There are few moments in life that count forever. Choosing who (and if) to marry, becoming a parent, buying a house… Before all of these come the last years of the Greek Lykeio (senior high school) and the critical final exams held during the month of June. The grades one gets at the end of those three years give shape to all the life milestones to come.  

This year’s exams – especially their final days, June 11-13 – were for sure memorable… Temperatures soared to 43C in the month of June in much of the country – an unprecedented occurrence in our lifetime, which forced us to go through this important rite of passage at the end of high school in unbearable conditions.  

Difficulty to focus and breathe, dry mouths during oral exams, stifling heat slowing one’s handwriting, and temperatures that the human body cannot endure for long – these were not the ideal conditions for a successful graduation.  

But the heatwave that messed up our graduation exams is not just bad luck. It is the result of very bad decisions. Recent studies have attributed Greece’s searing heat and ensuing wildfires of the past years to climate change. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that the burning of fossil fuels is a primary cause for the excessive heating and rapidly rising temperatures.

Saudi visa crackdown left heatwave-hit Hajj pilgrims scared to ask for help

This year’s heatwave was not only intense, but earlier than in previous years. As schools close for three months in the summer when the summer heat is high, there is normally not much need for air conditioning and most public schools don’t have more than ceiling fans to cool off.  

The climate crisis has become an unfair obstacle to our individual prospects, affecting our entire generation across countries and continents. Of course, we will work hard to go through all the precious moments that life can offer, but it will be impossible to look back at this boiling month of June and ignore how badly it impacted our grades – and our future.  

This might be a year that fossil fuels, and the companies that profit out of them, stole our opportunity to make memories and build a bright future. 

Climate chaos hitting children

What we have missed in Greece this year pales in comparison to what others around the world have lost. Millions are displaced by floods in Bangladesh, while wildfires and storms claim victims from the Caribbean to China and Canada.  

Children are often those more severely affected: we’re living through a global decline in the provision of education, with the number of children missing out on schooling inflating to a quarter billion. Extreme heat waves, fuelled by fossil fuel companies, threaten our generation’s future. In our times, the climate crisis is no longer just a warning. It is a harsh reality that is affecting our daily lives. 

Climate chaos is real – and we are already facing its impacts. Yet governments have failed to move beyond fossil fuels and continue to depend on oil and gas companies, whose profits have been going strong, at an average of $3 billion a day for the last 50 years.  

UK court ruling provides ammo for anti-fossil fuel lawyers worldwide

Big oil and gas majors like Shell, TotalEnergies, and ENI have known about the impacts of climate change for decades. Yet even though they kept making record profits – they never devoted their talents and resources to fix the problem. They didn’t use their political ties to ring the alarm bell. They rather invested millions and millions in greenwashing and denial.  

Many others knew as well. Even our grandparents knew the lines of Greek singer Cat Stevens (today Yusuf Islam): “You roll on roads… pumping petrol gas… But they just go on and on and it seems that you can’t get off.” It was impossible to ignore.  

Now it’s definitely time to jump off the fossil fuel wagon. Our generation must devote all its energies to raise awareness of how climate chaos is affecting us all, and to mobilise more people to support climate and environmental action. Alternatives must be pursued, and historical polluters must pay for all that they’ve taken from us – including our future. 

The post To keep its profits, Big Oil stole our future  appeared first on Climate Home News.

A few weeks ago, leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) met in Antigua & Barbuda to discuss our next decade of action. This, for us, is the critical decade, no less. We have a few years to change the tides that are swallowing our islands and extinguishing our culture and our identity.  

Pacific Island communities are unwilling witnesses of the climate crisis – emitting minuscule amounts of greenhouse gases while bearing the brunt of the extreme and devastating consequences of the world’s failure to break its addiction to fossil fuels.  

During that meeting, we heard from some G7 leaders that they will support our priorities, that a fossil fuel phase-out and a just and equitable transition is necessary. But these cannot be hollow words. As the single greatest security threat for our region, it is time to implement your commitments or be held accountable for your lack of inaction by carrying the loss of our future generations on your shoulders. 

Just a few months ago, at the UN climate talks in Dubai, countries around the world finally agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. This week in Bonn, any talk of how countries plan to implement this agreement was noticeably absent.

Bonn bulletin: Fossil fuel transition left homeless

But now, G7 nations – Canada, Japan, Italy, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France – are gathering at a historic time for climate politics, holding one of the first opportunities to show their leadership by putting the COP28 decision on fossil fuels into action. 

This will also be the last time these countries meet before they are required to submit updated and enhanced climate plans through to 2035 under the Paris Agreement. It is a final chance for G7 nations to adopt the measures that are necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C. 

Despite having both the capacity and the responsibility to be leaders driving forward a full, fast, fair and funded phase-out of fossil fuels, these countries are not walking the walk – at home or abroad.

Islands as “collateral damage”?

Some G7 countries have plans to massively expand fossil fuel production at home despite science telling us that no new oil, gas, or coal projects are compatible with a safe climate, while others are using billions of the public’s money to finance more fossil fuel infrastructure abroad. 

We are urging G7 nations to demonstrate true leadership at the upcoming negotiations, immediately halting the approval of all new fossil fuel projects and committing to 1.5°C-aligned timelines for phasing out existing fossil fuel reliance in a just and equitable manner.  

This transition must prioritise the needs of developing countries, which bear the brunt of climate change impacts despite contributing the least to its causes. 

