KATOWICE, Poland | Protesters caused a ruckus at a U.S. government event at United Nations climate talks Monday, as they claimed the Trump administration’s policy of backing the extraction of fossil fuels has contributed to global warming.
About 100 people from groups representing indigenous peoples and youth stood up and chanted “Keep it in the ground” near the beginning of the American presentation. As cameras whirled around them, a few of the protesters explained the extraction of coal, oil and natural gas affects their communities.
The U.S. event, titled “U.S. Innovative Technologies Spur Economic Dynamism,” was held on the sidelines of the ongoing U.N. meeting in Katowice, Poland. After several minutes, the activists left the room chanting “Shame on you.” Their actions reflected a similar protest during a U.S.-hosted panel at last year’s U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
Wells Griffith, a Trump administration adviser at the Department of Energy, said after the interruption that the United States plans to continue extracting fossil fuels, including through hydraulic fracking. Speaking at the event, Griffith warned against “alarmism” over climate change, adding that “all energy sources are important, and they will be utilized unapologetically.”
The panel’s theme — that fossil fuels can be made “clean” through innovation — stands at odds with recommendations from scientists who say countries should transition to renewable energy sources as soon as possible or risk catastrophic levels of global warming by the end of the century.
Investors, too, have started to shift away from fossil fuels. On Monday, 415 pension funds and insurance companies, with over $32 trillion in assets, called on governments to phase out coal-fired power plants and put a meaningful price on carbon to help tackle climate change.
Jan Erik Saugestad, the chief executive of Storebrand, a Norwegian fund that manages $85 billion in assets, said even highly efficient coal plants are highly damaging to the environment and carbon capture technology — touted by some as a way to pull emissions out of the air again — isn’t economical.
“Investors are not going to be sold fake news on coal, which seeks to mask the rapid decline of the U.S. coal industry and disregards the solar and wind growth markets,” said Saugestad.
Even as the Trump administration promoted coal abroad, new figures show coal consumption by the U.S. power grid this year will be the lowest since 1979 as a wave of coal-fired power plants shut down.