2025 ended as one of the three hottest years ever, and 2026 has started with extreme heat on land in Australia, and geopolitically in America’s military action in Venezuela.

All of them lead back to fossil fuels: America has made no secret that its recent operation in Caracas was all about accessing Venezuela’s oil. But research from our department and a consensus from international scholars finds time and again that most people worldwide want fossil fuels and their associated harms to be significantly reduced.

Stopping the burning of fossil fuels and their emissions is essential to reaching our climate goals, because they are the biggest cause of climate change. Yet the final weeks of 2025 were also marked by a missed opportunity to make the transition away from fossil fuels a reality when the United Nations Conference of Parties 30 ended in Belem, Brazil without an agreement on a pathway to stop using them.

Ending the era of fossil fuels

It was a glaring omission that stands in direct contrast with what the general public wants. Our colleague PhD candidate Robert Goersch’s 2025 paper on acceptability of energy sources analysed 141 papers, and confirmed that the majority of people see fossil fuels (notably coal and oil) as an undesirable form of energy. Most people are favourable towards renewable energy sources (namely solar, wind and hydroelectric).

Other researchers have established that there is widespread support for climate action around the globe. In their 2024 paper, Andre et al found that 89% of respondents demanded intensified climate action, and that there is more demand “for specific climate policies, such as a carbon tax on fossil fuels”, and regulating CO2 emissions of coal-fired plants.

Negative emissions technologies and practices

One way to reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that was widely discussed at COP30 was carbon capture and storage (CCS). Experts further agree that NETPs (Negative Emissions Technologies and Practices) are needed, because they remove existing CO2 emissions and reduce further CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Experts propose that both NETPs and CCS are necessary, but should not replace mitigation efforts.

In her paper, our colleague PhD candidate Chieh-Yu Lee and co-authors found that most EU citizens are generally supportive of some NETPs on the condition that NETPswill benefit future generations, and have a positive impact on the environment. People most strongly favored nature-based NETPs, namely the nature-based solution of afforestation (planting trees in places they did not previously grow) and reforestation (replanting trees in deforested areas) – compared to the technology-based solution of DACCS (direct air carbon capture and storage). Respondents, in keeping with the experts, also expressed concern about NETPs being misused as a reason not to reduce emissions.

At COP30 in the Amazonian rain forest, the vital role of healthy tree growth was a rare source of solace. Reuters reports that countries announced about $9.5 billion in forest funding, even though “negotiators dropped efforts for a roadmap to meet the 2030 zero-deforestation pledge.” But the miraculous carbon sink effect is no silver bullet: forests in the Amazon, Asia and Africa have actually become sources of carbon emissions and are therefore making climate change even worse.

Lowering demand

NETPs and CCS are not enough to fully compensate for ongoing fossil fuel emissions due to their limited scale and effectiveness. They also remain prohibitively expensive. That is why another crucial piece of the puzzle is simultaneously decreasing demand for energy, which means less energy production and therefore fewer emissions, and ensuring that renewable energy is accessible to all.

In a 2025 meta-analysis on factors explaining household energy savings, lead author Steph Zawadzki (and co-authors, all of whom are current or former EP researchers) found that people were likelier to save energy at home if:

• they have a positive attitude toward energy conservation
• they think energy saving is important
• they feel responsible to do so
• they feel capable of saving energy

The analysis suggests that policy makers could make energy-saving programs more effective if they help people feel that energy saving is important, and ensure that they feel good about it, responsible for it and capable of it.

Every little bit helps

Every fraction of a degree below 1.5 degrees means millions of lives saved from extreme weather, billions of euros in disaster recovery funding saved, and many more opportunities for humanity to not just survive, but thrive. We need to phase out fossil fuels. We need to produce and use more renewable energy. We need to reduce demand for energy so that less needs to be produced. We need NETPs and CCS to capture the remaining and hard to reduce emissions. We need every little bit of these solutions and actions to combat climate change – in Belem, in Paris, in Caracas, in our homes and all over the world.

Photo credit: Hasan Zahra/Pexels