Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation: Constraining Supply is The Missing Link in Global Climate Policy

In this replay episode of the Climate Confident podcast, I revisit one of the most urgent and eye-opening conversations I’ve hosted - my conversation with Tzeporah Berman, Chair and Founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.

We dig into the uncomfortable truth: while governments champion renewables and set emissions targets, fossil fuel exploration and extraction are still expanding at a pace that locks in climate chaos. Tzeporah explains why climate policy has largely ignored the supply side of the equation, how subsidies distort markets, and why the Paris Agreement doesn’t even mention fossil fuels. Her insight is blunt, what we build today will be what we use tomorrow.

Tzeporah outlines the vision for a Fossil Fuel Treaty, modelled on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, that could create international rules to phase out production fairly and equitably. We explore the role of debt-for-renewables swaps for the Global South, how equity must be baked into any transition, and why simply building “the good stuff” without constraining “the bad stuff” will never deliver climate safety.

We also discuss how to shift public perception, challenge the fossil industry’s greenwashing, and confront the false comfort of net zero targets. Tzeporah makes it clear: action is the antidote to despair, and citizens have more power than they think.

This is not just a debate about emissions, but about survival, justice, and reshaping the rules of the global economy. If you care about ending fossil fuel expansion, ensuring a just transition, and accelerating real climate solutions, this episode is essential listening.

👉 Tune in now, and let’s rethink what true climate leadership means.

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Transcript

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Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 235 of the Climate Confident Podcast, the go-to show for best practices in climate emission reductions. I'm your host, Tom Raftery, and if you haven't already, be sure to follow the podcast in your podcast app of choice, so you never miss an episode. Today will be a replay of an episode I published earlier this year that I thought was particularly good and I'm replaying it because I'm on vacation this week and last week as well. but I'll be back next week at the start of September, and normal programming will resume then, and I have excellent episodes recorded, ready to go live then. In today's show, I'm replaying the episode that I recorded with Tzeporah Berman, which went out back at the start of July. This episode is about why fossil fuel exploration and extraction continues to grow despite our climate pledges and what it is we need to do to stop that growth. If you didn't hear this episode at the time, you really missed out, and now is the time to catch it. If you did hear it at the time, I honestly think it'll stand a second listen. It is that good. I've listened to it multiple times myself while editing it and even subsequently, and I think it's great. Hence my replaying it again for you now. So onto the episode. Tzeporah welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? Thank you. So nice to be here. My name's Tzeporah Berman and I am the Chair and Founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and also of Stand dot Earth. Let's start with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation treaty initiative. Talk to me a little bit about the background of that. Where did it come from? What's the thinking behind it? And what are the ultimate aims? In some ways there are two places it came from. For me personally, it came from my work in the Alberta Tar Sands. The tar sands are one of the largest industrial developments on earth. And also one of the dirtiest oil developments on earth. And I'm, Canadian, and probably 15 or so years ago, our prime minister at the time Prime Minister Harper, announced that Canada was gonna become an energy superpower by tripling the size of the tars sands and planned five or six pipelines across North America to, expand the tar sands. And I began working in, in the region. Working with First Nations to research and, and understand the implications of the tar sands. Working with civil society groups, community groups who were worried about the pipeline infrastructure and climate change, and then eventually working with government. When there was a change in government, I was appointed as the co-chair of the Oil Sands Advisory Working Group. And our task was to design climate policy in the tar sands, also known as oil sands. And it was during that experience that I realised even if you get progressive governments who believe in climate change and say they're climate leaders, they really only believe that their responsibility is to reduce pollution. To reduce emissions. So the demand side of the scenario. So if I proposed a carbon tax or even an emissions cap. There could be some difficult conversations, but if you actually propose that we regulate production and decrease production, well, everyone would light their hair on fire. That's not our problem. We don't, climate policy isn't about constraining supplier production and you know, honestly, I, I've got three university degrees and I, I remember sitting there. And I was in a meeting with someone from the Premier's office and someone from the Prime Minister's office, and they were, excuse me, but mansplaining how climate policy and markets work to me, and I've been doing this work for 30 years and I have advised many governments and I just, for a little while I thought, I don't really understand climate policy. How can you reduce the demand but allow