My Tunza Family, the Paris Agreement entering into force in time for next week?s UN climate conference is political recognition of a change that is already well underway. The clean energy transition is not just well underway, it?s unstoppable and accelerating. Legally locking-in the Paris Agreement with almost unprecedented speed is yet another strong signal to business and investors that have moved into clean, sustainable models that they did the right thing. In the last 18 months alone we have passed critical political milestones from the delivery of a climate-friendly development agenda to a groundbreaking deal on short-lived climate pollutants, and in real-terms the global rate of decarbonisation has doubled. Now even oil majors are seeking to back renewable energy in a cynical or possibly desperate roll of the dice as they know they are trapped on the wrong side of history.
 

Countries have agreed to act, and must do so increasingly fast given the UN has again warned our planet remains on the road to more than 3DegC of warming. Boosting national climate actions and filling gaps in the finance deal that rich countries have put on the table to support the poorest are key points for negotiators at COP22 in Morocco. This is no time for the EU to cut policy support for renewables, for the US to trample human rights in the name of dirty pipeline construction, or for Australia to continue abrogating its responsibilities on emissions reductions and coal. Countries have to build on the platform of the Paris Agreement and a good way to start would be to kick polluters, like the World Coal Association, out of the UN climate negotiations for good.

 
Accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels is the only way to prevent a global children?s health crisis and ?an avoidable human tragedy?. The last week has offered some serious evidence of the physical dangers posed by a fossil-powered economy. As choking smog suffocated Diwali celebrations in India and 33 workers tragically lost their lives in a coal mine in China, news broke that air pollution is responsible for the deaths of 600,000 children under the age of five annually, and 300 million children around the world are living in areas subject to extreme levels of toxic fumes. The World Health Organisation and UNICEF have now thrown their weight behind the renewable energy transition that if scaled up could save 100,000 lives a year in China, create 470,000 clean jobs in the US and save the EU $33billion a year in dirty energy imports.