G7 coal charade: Funding the fire they claim to fight

G7 countries have already committed to end international public finance for fossil fuel projects but continue approving billions of dollars for fossil fuel infrastructure. They are giving the fossil fuel industry a lifeline, indebting vulnerable countries, and delaying a just energy transition.  

In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: “The idea that an entire island state could become collateral damage for profiteering by the fossil fuel industry is simply obscene.” 

There is no shortage of public money to enable a just and equitable transition to renewable energy and turn the COP28 agreement into a reality. It is just poorly distributed to the most harmful parts of the global economy that are driving climate change and inequality: fossil fuels, unfair colonial debts, and the super-rich. 

We need G7 countries to pay their fair share on fair terms for fossil fuel phase-out and the other crises we face. Climate finance remains the critical enabler of action – over the course of our meetings in Antigua & Barbuda we heard some G7 countries make commitments and pledges; we also heard a lot of solutions and options that will exacerbate our debt burden.  

But for us, it is clear. Climate finance must be scaled up to meet the trillions of dollars needed for adaptation, mitigation, and addressing loss and damage; and sent to where it is most needed – on fair terms that do not further burden our economies with debt. 

Hold fossil fuel firms to account

The members of the G7 are among the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nations. They have a responsibility to lead the way both at home and abroad. Anything less is hypocrisy and gross negligence, and risks endangering the implementation of the COP28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels. 

The Pacific Island nations have been vocal advocates for ambitious climate action and have led by example for decades. In 2023, our leaders aspired to a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. We embedded the language of phase-out and transition in our leaders’ declaration.   

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

We have felt the impacts of climate change more acutely than most and have consistently called for comprehensive and equitable global action for the very survival of our nations and for the good of all people and species.  

For Pacific Island nations, the transition to clean and renewable energy is not just a goal but a necessity for survival. We call upon the G7 to reflect the highest possible ambition. These countries must acknowledge and support our aspiration for a fossil fuel-free future, setting an example for sustainable development that prioritizes the well-being of people and planet over profit – and ensure that the fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate crisis bear the cost of their actions. 

The time for action is now. The fate of our planet hangs in the balance, and the decisions made by the G7 nations will shape our collective future. We implore them to heed the call of the Pacific Island nations and rise to the challenge of the climate crisis with boldness, ambition and urgency. Our shared future depends on it. 

The post G7 countries must deliver on COP28 promise to cut fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

Living in a community on the edge of an acres-wide petrochemical plant in Texas or Louisiana means that you can see, smell, and taste plastic pollution every day. All too often leaders who are charged with making decisions about plastic pollution are too far removed from the impact and easily miss the risks to human health and the environment.

This past week, a thousand miles away, delegates from over 170 countries met in Ottawa, Ontario, to discuss just that: pollution from plastic. This meeting marks the fourth session of the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), where leaders are working to develop a legally binding, global plastics treaty ahead of final negotiations set for November.

As decisions move forward, Beyond Petrochemicals is supporting our community partners to help bring their lived experience to the negotiation process. These frontline leaders are working hard to push for a fair and effective treaty that puts public health, human rights, and the environment first.

But the petrochemical industry is at work too, placing pro-plastic ads near negotiating rooms and touting false solutions like “chemical recycling.” Industry executives continue to downplay the role of plastics in the issue of pollution, even as a new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that plastic production emits as much carbon pollution as 600 coal-fired power plants annually. By 2050, carbon pollution from plastics production could triple, taking up as much as 20 percent of our remaining carbon budget and undercutting global efforts on climate change.

Canadian minister vows to fight attempts to weaken plastic pollution treaty

It can be hard to relate to the fluctuations of international treaty negotiations or new scientific reports when you spend each day worried about breathing in the pollutants being negotiated. It’s easy to feel like just a number—some statistic about economic hardship or disease. That’s a problem.

Firsthand experience of pollution

Communities know firsthand the impact of plastic pollution at every step of the process. Plastic pollution begins when companies drill and extract oil and gas and use it to process and manufacture petrochemicals for plastics. More than a third of the carbon pollution generated by plastic production happens during the extraction and refining of fossil fuels. And it’s not just carbon pollution, this industry is suffocating communities in places like Texas, Louisiana, and the Ohio River Valley with millions of tons of toxic, cancer-causing pollution.

The global plastics treaty can be a landmark international agreement to address the escalating crisis of plastic pollution at every step – but the only way to get an effective treaty is with the perspectives and input of the communities on the frontlines of petrochemical pollution. Because when communities are trusted to lead, real change is possible.

I have seen the power of communities declaring they are more than a number. Two women separated by a thousand miles and seemingly just as many differences dared to fight the expansion of the petrochemical industry in their community – and they won.

Jill Hunkler, Ohio Valley resident and grassroots leader

Jill Hunkler, a seventh-generation Ohio Valley resident, is a fierce advocate for her community. Faced with plans to displace her friends and neighbors to build the largest ethylene plant of its kind in the United States, she became a leader of a grassroots movement. Phone calls, emails, and meetings helped put the pressure needed on state and federal leaders and stalled what was once seen as inevitable.

Together, they were more than a number and in fact helped avert 1.7 million tons of carbon emissions per year.

Sharon Lavigne of RISE St. James

Sharon Lavigne, a retired teacher from St. James Parish, Louisiana, is tired of the moniker given to her community, “Cancer Alley.” Decades of unabated industrial development have overwhelmed this primarily Black parish leaving a wake of disease and hardship. Sharon knows her parish is more than this, that it is more than a number.