the supply to continue to increase? And it was a very frustrating process. We ended up four years of discussions with the oil industry and working through consensus with indigenous groups, and we created some policy. But the theory is that they're going to reduce emissions by introducing technologies like carbon capture and storage, and clean oil, similar to the clean coal we used to hear about decades ago. And that will allow production just to continue to increase, and eventually when renewables become cheaper, the markets will constrain supply. What I realised is that's the theory that all climate policy has rested on, and all climate negotiations have rested on for 30 years. And so even while governments around the world have been reaching agreements like the Paris Agreement to constrain emissions and production, negotiating, who gets to admit what. No one's negotiating who gets to produce what? It's a free for all out there. And so we're currently on track to produce 110% more oil, gas, and coal by 2030 than we can ever use and burn if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. So it's almost like, well, governments have been trying to reduce pollution and the demand side of the equation and build more renewables and renewables have gotten cheaper now than fossil fuels. At the same time, kind of behind our backs, the fossil fuel industry has just been growing production. And there's a simple truth, which is what we build today will be what we use tomorrow, so every day we're building more of the problem, saying we're in transition. But building more of the problem. And then every year we miss our climate targets. So I started looking around and trying to understand what are other countries doing and is there supply side climate policy in other countries? And to make a long story very short, what I discovered is other than the Suva Declaration sometime around 2015 that was proposed by Pacific Island Nations to have a moratorium on the production of fossil fuels, there have been no international agreements, no proposals, no policies to constrain the production of fossil fuels. And in fact, I remember when I searched the Paris Agreement and I searched, just trying to understand, well, how does the Paris Agreement deal with fossil fuels? Oil? Gas? Coal? Fossil fuels? The words don't appear in the world's climate agreement, international climate agreement. And that, for me was a really big aha moment. And look, climate policy in international negotiations, they're complicated. But what's not complicated is that 86% of the emissions trapped in our atmosphere today causing almost like a sweltering blanket that is covering the earth, that is giving rise to the extreme weather, the droughts, the floods, the fires, and climate change around the world. It all comes from three things. Oil, gas and coal. And if we're not constraining the production of them, then we're locking in climate change for the future. And so I started convening meetings of lawyers and diplomats and economists and trying to understand this issue. After one of the meetings that was in New York, a number of the people who were at the meeting were talking to some academics in the UK about this idea of the Suva Declaration and fossil fuels, and they said, well, wait a minute, if we could create a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which changed people's views about expansion of nuclear, you know, I, I grew up on thinking that stockpiling nuclear weapons was what kept us safe.'cause that's what we thought in the seventies until the world realised we had enough nuclear weapons to blow up the planet six times over. And slowly because of the campaigns and the work for a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, people started to realise that actually building more of the problem was what threatened us. And so social norms shifted and some rules were put into place. And so these academics, Peter Newell and Andrew Sim used that analogy and wrote a paper that they published in a peer reviewed journal exploring the idea of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. And I saw that paper and thought, well, that's exactly what we've been talking about in these meetings. We need some mechanism like this because this theory that renewables are gonna become cheaper and then everyone will just start using renewables. It's not working, in large part because the markets are distorted. They're distorted by by trillions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies. About 7 trillion a year the IMF tells us in, in money that our governments are giving to the wealthiest and most profitable companies on earth. And that keeps them producing even when their products are way more expensive and way more harmful than renewable energy, which we can do now at scale. And so that was the very beginning. And in 2019, I won the Climate Breakthrough Award, which is given to a couple of people a year to try and create a global breakthrough climate solution. No pressure, but luckily I already had an idea that I wanted to pursue and, and it was so big, and so wild that a lot of funders wouldn't touch it. But then I had the Climate Breakthrough Award, and they give you $2 million to explore a new idea, and so I started pulling a team together. It was terrifying. And crazy and fun, but you know, I, I often say that I, I felt like George Clooney in Oceans 11, you know, where you have $2 million. I could spend any way I wanted and I had this big idea to create and I needed a team. And I went out there and said, who's the best communications person I know? Who's the best lawyer I know? Who's the best climate policy expert? And, started pulling the team together. And that's how we began. And how's it been going? It, um, especially since I did the TED Talk on the