We stopped nuclear weapons spreading. Is it time to the same with fossil fuels?

Fears of nuclear war forced nations to come together to stop spread of atomic weapons.

Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty modelled on nuclear weapons' nuclear disarmament.

A growing coalition of governments, academics, lawyers and activists is pushing for a new treaty to tackle supply of fossil fuels head on.

Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative has hundreds of endorsements from cities, sub-national governments and Indigenous nations.

It also has support from the World Health Organization , the European Parliament and the Vatican .

But only a handful of states have explicitly said they will support it.

Getting the right buy-in from states would be essential to passing and enforcing such a treaty on fossil fuels.

A fossil fuel treaty initiative is moving towards a more formal stage, with work planned on a legal roadmap and the start of multilateral talks.

The initiative has already helped develop a Global Registry of Fossil Fuels , collaborated on a toolkit for phasing out fossil fuels and succeeded in getting idea of a fossil fuel phase-out into the UN 's recent Pact for the Future.