As planet Earth’s temperatures rise above historic levels, threatening humanity, biodiversity, and ecosystems, the transition to clean energy remains its only remedy.

Greenhouse gas emissions have blanketed the Earth and trapped the sun’s heat, leading to global warming and climate change.

On March 21, 2024, just after the World Meteorological Organisation announced that July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded in the past 120,000 years, the United Nation’s Secretary-General António Guterres ominously declared that the era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.

As the world warms faster than at any other time in history, a heated war has erupted between those seeking profit from pumping more planet-heating fossil fuels out of the ground and those seeking clean (green) energy.

Green energy, also known as renewable or clean energy, refers to energy derived from naturally replenishing sources that have minimal environmental impact, such as solar, wind, and hydropower.

Fossil fuels (coal, oil and methane gas formed over time from the remains of living organisms) are the number one contributor of global warming emissions. Green energy proponents and scientists say fossil fuels are neither sustainable nor safe.

The raging debate and war between proponents and opponents of these two sources of energy centres around this negative contribution of fossil fuels threatening the survival of humanity and nature.

Conflicted conversations

Attrition between these two protagonists play out prominently during UN conference of parties (COPs), notably during COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt in 2022, COP28 in Dubai, UAE in 2023 and at COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan last year.

The latter two countries are among the world’s leading producers of oil and gas. At COP28, nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, but the agreement did not gain traction at COP29, with host President Mukhtar Babayev declaring that fossil fuels were “a gift from God”- to which Denmark’s climate minister Lars Aagard Møller retorted: “Well, I say only if that gift stays on the ground”.

Azerbaijan gets two-thirds of its revenue from oil and gas, the ninth-highest figure in the world. While the US does pump out far more oil and gas than Azerbaijan, it is a much bigger economy so it is a lot less reliant on fossil fuels.

Another large producer, whose economy relies on fossil fuels, Saudi Arabia, stonewalled COP29 negotiations, saying their nation would not accept any texts targeting any specific sectors, including fossil fuels.

Canada’s former climate minister Catherine McKenna, chair of the UN group on net-zero emissions commitments, hit back, saying she was sick of opposition to suggestion of a transition away from fossil fuels, “yet we are in a fossil fuel climate crisis”.

Amid tough negotiations and controversy over fossil fuels, demands have emerged for radical reform in the world’s biggest climate event.

Top climate experts, scientists and former UN chiefs are demanding that countries expanding oil and gas should not hold COP presidencies and host the annual global climate talks. The demand follows growing concerns over some countries chosen to host COPs and their ability to deliver advances in the fight against rising temperatures.

Renewable energy sources are credited with producing significantly less pollution, making them the preferred option for a sustainable future. However, concerns remain about the cost, reliability, and scalability of fully transitioning to renewable energy, particularly in regions with inconsistent weather patterns or high energy demands.

This line of argument has given impetus to the rich and powerful pro-fossil fuel lobbyists led by the new White House under Trump, who plans to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, the legally-binding UN treaty on climate change, and may even pull the US out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC, which underpins global action to tackle climate change.

Simmering war

Trump is halting federal climate action, repealing former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provides unprecedented spending for clean energy.

“The November 5 election was the worst-case outcome for climate regulation. Trump’s return to the Oval Office and Republican control of the Senate and House of Representatives will halt federal progress and lead to a reversal of the Biden administration’s climate initiatives,” wrote Michael Gerrard in Yale Environment 360.

The simmering war between green energy and fossil fuels, described as “transition tensions” by Climate Home News, an award-winning independent digital publication reporting on the international politics of the climate crisis, has taken a dramatic turn after Trump returned to the White House.

Trump’s rash decisions and support for oil drilling expansion have not only disrupted climate action in the fight against global warming, but has also thrown into disarray the international development aid organisations and multilateral financial institutions that support them, forcing a rethink.

In its latest edition, the publication reports: The recent ramp-up of the rhetoric around the energy transition, with Trump emboldening the nay-sayers, suggests the gloves are now fully off. The time for green platitudes is over. Trump has allies.

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the right-wing opposition Conservatives, broke rank with the goal set by her own party to cut the country’s greenhouse emissions to net zero by 2050, saying – with no evidence to back up the claim – that reaching it is “impossible”.

Green proponents are changing tact amidst this onslaught against climate action. At the Chatham House climate and energy conference last week, as reported by Climate Home News, the buzz was about the need to get out of the green echo chamber, pull policy levers and make climate action happen in the real world.

Overhyped promise

Brazil’s National Secretary for Climate Action, Ana Toni, CEO of this year’s COP30 climate summit cautions against expecting COPs to deliver things that COPs cannot deliver, because change happens every day.

“COPs are not silver bullets. We do not need to wait for COP to start implementing,” she argues, emphasising the crucial roles of the private sector and sub-national governments like provinces and cities.

Clearly, there is no time to waste, as those seeking profit from pumping more planet-heating fossil fuels out of the ground mock what they see as the over-hyped promise of clean energy technologies.

Amin Nasser, CEO of oil company Saudi Aramco last week in Texas pointed to the high cost of green hydrogen compared to fossil fuels as a demonstration of the “fiction” that critical transition technologies are genuinely competitive and being rapidly deployed.

He may have a point. While solar and wind power are far cheaper than when they started, more advanced climate tech – from clean hydrogen to carbon capture and storage – is lagging in terms of supply, demand and affordability. The big question is: can clean fuel mandates and improved technology help fix these teething problems?

Still, support for a fast and far phase-out of fossil fuels is mounting around the world. Coal-fired power plants are closing in record numbers.

Oil’s future is uncertain. It’s by far the most popular fuel used in vehicles, though electric cars and other advanced vehicle technology may change that. Without a dramatic decrease in global oil consumption, and a decrease in the political power held by oil companies, we likely won’t be able to prevent catastrophic climate change.