Climate chaos: planetary dangers and humanitarian emergency

Kausea Natano, the former Prime Minister of Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific island nation, is one of those screaming. He must have had similar thoughts about oil and wars. He proposed a treaty to stop the expansion of fossil fuels, which he treated like weapons of mass destruction:

"The longer we remain addicted to fossil fuels," Natano said to world leaders at the Santa Marta, Colombia, Conference in April 2026, "the longer we commit ourselves to mutual decline…. A negotiated Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty would complement the Paris Agreement and ensure a global just transition. We've proven we can mobilize our collective ambition at the multilateral level. The scale of the challenge we face can now only be met with an even greater level of ambition and cooperation. I traveled thousands of miles over four days to be here today, because I believe in international cooperation and multilateralism. I have faith in our collective humanity and our ability to foster global solidarity to undertake what needs to be done."

Kausea Natano's treaty proposal began at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 2022. He announced he had the support of "a hundred Nobel laureates and thousands of scientists worldwide to urge world leaders to join the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to manage a just transition away from fossil fuels. The time has come to make peace with the planet…. if we can save our islands, we can save the world."

Four years later, at the Santa Marta, Colombia, conference in April 2026, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, expressed similar views: they favored the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to phase out fossil fuels.

António Guterres said that "The scale of the challenge dwarfs climate action. The future is not fixed. It is for leaders like you to write it…. The move from fossil fuels to renewables is happening – but we are decades behind." Then Gustavo Petro explained why we need to abandon fossil fuels. He said: "The real goal that all countries should have is aiming for zero production and supply of carbon gas and oil. If we don't make that our overarching goal, lives will not be saved. If we keep on our current track, it will be suicide…. Fossil fuel subsidies need to be completely eliminated worldwide."

Finally, Gavin Newsom spoke. He said: "This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. It's not complicated. It's the burning of oil. It's the burning of gas. It's the burning of coal. And we need to call that out. For decades and decades, the fossil fuel industry has been playing every one of us in this room for fools."

Exactly. Natano, Guterres, Petro, and Newsom expressed the virtues of knowledge, wisdom, and humanitarianism at work. The Greeks would say Freedom or Death. The courage and vision of these world leaders are paradigmatic and necessary to stop the fossil fuel looters of the planet. And Prime Minister Natano's proposal to stop the ceaseless rise in global temperature with a Fossil Fuels Non-Proliferation Treaty is original, timely and humanitarian. It also captured the imagination of a few important world leaders.

Al Gore

In his own quiet way, former Vice President Al Gore shared Natano's vision. He is well aware of the planetary grip of the carbon heating gases. His Climate TRACE Coalition can reveal the hitherto secret emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. On November 9, 2022, the UN's Guterres honored Gore at Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. He said:

"Climate TRACE and its data show that because of underreporting of methane leaks, flaring, and other activities associated with oil and gas production, emissions are many times higher than previously reported. This should be a wake-up call for Governments and the financial sector, especially those that continue to invest in and underwrite fossil fuel pollution. The problem is even greater than we were led to believe, and that means we must work even harder to accelerate the phase out of all fossil fuels."

The potential revelations from Gore's climate initiative will probably confirm Guterres' fear that the danger of the unleashed climate Medusa is much greater than we have speculated from incomplete, nay, misleading data.

It turns out satellites track down more than 72,000 carbon polluters on the planet. One of the largest is a steel plant in Zhangjiagang, China, belonging to the Shagang Group. This steel plant has been churning out millions of tons of steel per year. Climate Trace estimated that this plant is the most carbon-polluting factory on the planet. Climate Trace boasts it can monitor carbon pollution from entire countries, industries, individual factories, cargo ships, animal farms, steel, cement, and fertilizer factories, as well as gas and oil extraction facilities. Overall, Trace Climate is giving us a compendium of more than 72,612 polluters. "A hyperlocal atlas of the human activities that are altering the planet's chemistry."