issue. There's, I did a TED Talk in four years ago called the Bad Math of the Fossil Fuel Industry, where I explained what I've just explained to you and your listeners, and it was a bit like being shot out of a rocket. The talk has three, 4 million views or something now and, all of a sudden people were coming up to me and go saying, this is crazy. How did we not figure this out? What are we gonna do about it? I had amazing conversations with Christiana Figueres, who of course helped negotiate the Paris agreement with Al Gore, with and then started having conversation with heads of State. And so today we have 17 countries, nation states who are participating in the development of this treaty. We have another 10 countries who are sitting in as observers in the technical meetings. We have over 3000 organisations now in 120 countries that have endorsed the idea. Everything from indigenous groups in the heart of the Amazon who are tired of fighting alone project by project to major international organisations 350.org, WWF, the Climate Group itself. Even the World Health Organization, a UN body has endorsed and many, many now champions around the world, hundreds. Most recently, the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, endorsed the idea of a fossil fuel treaty a couple of weeks ago in London during climate week. The mayor of London Sadiq Khan joined us as the first special envoy to the fossil fuel treaty for cities. And so the work is growing, around the world. Wer have, I think, close to 200 cities and subnational governments, Calcutta, Vancouver, the state of California, who have all endorsed and having cities pass motions at their city councils or states in their houses is really important to build the political space for nation states to be willing to do something this difficult. But I think really the turning point for the fossil fuel treaty was when Columbia joined. Columbia is the fifth largest coal exporter in the world. And when President Petro joined the initiative and started calling on the floor of the UN for a fossil fuel treaty, he said something really important. He said, I know that our country as a fossil fuel producer is making the problem worse every day. But we can't stop alone because so many countries, especially in the global south, are being pushed to expand fossil fuels just to feed their debt. If we're going to all of us together, stop expansion of new projects and manage a wind down in a way that's fast and fair and financed, then we're gonna need to cooperate with each other. And I think that was a big tipping point for the treaty. More countries started taking us seriously. And a number of finance experts convened, all from the global south to start looking at what would a treaty look like. So now we have a research group and an expert panel that's producing trade, tax, debt agreement proposals. The idea of leaving fossil fuels in the ground, a debt for renewables swap, or debt for leaving carbon in the ground swaps, we're exploring all these new mechanisms of international trade and tax and debt agreements that could, could help countries stop making the problem worse. Yeah. Yeah, because I had Mark Campanelli on the podcast a couple of now I wanna think it was, and we discussed the idea of the carbon budget, and for people who haven't listened to it, I'll just give a quick explanation of my understanding of it. It's basically, it says that we know how much fossil fuel it takes to get us from where we are today to one and a half and two degrees centigrade. You know, we know how much CO2 we need to pump into the atmosphere to get to essentially two degrees C and that's, I forget the numbers exactly, but it's around a thousand gigatons. It's probably less now because we've had a couple of years since we had that podcast, but it's about a thousand gigatons of CO2 we need to pump into the atmosphere to get to two degrees C, so that's our carbon budget. On the other side of that, we've got the amount of proven reserves of fossil fuel companies and countries, which works out to be about 3000 gigatons, which means that the fossil fuel companies and countries are going to have to write off two thirds of their value in order that we can hit our climate goals. And that's where there's this huge issue. And your point about Columbia and the other fossil fuel countries may be swapping debt for leaving fossil fuels in the ground is where you, they might actually get some value for that two thirds that they have to leave in the ground, right? Yes, and it might provide them the ability to start looking at economic diversification and exploring other options. You know, what we're seeing right now is there's a lot of fossil fuel companies with a lot of cash pushing new gas and other fossil fuel development in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, but very little renewable energy capital going into those countries. So last year about 98% of the renewable spend was not in the global south. And so even though renewables today are actually, if you look at last year's investment, there was twice the amount of money spent on building new renewable energy than there was of fossil fuels. That's amazing. And that's, you know, definitely a tipping point in the right direction. But there's two big issues there. One is, where is that money being spent, and it's not in the global south, which is pushing them more and more into fossil fuel expansion. And secondly is that renewable energy displacing fossil fuel energy. And right now it's not. And that's the mistake we've made in thinking that if we just build the good stuff, but we don't constrain the bad stuff. You know, we can solve this problem. And it doesn't work that way because, you know ultimately the atmosphere doesn't care how many solar panels we build. The atmosphere