Alliance to End Oil and Gas Faces Hard Time Gaining Support
Since it started a year ago, an alliance of countries that want to stop making oil and gas has had trouble growing. On Wednesday, only two new nations joined.
The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), which is led by Denmark and Costa Rica, has 10 core members right now. France and Greenland are two of them, but none of them are big fossil fuel producers.
Its creators hoped that announcing its release at the UN climate talks in Glasgow the year before would start a worldwide campaign to stop using fossil fuels.
At the COP27 climate talks in Egypt, Fiji and Chile signed up as "friends" of the alliance on Wednesday, while the US state of Washington has joined as a core member.
Portugal, which had been an associate member, also joined as a core member at COP27, bringing the total to 10 countries and territories, along with Ireland, Quebec, Sweden, and Wales.
Core members of the alliance commit to stopping any new oil and gas projects and "set a... date for ending oil and gas production and exploration on the territory over which they have jurisdiction", a spokesperson said.
Representatives from Kenya and Tuvalu, an island country in the Pacific, told a conference that their countries planned to join in the future.
BOGA said in a statement that it was able to attract new partners despite the global energy crisis, which has resulted in an oil rush and, in particular, gas.
The alliance also announced a new $10 million fund, financed by philanthropic efforts, to provide technical assistance to developing countries in the early stages of their energy transitions.
Source: Zawya