Founding the group RISE St. James, Sharon is leading a multi-generational movement to block a petrochemical and plastics facility poised to produce as much pollution as three new coal plants. Their fight against the Formosa Sunshine plant has gained global attention thanks to her leadership, spurring legal actions and rallying work to ensure this plant is never built.

Sharon and Jill are not alone. Last year, a total of five newly planned petrochemical facilities were blocked by similar community efforts. And last week, after nearly two years of community-led organizing and opposition, Encina Development Group withdrew its plans to build a toxic chemical recycling facility along the Susquehanna River in Point Township, Pennsylvania.

People coming together makes a difference. As the plastics industry works to expand – to build more petrochemical plants and create more plastic than we could ever possibly need – the perspectives of frontline leaders are essential if we are going to arrive at a global plastics treaty that supports a stable climate, a livable planet, and a just future. Alongside powerful community organizers, my colleagues and I are proud to continue this effort to stop the expansion of the petrochemical industry.

Heather McTeer Toney is also the author of Before the Streetlights Come On: Black America’s Urgent Call for Climate Solutions. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the Southeast region. In 2004, she became the first woman and African American to be elected mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, a position she held until 2011.

The post ‘More than a number’: Global plastic talks need community experts appeared first on Climate Home News.

I was six when I started catching shrimp in the waterways of Louisiana. I inherited the livelihood that sustained my father, grandfather, and generations before them. My boat in the Gulf of Mexico is my second home. But I may lose it all – in part to Japan’s dangerous investments in fossil gas.

Eight years ago, fossil fuel companies and their government allies moved Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects into the region and turned our fishing community upside down. The Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal was just 300 feet from my house, and promised “deep-water access, proximity to plentiful gas supplies and ease of transport for buyers”. Vibrations from its operations were so intense they knocked pictures off my wall. My wife suffered a heart attack, and my children were frequently ill. Facing dire health consequences and daily interruptions, my family was driven from our home.

Most people don’t realize that Japan is bankrolling LNG and the destruction along the US Gulf Coast. Japanese private banks MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC are the first, second, and third biggest financiers of LNG export projects in the US. These banks have committed more than $13 million,  $11 million, and $10 million respectively to US-based LNG projects.

On April 10, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet with President Joe Biden in Washington, DC to discuss the US and Japan’s commitment to promoting stability in the world and the advancement of clean energy supply chains. Biden clearly understands the need to take a hard look at the impacts of future LNG development as indicated by the pause he announced recently.

His administration has called the climate crisis the “existential threat of our time,” and sees the US as a champion to support other world leaders’ transition to green energy. But my family, and so many around me, are still waiting for change.

Travis Dardar drives his boat on the water with the Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal shown in the background. (Photo: Susanne Wong / Oil Change International)

Massive LNG tankers now crowd the water and wildlife is disappearing. Before the Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal started operating last year, local fishermen caught about 700,000 pounds of shrimp annually. The shrimp catch is now down nearly 90%, with no compensation for losing our livelihoods.

The devastating impacts of LNG on communities like mine and our unwavering opposition is the reason why in January President Biden paused LNG export approvals. The US Department of Energy is supposed to consider how to determine whether these projects are in the public interest and to take into account impacts on communities, ecosystems, and climate. Unfortunately, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently indicated this pause could be lifted within the year, when what we really need is for President Biden to stop all new LNG export projects for good.

European court rules climate inaction by states breaches human rights

Increasingly, the international community recognizes fossil fuels’ toxic effects on the environment and communities and the momentum is shifting towards clean energy.  Yet, Japan is still driving the expansion of gas and LNG in the US, across Asia and globally. In spite of Japan’s declining LNG demand at home, Japan is staking its economic growth on pushing governments across South and Southeast Asia to import LNG.

I invite Prime Minister Kishida to travel on my boat while he is in the US to see for himself the impact of Japan’s dirty energy projects on Gulf communities.

Air pollution hits health

Health deterioration in my community is unsurprising, given the plant’s pollution emissions. Long-term exposure to LNG chemicals can lead to heart disease and certain types of cancer, and living near a pollution center has been linked to increased stress, depression, and other mental health problems.

According to research by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the Calcasieu Pass LNG export terminal violated its air pollution permits on 286 of the first 343 days it was in operation – 83% of its first year. Rather than working to clean up its operations, Venture Global, the gas company behind the LNG facility, petitioned the state air quality agency to increase its allowable pollution limits. If the gas project already built can’t even follow pollution regulations, how can we expect the two plants posed for construction upstream to do so?

Despite this, the Gulf area buzzes with Japanese LNG operations. The proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 terminal is part of a 20-year contract with JERA, Japan’s largest gas company and the world’s largest LNG buyer. JERA agreed to buy 1 million tons of LNG annually from the project. INPEX, Japan’s largest oil and gas producer, also signed a 20-year contract to buy 1 million tons of LNG annually. These corporate operations and their profits are behind Japan’s push to expand LNG markets around the world.

Zambia’s fossil-fuel subsidy cuts help climate and kids – but taxi drivers suffer

Japan has developed a regional initiative, the Asia Zero Emissions Community, that will expand and prolong the use of fossil fuels by proposing to abate their emissions. This is a greenwashing effort to push governments in Asia to adopt dangerous distractions like hydrogen, ammonia, and carbon capture and storage. In reality, this will expand and prolong the harm of fossil fuels on communities like mine.

