It remains up to individuals and advocates to keep pushing

In her Dec. 16 op-ed, “World leaders at COP28 agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Will they follow through?’’ Rachel Cleetus asks the important question. In the United States, it is up to us citizens to do our part individually and at the local and state levels to follow through on actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As a member of the Massachusetts chapter of Elders Climate Action, I am committed to educating my friends and neighbors about what we can do about climate change. I also work with colleagues to advocate for policies to reduce emissions in Massachusetts.

We must work together with the Healey administration and the Legislature to speed up solutions. We’ve got to find the funding to support the transition from fossil fuels to electrification. Statewide organizations such as 350 Massachusetts, Third Act, Mothers Out Front, and others work alongside our chapter on both education and advocacy. We must do this for our children and grandchildren. The work on climate change begins in our homes and communities.

Tina Grosowsky

Hudson

Quick fixes aside, it’s tipping points we have to heed

Notwithstanding the optimistic headline for Durwood Zaelke and Paul Bledsoe’s Dec. 15 op-ed, “A quick fix from COP28 to address climate change? Mandatory methane cuts,’’ the authors raise the threat of the tipping point into “runaway climate calamity,’’ when customary rules, orders, and sequences start to break down and everything changes. Imagine a world where water heats into steam and ice melts into water.

Complex natural ecosystems are subject to often imperceptible, unpredictable, and devastating tipping points. Under what identifiable circumstances, for example, and at what moment does a volcano erupt? Or does a hillside cascade? Or does soil lose fertility? Or do bountiful lakes dry up? Or does wildlife stop breeding?

Conceptually, tipping points abound and are innate in any complex system, including, most importantly, in climate systems. Yes, let’s do everything possible to pick the low-hanging fruit such as methane targets, but let us not fail to understand that it is ultimately and crucially our recognition and prevention of tipping points that will keep our global ecosystems and our world from spinning out of control.

F. William Green

Needham

Biden’s plans to expand LNG fly in face of climate commitments

The recent developments from COP28, the annual United Nations climate talks, paint a concerning picture of global efforts against climate change. The conference, despite its grand staging, achieved limited progress in advancing substantial climate action and raised the question of whether handing the proverbial fire hose over to the arsonists will ever truly address the climate crisis. Yet even in this context, the Biden administration’s plans to expand liquefied natural gas terminals are alarmingly incongruent with climate commitments, even compared with the leaders of the oil-rich petrostates.

The COP28 consensus includes a commitment to substantially reduce non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030 (“A quick fix from COP28 to address climate change? Mandatory methane cuts’’).

At the same time, the Biden administration is considering up to 25 new LNG terminals in the Gulf of Mexico or along the Atlantic Coast. Such a massive expansion blatantly contradicts even modest goals set at COP28 and casts doubt on the administration’s dedication to mitigating climate change. Its willingness to expand fossil fuel infrastructure in such a manner suggests a significant gap between its rhetoric on climate action and its actual policy decisions, undermining its credibility both domestically and on the global stage.

George Gaines

Boxford

US should halt expansion of liquefied natural gas projects

Senator Edward J. Markey’s Dec. 18 op-ed, “America is both a leader and a laggard on climate action,’’ argues for stronger action on fossil fuel phase-outs, particularly on liquefied natural gas exports. These proposed projects would allow natural gas companies to prop up domestic prices in the face of declining demand while locking in decades of excess profits from sales abroad. Worse still, recent studies show that when accounting for methane leakage and the carbon footprint of liquefaction and transport, LNG can be more damaging to the climate than coal.

Furthermore, residents of environmental justice communities on the Louisiana coast, where these projects would be built, would suffer the effects of air pollution from leaking and flaring gas. Existing LNG facilities in the region have a horrendous record of violating pollution regulations.

The US Department of Energy should not approve permits for the expansion of methane exports. The COP28 climate talks lacked binding fossil fuel phase-out targets, but nations can still demonstrate commitment to climate solutions. Ending backing for unnecessary LNG projects is one clear way that the United States can lead.

Frederick Hewett

Cambridge