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Letters

Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at letters@scmp.com. Submissions should not exceed 400 words, and must include your full name and address, plus a phone number for verification
For the 27th time, fossil fuel lobbyists – over 600 present in Sharm-el-Sheikh – and petrostates managed to get a crucial decision postponed: the displacement of fossil fuels by renewables. The burning of fossil fuels is predominantly responsible for the climate crisis.
With extreme heatwaves in Europe, flooding in Pakistan and droughts hitting American farmers, the impacts of climate change have been more visible this year. There is an urgent need to phase out all fossil fuels by shifting investments to renewables.
Persistent delay of this decision has enabled the climate crisis to wreak havoc in the Global South, which now rightfully demands a “loss and damage” fund. As a result, tackling the impacts of the climate crisis eclipsed tackling its root causes in Egypt.
However, tackling root causes is key to limiting even more devastating consequences. Therefore, paying reparations and investing in renewables should go hand in hand: the Global North should not only finance reconstruction, but also help developing countries leapfrog to renewables.
Big investors, like pension funds, need to consider the consequences of their investment decisions on their entire portfolio. Investors know the costs of runaway climate change will be eye-watering. According to reinsurer Swiss Re, rising temperatures could slash the global economy by as much as 14 per cent (about US$23 trillion a year) by 2050 if the world fails to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.
The climate crisis poses a systemic threat that could wipe out assets worth trillions of dollars; this would place many investors, like pension funds, at risk. Investors who regard themselves as “stewards of the global economy” are thus determined to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Therefore, investors that vote in favour of climate resolutions at oil majors surged from 2.7 per cent in 2016 to 15-39 per cent in 2022. These climate resolutions, filed by shareholder group Follow This, urge Big Oil to drive down emissions.
Big Oil will only change sufficiently if investors are crystal clear that Big Oil has to stop exacerbating climate change and start making large-scale investments in renewables. Only then will the world be able to meet the increasing demand for energy services while reducing emissions to levels consistent with the global intergovernmental consensus specified by the Paris Accord.
More fossil fuels mean more loss and damage. The technology and the public will to transition to a sustainable economy are widely available. Big Oil has the billions to accelerate the energy transition. Since politicians are unashamedly hesitant, Big Oil’s shareholders must take decisive action and urge this industry to shift their investments from fossil fuels to renewables.
Mark van Baal, founder, Follow This
Hong Kong needs more nuclear power
I agree it’s time for more nuclear power in Hong Kong (“Time for more nuclear power? Hong Kong electricity price increases unavoidable, experts say”, November 27).
Nuclear power is the among the top three safest, cleanest and cheapest sources of energy, about the same as wind and solar power, but neither of those two can be a baseload power source, providing the minimum amount of electric power needed for the grid at any time.
We can subsidise wind and solar power all we want, but here in Hong Kong we simply don’t have the space. Although CLP is working on an offshore wind farm, we know from elsewhere that this can only be a small part of the mix.
It’s about time we stopped heeding the scare tactics of prominent green groups which frightened us away from moving into nuclear energy on a large scale in the 70s. These groups are still at it.
More Daya Bays, I say. Nothing else – not solar, not wind – will provide the clean reliable baseload electricity we need.
Peter Forsythe, Discovery Bay


Flood-ravaged Nepal pushes for climate deal with India, China

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Can China’s grain reserves protect food security against El Nino?

Climate change

With fossil fuels again spared at COP27, investors must step up pressure on Big Oil

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and others attend the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 7. Photo: Reuters

Climate change: Indonesia forest loss released carbon equal to Ukraine fossil-fuel use in 2021, data platform shows

An aerial photo shows a palm oil plantation in a protected area of the Rawa Singkil wildlife reserve in Indonesia in 2018. Photo: AFP

Climate change: Why green hydrogen is a long way off replacing fossil fuels in power plants

Last year power plants accounted for 40 per cent of global energy-related emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

COP27: how UN summits have tackled climate change

A polar bear in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Climate scientists point to the Arctic as the place where climate change is most noticeable with dramatic sea ice loss. File photo: AP

US Vice-President Al Gore delivers an opening speech at the ministerial conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. File photo: AP

Activists protest against the results of the COP15 summit in Copenhagen, in 2009. File photo: EPA

Opinion


Readers discuss the need to focus on the root cause of the climate crisis, and why Hong Kong should turn more to nuclear power



Readers discuss the need to focus on the root cause of the climate crisis, and why Hong Kong should turn more to nuclear power.


.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Readers discuss the need to focus on the root cause of the climate crisis, and why Hong Kong should turn more to nuclear power

Readers discuss the need to focus on the root cause of the climate crisis, and why Hong Kong should turn more to nuclear power