Although Biden’s pause on LNG export authorizations is a step in the right direction, it’s hard to celebrate here in Cameron Parish. LNG tankers dominate the water, and fishers are left to collect the scraps of our communities and livelihoods. Even with the setbacks, our community hasn’t given up hope. I founded Fishermen Interested in Saving Our Heritage (FISH), a united front that will fight to protect our homes, the environment, and access to the Gulf waters. We are focused on saving our way of life.

As the largest LNG exporter in the world, the US holds major influence in this tainted market. During their upcoming meeting, I urge Prime Minister Kishida and President Biden to recognize our future in renewables and stop sacrificing frontline communities for profit.

The post Louisiana communities are suffering from Japan-funded LNG exports appeared first on Climate Home News.

At the Cop28 climate summit last December, governments agreed to set up a new global carbon credit market under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement – and a host of fossil fuel firms and their middlemen are now trying to cash in by making their projects eligible for trading.

Developers applied for thousands of projects to be transferred over from the old discredited Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to the new market that will be established, before the deadline of January 1 this year.

Most of these projects are for renewable energy – which, while good for the climate, have stirred debate. Critics argue that they do not need additional funding from selling carbon credits because they are profitable without it.

However, more controversial are ten projects Climate Home News has identified, based largely in Asia, which backed the construction of power plants that run on natural gas, one of the fossil fuels governments agreed to transition away from at Cop28. 

If approved by their host nations, the projects would transfer more than 10 million old gas-linked credits – equivalent to the reduction of 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions a year – to the new Paris carbon market.

“These projects are entirely inappropriate,” said Carbon Market Watch researcher Jonathan Crook. “Some were registered as far back as 2009. It’s unreasonable to assume they expected to rely on revenue from a new market mechanism in 2024 – not to mention that these projects may lock in fossil fuel emissions and infrastructure for years to come, among other issues.”

Clean, cheap or fair – which countries should pump the last oil and gas?

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market was set up in 2021 in a bid to ensure that carbon credits deliver on the emissions reductions they have promised and have a positive impact for the climate. In its categorisation of different types of carbon credit, offsets issued for gas-fired power plants are given the worst ranking.

Similarly, BeZero, a ratings agency for carbon credit projects, looked at three of the CDM gas projects that have applied for transfer to the new market. It gave them a ‘C’ grade, meaning they “provide a very low likelihood” of reducing emissions by as much as they claim. 

It cited the “minimal impact” of carbon credit revenues on the project’s overall financial situation and the risk of methane leaks from gas infrastructure that would make the projects more polluting than asserted.

Chinese gas-fired plant

The biggest project is a gas-fired power plant built by China’s state-owned oil and gas company CNOOC and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi in 2010 in the province of Fujian, China, just across the sea from Taiwan.

To fire the plant’s four turbines, CNOOC and Mitsubishi imported gas from an Indonesian gas field called Tangguh, which they both had stakes in, through the CNOOC-owned Fujian gas import terminal.

In addition to the income they received from selling the gas, importing it through the terminal and then selling the electricity it produced, they also submitted an application to the CDM to develop and sell carbon credits linked to the plant.

By their own calculations, the plant would emit 2.3 million tonnes of CO2 a year when fully operational. But if they didn’t build it, they said the electricity would come from coal, emitting over 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 a year. So they claimed credits for reducing the amount of CO2 that would have entered the atmosphere by an annual 3 million tonnes.

Justifying this assumption, they said that oil was too expensive and zero-carbon alternatives were not viable as an alternative. Most of Fujian’s hydropower potential had already been tapped, while wind power was “just start-up” and “of seasonal nature”, they added. They did not even mention solar power  – now the cheapest electricity source.

However, coal’s main competitors in the province are not gas but nuclear and hydro, power sources that do not emit greenhouse gases. Wind power has also grown rapidly in the province since the gas-fired plant was built.

Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Climate Home: “The premise that power generation growth would come from coal if a new fossil gas plant wasn’t built was never true and certainly is not true today.”

Mitsubishi withdrew from the carbon credit project in 2022. While CNOOC remains involved, the main project participant is now a company called Europe New Energy Investment Capital, run by a Chinese citizen called Dongquan Yang.

A spokesperson for CNOOC said the project “is out of the scope of CNOOC Limited’s business operations”. Asked how that was compatible with CNOOC Fujian Gas Power Co., Ltd being listed as an authorised participant, the spokesperson did not reply. 

Indian carbon-credit developer

Fossil fuel firms are not the only ones trying to monetise carbon offsets from existing gas power plants. Documents show that Indian company EnKing – which has since changed its name to EKI Energy Services Ltd and claims to be the world’s biggest developer of carbon credits – is involved in three of the Indian gas power projects identified.

Last August, Climate Home revealed that EnKing vastly overestimated the benefits of carbon offsets linked to cookstoves in rural India and helped sell those junk credits to oil and gas giant Shell.

Cooking the books: cookstove offsets produce millions of fake emission cuts

Working with fossil fuel companies, EnKing used a methodology (AM0025), under the old Clean Development Mechanism, to derive credits from the building of gas-fired power plants in India.

The successor to this methodology is still technically up and running – but Verra, one of the main international carbon credit verifiers, has declared it inactive due to lack of use.

According to Crook of Carbon Market Watch, it is “extremely unlikely” that this type of methodology will be applicable under Article 6.4, which will govern the new UN carbon market when it launches. EnKing did not reply to a request for comment.

‘Not good practice’

To oversee the new carbon market, governments have agreed to set up an Article 6.4 supervisory body, made up of government climate negotiators. But the rules agreed for it so far offer little power to reject old CDM credits from gas-fired power plants. 