cares how many fossil fuel projects we don't. And so we need companion mechanisms. It's not. The fossil fuel treaty is not gonna be a replacement for the Paris Agreement. We need the Paris Agreement and we need to strengthen it. But this could be a companion. A work plan on fossil fuel phase out that can work with the Paris Agreement to ensure that we meet the goals, of the Paris Agreement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've compared fossil fuels to nuclear weapons. Tell me more about that analogy. How does it help us see more clearly about the scale and urgency of the problem? In two ways. For many years, the threat of nuclear war and nuclear weapons was considered by the World Economic Forum in its global report of threats every year as one of the greatest threats to security on the planet. Nuclear weapons were and are considered weapons of mass destruction. When you look today at the impact of fossil fuels. As the cause of climate change, which is causing mass displacements mass death as a result of lethal heat already and humidity around the planet, floods, fires. But also when you look at the impact of fossil fuel air pollution. Air pollution kills more people premature deaths on the planet than any other single cause. So somewhere between 7 to 9 million people will die this year on the planet due to air pollution, majority caused by fossil fuels. And then of course, there's the oil spills and the toxic nature of fossil fuel production in our water. And not only in our air, but also in our water and our food, et cetera. Today the cumulative impact of fossil fuel development around the world is a weapon of mass destruction. Fossil fuels today are one of our major weapons of mass destruction, and we need to see them that way. And secondly, similar to nuclear weapons, for a long time, expanding fossil fuels is what we thought would keep us safe. It'll keep us warm in our houses. It'll keep the lights on. It has become in the global north, a symbol of prosperity. The geyser and the money flows, and so always thought of as a very positive thing. New fossil fuel development, new pipeline. It's a very positive thing. Even today in Canada and many other producing countries, you see it as a big political football who's gonna build more pipelines? It becomes this question, you see it with the Trump administration now drill, baby drill. And this mentality has to shift. We need to shift that social norm in the same way that we did on nuclear weapons. So people start to understand that expanding the production of fossil fuels is in fact what threatens us. And in some places, the world that is already happening in part'cause of our work, but of course because of the work of many others. But maybe in Europe, in large part because of Putin and Trump. I talked to several governments when I was recently doing a tour through Europe. I met with governments from 10 countries and several governments said to me, look, we were dependent on Putin for gas, and then we were dependent on Trump for gas. And now we're wondering if actually a fossil fuel phase out is what's going to lead to national security and energy security. That experience of having the critical input to society being controlled by dictators. It is something that people are starting to see is a reason for the shift towards renewable energy. Renewable energy by its very nature is more equitable, it is more diverse. The infrastructure could be owned by more people. The infrastructure can be developed publicly by government, and much of it has to be the connectivity, the grids, et cetera, to electrify what used to be fossil fuel use like transport, for example. But you know, the interesting thing about renewable energy is it doesn't lead to dependency. And that's what fossil fuel infrastructure does. The sun doesn't send you a bill at the end of the month. Once you put the infrastructure in, you are no longer dependent on feeding that infrastructure for life. And that's exactly what the fossil fuel industry is fighting and what the Trump administration is fighting because they want you to be dependent. They wanna be able to control that input into society, in part because of control, but part because this is historically the most profitable industry on earth. The fossil fuel industry has made $2.8 billion every day for the last 50 years. So they literally are the most profitable industry on earth, and that's not gonna go down without a fight. Even though we know that today we have the ability to replace most fossil fuel uses with cleaner, safer technology that's gonna be much cheaper in the long term. And even cheaper in the short term now when, because renewables are, are price parity in almost every country with coal, oil, and gas. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, And you said you've got 17 countries who are signed up. That's a long way off the 195 roughly countries at the UN, I think it is recognises. 195 there or thereabouts. How do we get from 17 to close to 195? Well, you know, the first issue is that we don't need to. When you look at many other treaties, there are basically two political pathways for treaties. One is inside the UN system, usually a resolution at the UN General Assembly, the development of a treaty that will include all countries. That's the root of the Paris Agreement, for example. When you develop a treaty that way, there, I believe a couple of weaknesses. One is that you have to have all of those countries agreeing. Very difficult to do. Almost all of the treaties we've seen develop that way are done by consensus. What that means is that Saudi Arabia or the US, any incumbent vested interest can reduce the level of ambition, can weaken the potential agreement that comes out of there. And it takes a very long time. And they're not binding.

