Climate Change: Even OPEC gets it

Back in May we saw the International Energy Agency - historically not a green organisation - call for an immediate end to fossil fuel development to avoid catastrophic climate change. And now there's another unusual ally in the fight: OPEC:

The finance minister of Iraq, one of the founding members of the global oil cartel Opec, has made an unprecedented call to fellow oil producers to move away from fossil fuel dependency and into renewable energy, ahead of a key Opec meeting.

Ali Allawi, who is also the deputy prime minister of Iraq, has written in the Guardian to urge oil producers to pursue “an economic renewal focused on environmentally sound policies and technologies” that would include solar power and potentially nuclear reactors, and reduce their dependency on fossil fuel exports.

OPEC is literally all about oil and gas production (its in the name: "Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries"). So to have a key OPEC member call time shows how much the ground has shifted (and how serious the crisis is becoming). But if they're serious, they should follow the IEA's advice, and immediately end all new fossil fuel exploration and development, rather than continuing to destroy the planet.