The host countries of those projects – including China and India – could refuse to authorise them, but they could still be sold, branded as “mitigation contribution units” under Article 6.4.

These are a lower class of carbon credit agreed at Cop27 which do not require authorisation by the host country as it does not need to do a “corresponding adjustment” for them, which means wiping the credits’ emissions reductions from its accounts.

Carbon credits talks collapse at Cop28 over integrity concerns

Mitigation contribution units cannot be counted towards national emissions goals set under the UN climate process, but they can be bought by companies and used for other purposes. That means the firms trying to sell carbon credits from old gas power stations just need to find buyers to make a profit.

Crook said such deals “wouldn’t be good practice”. “Retiring these credits paradoxically rewards fossil fuel companies for locking in emissions,” he added.

The post Fossil fuel firms seek UN carbon market cash for old gas plants appeared first on Climate Home News.

Last month, recently elected president Daniel Noboa said in an interview to a local media outlet that he believed that a “moratorium [to the referendum result regarding oil exploitation in the Yasuní] is a viable path”. 

While Noboa supported keeping oil in the ground during the refendum, he now argues that Ecuador is at war and that “we are not in the same situation as two years ago”.

Activists and indigenous people told Climate Home they were concerned about the president’s remarks, adding that democracy is under threat and that their “hope is being taken away”. 

Back in August, 59% of Ecuadorians voted to stop oil drilling in block 43. Environmentalists around the world celebrated the victory as an example of how to use democratic processes to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Since then though, the country has gone through a political and social crisis due to a rise in gang violence. The government declared a state of emergency earlier this year, following the escape of a powerful drug lord from a top security prison.

The new president Noboa suggested that the oil from the Yasuní could help fund the “war” against drug cartels. 

Taking away hope

Pedro Bermeo is a spokesperson for Yasunidos, a coalition of indigenous NGOs from the Amazon that led the call for the referendum. He said Noboa’s statement is “worrying, unwise, and undemocratic” as Noboa is saying he won’t abide by people’s votes. 

Belén Páez, president of climate and indigenous rights NGO Fundación Pachamama, said Noboa’s statement “is very dangerous in several ways because it attempts against the citizens’ decision and puts democracy at risk”. 

As someone who voted in favor to keep Yasuní’s oil underground, Bermeo said that people like him feel their “hope is being taken away”. 

Bermeo said that, when the refendum took place, Ecuador was already facing extreme violence and poverty. But nevertheless, people voted to keep the oil in the ground.

“There was a feeling of hope to protect life on the planet”, says the activist. So now Bermeo argues that voters feel defrauded and “have stopped believing in the State”. 

Belén Páez added “it makes us all feel bad and distrustful”. 

Páez, who has worked to protect indigenous rights in Ecuador, added that Noboa’s remarks could result in a set back of other environmental policies. 

Moi Guiquita of the indigenous Waorani people in the Ecuadorian Amazon pulls a boat over flooded jungle areas at the lagoon of the Yasuni National Park in the Bameno community, in the Pastaza province, in Ecuador, July 29, 2023. REUTERS/Karen Toro

Fighting back

On February 1, the indigenous Amazon Waorani Nationality declared themselves in a ‘territorial emergency’ and demanded that the government respects the referendum.

At a press conference, the indigenous group rejected Noboa’s proposal of a moratorium. They added that a moratorium would perpetuate the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights and territory, including those of the Tagaeri and Taromenane, the only two indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation in Ecuador. 

The Waorani Nationality announced that, if a moratorium is formally proposed, they will take legal action against the Ecuadorian State. Their decision to do so was supported by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

“We are not going to allow our rights to continue being violated,” said Waoranai Nationality president Juan Bay, “it is time for us to have social and environmental justice”. 

Second referendum

Mauricio Alarcón is a rule of law and democracy campaigner at Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo. He said this situation leaves voters with “an unpleasant feeling”.

Alarcón argues that Noboa’s statement is contradictory to his past stances, as he vowed to protect the Yasuní when he was a presidential candidate. 

He added that a moratorium on the referendum is technically possible, but it might not be as easy as the government is making it seem.

The results of a referendum can only be reversed through another referendum, he said, which would force the government to propose a new vote on whether to put in place a moratorium..

If what the government intends is a total reversal of what has been decided regarding the Yasuní, a referendum is also the way to go, “and it will be the citizens the ones to have the last word”, states Alarcón. 

Since his remarks in January, president Daniel Noboa hasn’t referred to the moratorium again. But government insiders say that it is still a possibility. 

The post Ecuador’s new president tries to wriggle out of oil drilling referendum appeared first on Climate Home News.

Like every year, the quick answer is more than nothing but less than enough. To dissect that in more detail, here are our six takeaways from the year in climate.

1. Oil and gas felt the heat

Phasing out or down fossil fuels? Abated or unabated? Scaling up renewables, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and techno solutions. Energy dilemmas, and their buzzwords animated international talks in 2023.

The headline breakthrough came at the end. The Cop28 agreement included for the first time a goal to move away from all fossil fuels in energy systems.

It was the centrepiece of a bigger package that included a call for the tripling of renewables and doubling energy efficiency by 2030.

But it also gave a platform to “transitional fuels” (read gas) and CCS, which some politicians and campaigners regard as “dangerous loopholes” for continued fossil fuel use.

Cop hosts the UAE and most developed countries welcomed the deal as “historic”. For small island states and other vulnerable nations it did not go far enough.

Like most Cop agreements, it was the result of a hard-won compromise struck in overtime – after Saudi-led opposition threatened to leave oil and gas out of the text altogether.

Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber applauds in the closing plenary (Photo: Flickr/Cop28/Christopher Pike)

The road to Dubai had been equally bumpy. The G7 saw fights over gas and coal with hosts Japan attempting to push controversial strategies like ammonia co-firing.

The G20 in Delhi offered a dress rehearsal of what was to expect at Cop with broad agreement over renewables and bitter disputes over fossil fuels.

In the background, Sultan Al Jaber, oil executive turned Cop president, garnered constant curiosity and scrutiny. He was initially adamant that the focus should be on emissions and not on the fuels themselves, raising more than an eyebrow. But, amid a series of controversies and apparent slip-ups, his position gradually shifted.

Al Jaber contended the Dubai deal would be enough to keep the 1.5C goal in sight. A day later he told the Guardian that Adnoc, the oil firm he runs, would press ahead with a massive oil and gas expansion.

Other rich nations, like the US, keep him company on that front. Such chasms between words and actions will continue to be closely watched.

2. Slow progress on climate cash

The other side of the coin from the fossil fuels debate is finance. When rich countries ask their developing counterparts to sign on to ambitious energy transition plans, many reply: ‘who is going to be paying for that?’

When governments wrangled over targets for adapting to climate change, similar questions were asked.

A clear answer was never forthcoming. We might get more clarity in 2024, with governments set to discuss, and hopefully agree on, a new collective goal at Cop29 in Baku in November.

But a lack of trust has taken root. Rich countries have so far not respected the previous commitment to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to vulnerable countries.

That was “likely” met in 2022, two years after the original deadline, according to the OECD. We will be looking out for the receipts for confirmation.

Countries were also invited to refill the coffers of the Green Climate Fund. The four-yearly replenishment round got off to a decent start, but an underwhelming pledging summit in October put ambition at risk.

Then the US landed in Dubai in December with a $3 billion funding promise. It brought total pledges to $12.8 billion – setting the GCF on course for a “middling” level of ambition.

But that comes with a gigantic caveat. To deliver the dollars, the Biden administration will have to persuade Republicans in Congress or take control of it by winning elections. Both are tall orders.

Graphic: Joe Thwaites/NRDC

Money talked outside UN diplomacy too. Lots of attention centred on the much-touted reforms of multilateral development banks inspired by the Bridgetown Agenda.

Progress has been slower than many were hoping for. The World Bank lowered its equity-to-loan ratio, freeing up $4 billion a year.

It also installed a new more climate-aware president, officially changed its mission statement and promised pauses in debt repayments for disaster-hit countries. Encouraging steps, but far short of the trillions of dollars developing countries have been calling for.

3.US-China climate talks thawed

Formal diplomatic relations between the world’s biggest polluters suffered an ice-age-like deep freeze in the latter part of 2022 after US Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. Climate talks were collateral damage.

But 2023 saw a slow but steady thawing. It culminated in a momentous bilateral meeting held in Califonia’s Sunnylands resort a few weeks before Cop28.

The countries’ respective climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, agreed to revive a climate working group and sketched out the outline of a potential alignment in the upcoming negotiations.

It proved decisive. In particular, their joint support to “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation” helped find the right formula to unstick the thorny energy language in Dubai.

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua before a meeting in Beijing, China July 17, 2023. (Reuters/Valerie Volcovici/ File Photo)

The special personal relationship between Kerry and Xie was a big factor in these improved relations.

When formal diplomacy was on hold, the two kept talking. Xie even brought his grandson to Dubai because the 8-year-old wanted to say “happy birthday to my good friend Mr. Kerry”, who turned 80 during the summit.

But Cop28 was most likely their last hurrah together. Xie is set to retire soon ending a 16-years on-and-off stint. He is likely to be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, a former vice foreign minister.

Kerry has been vague about his future with US elections looming large on the horizon. He recently told Reuters that he would “continue as long as God gives me the breath and work on it [climate] one way or the other”.

4. Carbon credits terrible year

To say 2023 won’t be remembered as carbon credits’ finest year is an understatement. It began with a now-infamous report pouring cold water on forestry-based offsets and ended with talks over Article 6 falling apart spectacularly in Dubai.

In between, scandal after scandal dented the reputation of carbon markets. From the collapse of the world’s second largest project to the suspension of dozens of schemes over exaggerated claims or alleged human rights violations. The blowback prompted even some of the most enthusiastic corporate credits buyers to cool on the idea.

Co-chairs of negotiations at Cop28 on carbon trading rules
(Photo: Flickr/Cop28/Kiara Worth)

Many carbon market supporters had pinned hopes on Cop28 for a spot of good news. Ahead of the talks, it looked like governments could finally fire the starting gun on the creation of a long-awaited global carbon market under the Paris Agreement.

But those hopes were misplaced. Negotiations ended without an outcome following a bitter disagreement over integrity rules between the US and the EU.

Leaping on the string of failures, some critics have been pushing for the whole concept of carbon offsetting to be chucked into the dustbin of history.

But others claim carbon markets provide an essential source of finance for developing nations, love it or loathe it. They are trying to build them back up from the nadir with more stringent climate provisions and better social safeguards.

5. Coal-to-clean deals reality check

As  promises turned into proper plans, Just energy transition partnerships (Jetp) hit the cold wall of reality in 2023. The three initial deals – with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam – have all been beset by issues.

The type of money put on the table by rich nations has been a source of common grievance. Grants make up a very small percentage of the funding packages, fuelling fears over debt. As a result, recipient countries revised climate targets downwards.

