’s lives, like whether they are healthy, or have a job…

[But] improved solar panels, batteries, and other breakthroughs now make it far easier to provide reliable, clean electrification to everyone.

Need an uplift as we head into the solstice and 2026? This book is it. (Read it now, then join us to discuss it Thursday, January 8. Click here to RSVP!)

So. Even as we confront the phase out of fossil fuels, in the face of an industry that paralyzes certain players to make the change we need, the sun is shining. For us all.

As Rentzhog writes:

So what will COP30 actually be remembered for?

Not the deleted words.

But the moments the old order cracked wide open:

• An oil-producing nation demanding more ambition than Europe
• Frontline voices refusing to be silenced
• Hundreds of delegates — and the COP President — wearing #MakeScienceGreatAgain caps
• A COP President speaking the truth the text forbade
• The largest emitters exposing the myth of unanimity
• The moment the world saw clearly which reality is real
• The moment two parallel pathways to phase-out finally opened

The fossil fuel era is ending.

Let’s be sure we understand that this energy transition is happening, here and around the world, and shout this from the rooftops. Because not everyone knows it.

The pace at which we execute this transition has consequences. And the excuses from industry – ever embedded in the past and status quo – will keep coming. We need to be there to shine the light.