And when you look at other treaties: 23:09

landmines, chemical weapons, these treaties were developed in what is called the build it, and they will come model. The Landmines Treaty was developed by Canada inviting Nation states to a diplomatic conference to develop rules and agreements. That was called the Ottawa Convention. 30 countries attended. And in those models where a treaty is built outside of the UN system in the beginning, you end up with a very strong set of rules by a group of willing countries wanting to create high ambition. And then, once the table is set, more countries come because they don't wanna not be at the table.'cause if you're not at the table, you don't get to set the rules. What we see with those other treaties is many of the big countries, Saudi Arabia, Russia, for example, never endorsed or didn't come in the beginning. That actually is the reason they were able to be developed so quickly. Most of those other treaties you saw the negotiating period only last about two years, and then it was brought inside into the UN system. And so that's the model we're pursuing. We believe we'll have 20 countries by the end of the year. And actually this is really big news. Just recently Columbia announced, in London that they will hold and host and are looking for a co-host, the first ever global diplomatic conference on fossil fuel phase out that will set the table for a fossil fuel treaty negotiations next year in 2026. So we've now finished the development phase, building the framework and the groundswell of support. And countries are setting the table to begin discussions next year. And now that we have Columbia and Pakistan has joined and so many other countries, I think this year if we are successful in bringing in a European nation and an African nations, several of which are close, then we'll be able to begin that process in 2026. Oh wow. Wow. That's great. And then we gotta talk about things like a just transition and what that means in, in the context of the treaty. So how do you assure it's not just a buzzword, but it's actually baked into the policy? So there's different levels of a just transition. There is a just transition at a community level. What about those workers? What about those families? How are we ensuring that as we transition outta fossil fuels, those people are not left behind? And that requires domestic policy, both at a national level and a subnational level. It requires retraining, it requires economic diversification and competitiveness studies, et cetera. What are looking at at an international treaty is how do you apply those same rules of fairness and equity at an international level? And so there, there are equity rules and considerations within the Paris Agreement on the demand side. So for a couple of years now, we've been supporting a group called the Civil Society Equity Review Team to look at how do you apply equity to the issue of production. So what I mean by that is, who gets to produce fossil And how much? And that right now is entirely decided by the markets. There's no equity or justice embedded in the marketplace. And so if we were embedding those issues, what would it look like? And so what we found from their research is that you can map how dependent a country currently is on fossil fuel production, both for their current use, but also for export revenue, for jobs for a percentage of their GDP. The research has shown that Malaysia. 67% of their GDP is dependent right now on fossil fuel production. So if you just shut down fossil fuel production, they'd be in trouble. Their, their hospitals would close. They couldn't maintain road maintenance. They're going to need support in order to, to unwind from the fossil fuel industry and end production. Some countries like Ecuador drilling for new oil in the heart of the Amazon, just to feed their debt. They're gonna have to have those debt issues addressed. So first you map the countries and see where they're at. The other issue of equity is who's benefited from production so far, which is related. If you look at the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, Norway, what you see is, although you have significant energy fossil fuel production and expansion, the US will expand faster than any other country in the world right now. And in fact, those five countries are responsible probably for about 60% of the expansion on the planet, just in those five global north countries right now. But they have benefited so much already in the past from fossil fuel production. The equity consideration, those countries have a responsibility to act quicker. To act faster. And they also have the ability to do it without major economic disruption and with support of their communities and workers. And then the second issue is the finance. What kind of mechanisms can we develop to support countries in doing that diversification, in stopping that expansion in a way that keeps those countries whole, that addresses critical issues like debt. And so, so we're looking at the principles of equity. We're looking at mapping the countries and, who's gonna have the hardest time and why. And then we're also looking at what kind of mechanisms can we put in place to make sure that the transition and the phase out is not only fair. But that it's financed. Okay, and