The energy transition deal aims to wean Indonesia off coal, which now takes up nearly half of the country’s electricity mix. Photo: Kemal Jufri / Greenpeace

Indonesia has watered down coal retirement plans. It now aims to start shutting down on-grid plants before their scheduled closure no earlier than 2035 – five years later than originally planned.

So-called captive plants, that power specific industries, have also caused a massive headache. Wrong assumptions meant a much lower number of them were baked in the original modelling. Struggling to find a way out, the Indonesian government has so far excluded them – and their emissions – wholesale from the Jetp blueprint.

Vietnam’s investment plan, unveiled during Cop28, has no timeline at all for retiring coal. It expects instead to operate plants “flexibly” and to rely on the controversial co-firing of biomass and ammonia with coal.

The authoritarian Vietnamese government has also all but buried the ‘just’ aspect of the partnership. It has jailed five environmentalists on tax evasion charges, which human rights groups say are trumped-up accusations.

Vietnamese campaigner Hoang Thi Minh Hong was sentenced to three years in prison. Photo: CHANGE/350Vietnam

In South Africa, the transition is meant to be reasonably easier as its Apartheid-era coal plants are nearing retirement. But crippling blackouts prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to say the timetable “must be relooked at” earlier this year.

The plan is also facing fierce opposition from the powerful coal lobby. Our investigation with Oxpeckers discovered the sector partnered with politicians and even managed to water down or delay key policies in a bid to sink the scheme.

6. Loss and damage fund’s good start

As the Cop27 president gavelled the landmark decision on a loss and damage fund in Sharm-el-Sheik, a question loomed large: will countries manage to agree on how it should work within the following 12 months?

‘Yes, definitely’ was the answer.

Governments adopted the decision on operationalising the fund on the very first day of Cop28. It gave the summit’s president Al Jaber an early win and prevented loss and damage from being used as a bargaining chip in the ensuing negotiations.

The success is down to the painstaking work of a 24-member transitional committee that hashed out the details over five gruelling meetings. At the outset, developed and developing countries were at odds on just about everything: who should benefit from the fund, who is expected to pay into it, where it’s meant to be hosted.

Distances gradually narrowed and a compromise deal was eventually struck a month before the climate summit. The World Bank will initially host the fund for four years, despite strong resistance to its involvement from developing nations.

Campaigners at Cop27 call for a loss and damage fund to be set up (Photo credit: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC)

All developing countries “particularly vulnerable” to the effects of climate change will be eligible to benefit from the mechanism. However, the definition of vulnerability – one of the thorniest issues – has not yet been defined.

The decision “urges” developed countries to provide financial resources to the fund, while other nations are only “encouraged” to do so “on a voluntary basis”. Rich nations have been strongly pushing to broaden the donor pool and will likely keep up their efforts.

Pledges from a slew of countries should inject over $700 million for the start-up of the fund. The UAE won plaudits by committing $100 million. The US was lambasted for offering a paltry $17.5m, despite being the world’s largest economy and biggest historical emitter.

The post Six takeaways from 2023’s climate change news appeared first on Climate Home News.

The final text for the first time mentions all fossil fuels, “calling on” parties to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.

Most delegates were satisfied with the result, with no country opposing the text in the final plenary. Vulnerable nations and some observers had mixed feelings.

No ‘phase-out’, but Dubai deal puts oil and gas sector on notice

EU: Beginning of the end of fossil fuels

EU chief negotiator Wopke Hoekstra told a press huddle outside the plenary that the global stocktake text, the main outcome from Cop28, was “truly consequential” and the “beginning of the end of fossil fuels”.

The EU’s Wopke Hoekstra describes this text as “truly consequential” and “the beginning of the end of fossil fuels” #Cop28 pic.twitter.com/aZxYYubcsO

— Joe Lo is @joeloclimate@bsky.social (@joeloyo) December 13, 2023

Aosis: Litany of loopholes

Anne Rasmussen, representing the alliance of small island states (Aosis), told the plenary:

“In terms of safeguarding 1.5C in a meaningful way, the language is certainly a step forward, it speaks to transitioning away from fossil fuels in a way the process has not done before. But we must note the text does not speak specifically to fossil fuel phase-out and mitigation in a way that is in fact the step change that is needed. It is incremental and not transformational.

“We see a litany of loopholes in this text that are a major concern to us.”

Tears flowed and a lengthy rousing ovation during final plenary just now for AOSIS Chair #AnneRasmussen, as she delivered an emotional response filled with unsparing observations about the final outcomes from #COP28UAE pic.twitter.com/YEt4sgIvB0

— AOSIS (@AOSISChair) December 13, 2023

US: Strong messages

US climate envoy John Kerry told the plenary:

“While nobody here will see their views completely reflected in a consensus document of so many nations, the fact is that this document sends very strong messages to the world.

“First, the document highlights that we have to adhere to keep 1.5C within reach. That is the North star. We therefore must do those things necessary to keep 1.5C. Everything we can to achieve this goal.

“In particular it states that our next [national climate plans] will be aligned with limiting warming to 1.5C. I think everyone has to agree this is much stronger and clearer as a call on 1.5C than we have ever heard before.”

Saudi Arabia: Silence

The Saudi delegation does not join in the applause as #Cop28 president says “We have language on fossil fuel for the first time ever” pic.twitter.com/wv2qa7zqje

— Joe Lo is @joeloclimate@bsky.social (@joeloyo) December 13, 2023

UAE: Different sort of Cop

Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber told the final plenary in Dubai:

“It is an enhanced, balanced, but make no mistake historic package to accelerate climate action. It is the ‘UAE Consensus’. Many said this could not be done.

