Urgent need to reduce fossil fuel use

Last month, many thousands of demonstrators protested nationwide against our National-led Government’s attack on nature – particularly its intention to repeal Labour’s ban on new gas and oil exploration (beyond onshore Taranaki). 

I received an email this week from Rosemary Harris, UK North Sea senior campaigner at Oil Change International, thanking me for my support and informing me of their newly elected Labour Government’s intention to end oil and gas licensing there. She concluded her two-page message with, “I’m really … excited to see how far we can push the new Government in charge.” 

2023 was the warmest year on record and the Northern Hemisphere summer was reported as being exceptionally hot. There’s a one-in-three chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023, and a 99 per cent chance that 2024 will rank among the five hottest years ever recorded. 

Carbon dioxide acts like Earth’s thermostat: The more of it in the air, the more the planet warms. 

In 2023, global atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide rose to 419 parts per million (ppm), around 50 per cent more than before the Industrial Revolution. That means there are roughly 50% more carbon dioxide molecules in the air than there were in 1750. 

As carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere, it traps heat and warms the planet. 

Ice core measurements show that during my birth year, 1932, carbon dioxide levels were 308.02ppm. Today – July 9, 2024 – readings are 425.85ppm and increasing rapidly. 

If one examines the historical graphs for temperature rise and CO2 rise, they follow the same up-and-down pattern. 

A new assessment says that about 16 million years ago was the last time CO2 levels were consistently higher than now. There is no doubt that human fossil fuel use and emissions are the main cause. 

As Oil Change International, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Forest & Bird and all other protesters plead that we must reduce our use of fossil fuel as soon as possible, I add that even if it hurts our generation, it’s our long-term future that counts. 

Bob Hughes