how do you move the needle on public perception? Because we've talked a lot about governments and so on, but really they're not gonna move or want to be seen to move without shifting public perception. What works when trying to shift social norms around fossil fuels? So there's no one thing. You know, this is a very tricky moment in history and what we're trying to unwind is literally decades and billions of dollars of fossil fuel industry spending. If you look at the incredible work of an organisation like Influence Map for example, they have been tracking the spending of these wealthy companies for a very long time. And what they spend on, for example, advertising, what they spend on lobbying and the impact that it has. So we've seen billions of dollars, even billions of dollars since the Paris Agreement spent by oil companies to, help maintain their social license. So one study, for example, looked at what the oil industry is saying in those advertising, At time, about 98% of the advertising was about how the oil industry is so green and working on solutions and loves renewable energy and is going to expand renewable energy, et cetera. About 2% was on defending fossil fuel production. Well, then you look at what the industry, their CapEx, what they're spending in terms of what they're developing. 98% of it is on more fossil fuels. Only 2% of it is on renewables and solutions. I sometimes think that what the industry did is they went from denial on from climate change to delaying climate policy by infiltrating and overwhelming all the policy tables to kind of a delusional where they're, having quite a lot of success, convincing governments that if they just give them more money to spend on developing technologies like carbon capture and storage. We can have our cake and eaten too. We could expand fossil fuels. Don't worry about it. We're fine. And that I think we see, for example, in Canada and the US where governments are supporting the industry in pouring money into carbon capture and storage, despite the studies showing that it has under-delivered by 80%, many of the projects don't work, that there are way cheaper ways to create energy infrastructure and reduce emissions by investing in pure renewables, then, then there is in investing in great technologies like carbon capture and storage. And so that's how they maintain it. And so we have to chip away at that. There's organisations, for example, exposing the influence of the industry, like Influence Map. There's organisations who are trying to break the cultural hold that the fossil fuel industry has by, for example, convincing companies ad companies not to take on fossil fuel companies as their clients. And that's having some success convincing museums and other cultural mainstays of society to not take fossil fuel industry money and donations. And then organisations that are just producing report after report showing the impact of the fossil fuel industry and how it threatens public good and public health, environmental groups around the world, indigenous groups around the world. But honestly, I think the most important thing that people can do is talk about it. What we see in the polling is that 89% of the public around the world knows that climate change is happening and is terrified and wants more climate action. A very small percentage of those people actually talk about it, and even smaller percentage relate what's happening around the world and climate change to fossil fuels because the industry has been successful in making their products invisible. So if you ask a person on the street what causes climate change, most of the time they won't be able to tell you. If you look at the coverage of the fires in LA of the fires right now across Canada, very rarely is there any recognition that these fires are happening because of fossil fuels. Of course fossil fuels didn't physically start the fires, but the reason we have the drought, the reason we have more extreme fires, more frequent fires, there's lots of science to show directly that it's because of our use and production of fossil fuels. So we have to make the connection, we have to talk about it in everyday life, and we have to try and make it not a right or left issue. This is not an issue of right or left. This is an issue of, of, of survival, of public safety and, the idea that the solutions are being kept from us is an issue of, fairness. And I often have people say to me, oh, those fires that are sweeping across Canada or the, that flood that I just heard about that killed a hundred thousand people, these are tragedies. These aren't tragedies. A tragedy is something that happens when you don't have a solution when you didn't know ahead of time. A scandal is something that happens when you knew it was going to happen. You knew who was responsible. We had the solutions at hand to help it not happening. And that's what's happening every day right now.'cause every ton of carbon we save from going into the atmosphere, we know from the science will save lives. And that carbon is coming from oil, gas, or coal. So if you're building a new fossil fuel project today, you know that you're taking lives and years away from the future, that's what you're doing. We need to talk about that we need to make the connections we need to make people feel