The COP is the Scoreboard, not the Game

For two weeks every December, the giant global climate meeting—this year with at least 70,000 delegates, lobbyists, activists, and journalists enjoying the tacky spaceport that is Dubai—provides a cascade of feelings. This year that intensity is concentrated on a sentence in the “global stocktake” section: there’s much drama around whether it will include the phrase “phaseout of fossil fuels.” This morning’s update: Canada, gentle giant of the north, has been drafted to draft the relevant sentence.

In other energy and climate news:

+A perfect example of great activism paying off. In Massachusetts, which has some of the best climate organizers on the planet, Governor Maura Healey (elected in part because of her true climate bona fides) has now made it clear that natural gas will be, what do you know, phased out in the Commonwealth. As Sabrina Shankman reported in the Globe,

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities examined, and ultimately rejected, proposals from the utilities to meet the state’s climate objectives by replacing natural gas with so-called renewable natural gas, typically methane captured from organic materials, like landfills or livestock operations.

The DPU found that option costly, in short supply, and not a clear climate fix, though it said it may be the best option for certain industries where it’s hardest to find an alternative to natural gas.

Climate and clean energy advocates cheered the news. “This is potentially the most transformational climate decision in Massachusetts history,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the clean energy advocacy group the Acadia Center.

To read the full article from the Crucial Years, click here.