The Oil Free Algarve Platform (PALP) is in Marrakesh, in the Kingdom of Morocco, to accompany the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22) and also to publicize its campaign against prospecting and hydrocarbon exploration.
COP22 starts this Monday, November 7th, in Marrakesh, and will last until the 18th.
According to PALP, "expectations are high, particularly to understand how the international community will fulfill its climate commitments to limit global warming below 2ºC, and make efforts to go further, below 1,5ºC" .
The Paris Agreement, reached at COP21, in December of last year, is considered by the PALP as "a historic landmark", having entered into force on the 4th of November.
However, “this climate agreement is not enough on its own. The level of ambition in terms of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions needs to be raised'.
Achieving zero net GHG emissions in the second half of this century implies that most sectors of the European Union (EU) economy will achieve full decarbonization in the next two decades.
In this sense, considers the PAPL, "the EU must urgently implement a timetable to discontinue the use of fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and natural gas (which cannot be used as a transitional energy source)".
The Platform, which integrates the main national and regional ecological associations and movements, as well as companies and individuals, stresses that «taking into account the level of ambition needed to limit global warming in the planet by 1,5ºC above pre-industrial levels , Portugal must also rethink its climate and energy policy”.
In PALP's opinion, Portugal should carry out a “review of the renewable energy target, with the creation of a national energy strategy. It is possible to reach 100% of renewable electricity already in 2030", as well as rejecting the "exploitation of oil and gas in national territory, canceling the 15 current concessions for prospecting and exploring these fossil fuels on the Portuguese coast".
The country must also accelerate the "abandonment of the use of coal", as well as the "urban rehabilitation with ambitious requirements in terms of energy efficiency and use of renewable energies".
Portugal must also, argues the PALP, review the «mobility policy, through a strong commitment to the expansion and improvement of the efficiency of public transport and soft modes of mobility in cities, to the detriment of the use of individual transport» and promote « use of electric mobility and alternative fuels with low carbon equivalent emissions'.
If you are unable to visit PALP in Marrakech, at stand C123 in the Green Zone, follow it at the Facebook and Twitter.
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