like they're not alone having this conversation. I mean, honestly, for years I thought I was alone. I thought I was crazy or just not smart enough to understand the policies, why we weren't constraining fossil fuels. And there's such a culture around it that I, you know, I have to tell you this one story because I was at a conference, and it was a conference on climate change. So we're, I'm at a conference on climate change and someone from the Prime Minister's office came up to me quietly and said, Tzeporah people are, are talking about how you keep talking about fossil fuels and especially oil, and they're finding it rude. So I'm at a climate change conference, but talking about fossil fuels, and oil is rude. It makes people uncomfortable. Let's not talk about that. Like, that's crazy. That's a horrific example of groupthink that is holding us back. So talk about it. Great. Okay. And you've been critical as well of net zero targets and called out the bad math behind them. What, what's the core problem with how companies and governments are using that term today? The core problem is that they're using it to avoid a reduction in fossil fuel emissions and production. The science behind the intergovernmental Panel on climate change, and even in many of the IEA International Energy Agency analysis shows very clearly that we need absolute emissions and production decline, now. We need to stop expanding and decline. If you look at the majority of the net zero analysis by country or by company, which has been done many times, what you see is governments planning to plant more forests and continue fossil fuel expansion to invest in carbon capture and storage, and hope that it'll work in the future and continue fossil fuel expansion. The term net zero is allowing that fraud to continue. It's allowing that bad modeling, even though we know that we're past the point of saying we're just gonna buy some carbon credits. That's another scheme that's been, put forward as though we don't need to take the action to reduce fossil fuels. A number of studies have come out this year showing that 80% or more of the existing carbon credits haven't worked. Either the forests are burning or dying off that have been said to be carbon credits or the projects were simply fraud on once they get to the ground to look at the projects. Now the critical point to know though, is that doesn't mean that we don't need to get beyond zero. We are gonna need these technologies. We are going to need to plant forests. We're going to need to protect existing forests. We're going to need some kind of credit scheme for our continued use of some fossil fuels. We're going to need I believe, and this is controversial within the climate movement, but I believe we will need, direct air capture and carbon capture and storage because today we have anywhere in the world in the atmosphere, if you measure it, about 430 parts per million of carbon trapped in the atmosphere. So 430 parts per million of carbon trapped in the atmosphere, and we will see millions of people displaced this year. We will see hundreds of thousands of people die from fires, from floods, from extreme weather, from heat waves. And so we need to get back to somewhere close to 350. So we're going to need to draw that carbon outta the atmosphere to have a safer planet. We can't just reduce our fossil fuel use now we have to deal with the damage that is out there. But a lot of the net zero claims right now are looking at introducing those technologies, processes or policies, and then not reducing fossil fuels. They're using it as a subterfuge instead of as an ambition. Yeah. For people listening, Tzeporah who want to help but don't work in policy or energy, what's the most impactful thing they can do today to support the treaties goals? Talk to your decision makers. You know, I feel like in my lifetime, we've stopped thinking of ourselves as citizens and we think of ourselves only as consumers. When I talk to people about what they're going to do, they talk about how they're saving up for an electric car, or they put in a heat pump. Yes. Do those things. Your lifestyle is important, especially because our kids learn what they live right. But we can't just think of ourselves as consumers. Our elected officials work for us. Call them. Call your member of parliament. Call your senator. Call your congress person. Call your governor. Call their offices. Write to them. Petition to them. Tell them you want them to be supporting renewable energy. Tell them you want them to stop expansion of fossil fuels. Many people are not engaging in these issues 'cause they feel like they're not experts. Oh, I don't know whether it's cap and trade, or cap and auction, or what percentage reduction we should have. We've made it too complicated. Tell them to stop expanding fossil fuels. And start focusing on safer, cleaner, renewable energy and ask them to help make sure you're safe. At this point, we need adaptation measures. We need cooling centers in every city. We need fire prevention plans. We need firefighting plans. We need those things in our cities now and in our countries to keep us safe. So call your decision makers. On the Fossil fuel Treaty. Join us. Make it your own. No one know owns the idea of a fossil fuel treaty. Just like no one owned the idea of a nuclear non-proliferation treaty or a Paris agreement. You can go to fossil fuel treaty.org. You can endorse as a business, as an organisation, as a city. You can download information packages of how to get your city to pass a motion. Our small global secretariat is there for people to help them make the campaign their own. And, and honestly, that's for me had been the most exciting thing. A couple of weeks ago, I saw the Masai, warriors in Kenya, endorse in, in big press conference. Every major faith institution from the world put out a letter to nation states asking them to participate. We've seen so many different organisations around the world, large and small dig in, to start doing a piece. Do a piece. It will help us build support for the fossil fuel treaty, but also it will help you because action is the antidote for despair. And if we just sit in our houses and doom scroll, it's not gonna help us. It's not gonna help our mental health. It's not gonna help our kids, and it's not gonna help secure your future. Yeah. Speaking of, you've been doing this work for a number of years, what keeps you hopeful in the face of such a massive challenge? Well, you know, the nitty gritty of it is that you, you, you have to turn it off. Sometimes. I do, at least, I'm pretty rigorous about trying to get, you know, some form of exercise, doing my yoga. Meditation helps. I use the Plum Village app and I go to their retreats just to keep centered. We need to be resilient and our best selves in order to do this work. Remembering that taking time away from the work and away from the doom scrolling to find joy in nature, in our families, that's not something you should feel guilty about. That's a responsibility too. Joy at this moment is a responsibility because it's what feeds us and, and it is a renewable resource, so we have to use it. I think hope isn't something we just get to have. Hmm. Sure. I look at the stats on more renewable energy invested, and that gives me hope. I, I see more people and more organisations and countries joining the treaty, and that gives me hope. But we don't get to just get hope. Hope is something we have to create. We have to create it every day with our actions. And so every morning, think about it. What's the one thing you're gonna do today? What's the goal that you're gonna set for you or your organisation that is gonna contribute to impacting the issues that care about? Work during the day on what keeps you up at night and celebrate the small wins in the victories. That's what will keep you hopeful. Nice. A left field question for you Tzeporah. If you could have any person or character alive or dead, real or fictional, as a champion for the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, who would it be and why? Wow, that's such a big question. I think it would be Martin Luther King. That's who came to mind first because he was such a visionary. You know, I love it when, um, I heard a speech by Van Jones once and he said, Martin Luther King never said, I have a problem. He said, I have a dream. And it was that ability to rally people around a shared vision, to empower people instead of lecturing them to create a vision that people wanted to get behind, to inspire people. That's what I hope we can do. Fantastic. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now Tzeporah, is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of? One of the things that I looked at when I first started doing this work was, is it possible? Is it possible to stop the expansion of fossil fuels and not leave people shivering in the dark? You know, yes, we have to do it in order to have a safe atmosphere and a safe climate, but, how hard is it gonna be? And I, I think I wanna leave people with understanding that it's entirely possible. We already have enough, we already have enough fossil fuels. On the surface of the planet to meet our needs while we transition to renewable energy. Renewable energy at scale, the ability to power entire cities. The ability to have completely electric transportation is already happening around the world. Look at what's happening in China. Look at what's happening, especially in, in Norway. Hmm. We can do this. Now we have the technology to do it. It's not gonna be easy, but it. Is possible. There is no need to be building fossil fuel infrastructure today. We need to hold onto that and remember that what we build today will be what we use tomorrow. And if we wanna protect what we love, if we wanna protect our kids. Then we have to support ending fossil fuel expansion. There is no other way to do it, but we can do it and it's possible. Super, super, Tzeporah, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? Fossil Fuel treaty.org where you can find the Fossil Fuel Treaty. I'm personally on all social media platforms as well, just as Tzeporah, T-Z-E-P-O-R-A-H, and before Fossil Fuel Treaty. The organisation I co-founded that still works predominantly in North America on climate change, local, more local campaigns and campaigns on particular sectors, like the fashion industry or the IT industry, that organisation can be found at Stand dot Earth Super. Tzeporah, that's been great. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. Thanks for having me. Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.