“But when I spoke to you at the very start of Cop, I promised a different sort of Cop. A Cop that brought everyone together, private and public sectors, civil society and faith leaders, youth and indigenous peoples. Everyone came together from day one. Everyone united, acted and delivered.”

France: Still work ahead

French minister for energy transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher told reporters outside the plenary:

“We need to be very cautious and to report and make sure that every country improves their [national climate plans] and that, at the same time, we are going to put the money on the field so that developing countries can do their own transitions and adaptations. That is what is at stake today — how will the finance come to the most vulnerable countries?”

India: Outcomes backed by finance

Indian minister for environment, forest and climate change Bhupender Yadav said in a statement:

“India urges that the determination shown at Cop is also substantiated with means to bring it to fruition. This must be based on the principles of equity and climate justice, which is respectful of national circumstances, and where the developed countries take the lead based on their historical contributions.”

Today, the world came together at #COP28 in Dubai, UAE to display positive collaboration and camaraderie for an action-oriented approach towards a greener and healthier planet.

Through its G20 Presidency steered by PM Shri @narendramodi ji, India displayed the resolve to make… pic.twitter.com/eC07BAr4Fy

— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) December 13, 2023

Least developed countries: We expected more

Madeleine Diouf Sarr, head of climate change at the ministry of environment of Senegal and chair of the least developed countries group, said in a statement:

“This outcome is not perfect, we expected more. It reflects the very lowest possible ambition that we could accept rather than what we know, according to the best available science, is necessary to urgently address the climate crisis.”

“Next year will be critical in deciding the new climate finance goal, which must be informed by this global stocktake, and must close the vast gaps that have been identified. To respond to the global stocktake, the new goal must reflect the full needs of our countries to address climate change, including the costs to mitigate, to adapt, and to address loss and damage.”

Colombia: Gas colonising decarbonisation

Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad told the plenary:

“Loopholes (in the final text) have risks and the risks can undermine the political will. The transition fuels could end up colonising the space of decarbonisation. Right now, in the financial segment of the text, we don’t have still the economic structure required for this deep transition — which is not only an energy transition but is fundamentally a whole-of-society economic transition.”

La transición para dejar los combustibles fósiles, debe complementarse con un Tratado que entregue reglas claras de financiamiento para los países, pero además respetando los bosques y las comunidades. ¡Nuestra lucha por la justicia climática y equidad, sigue! #COP28 pic.twitter.com/37rn1AzHFa

— Susana Muhamad (@susanamuhamad) December 13, 2023

Germany: Multilateralism delivers

German state secretary and special envoy for international climate action Jennifer Morgan said in a statement:

“Today the world adopted a historic decision that is strongly guided by the 1.5C limit. There is an unmistakable signal that the future is renewables and not fossil fuels. For the first time, countries made the decision to transition away from fossil fuels, accelerating action in this critical decade.

“Today we showed that multilateralism delivers. Tomorrow we drive these decisions forward. We must be fast. We must be deliberate, with ambition and solidarity for climate justice.”

Bolivia: Rich nations must step up

Bolivian chief negotiator Diego Pacheco told the plenary:

“We cannot support outcomes that mean that the world will enter a new era of implementation of the Paris Agreement without equity, without common but differentiated responsibilities, without a differentiation between developed and developing countries and without means of implementation and concrete financing for developing countries.

Developed countries have not decided to take the initiative of leading the fight against the climate crisis and this is jeopardising the lives of people in our part of the world. We say a great deal about 1.5C and science, but developed countries that have plans to expand their fossil fuels going up to 2050 are running counter to science itself, the very science they talk about.”

UN chief: Progress gathering pace

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told the Cop28 plenary:

“For the first time, the outcome recognizes the need to transition away from fossil fuels – after many years in which the discussion of this issue was blocked. ”

“To those who opposed a clear reference to a phase out of fossil fuels in the COP28 text, I want to say that a fossil fuel phase out is inevitable whether they like it or not. Let’s hope it doesn’t come too late.

Of course, timelines, pathways and targets will differ for countries at different levels of development. But all efforts must be consistent with achieving global net zero by 2050 and preserving the 1.5 degree goal. And developing countries must be supported every step of the way.”

John Kerry says that the US and China “both intend – based on many initiatives set out in Global Stocktake – we will again update our long term strategies and we invite other parties to join us in doing so” #Cop28

— Joe Lo is @joeloclimate@bsky.social (@joeloyo) December 13, 2023

WRI: More finance needed

Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO, World Resources Institute said in a statement:

“Fossil fuels finally faced a reckoning at the UN climate negotiations after three decades of dodging the spotlight. This historic outcome marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. Despite immense pressure from oil and gas interests, high ambition countries courageously stood their ground and sealed the fate of fossil fuels.

“Now a critical test is whether far more finance is mobilized for developing countries to help make the energy transition possible.”

The #COP28 #GlobalStocktake text was gaveled through without any comments allowed from Parties. The text is severely lacking in assurances for climate finance, and equity – indications that developed countries must take the lead – is almost entirely missing.

— Brandon Wu (@brandoncwu) December 13, 2023

Climate Action Network: Marred by loopholes

Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International said in a statement:

“After decades of evasion, Cop28 finally cast a glaring spotlight on the real culprits of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. A long-overdue direction to move away from coal, oil, and gas has been set. Yet, the resolution is marred by loopholes that offer the fossil fuel industry numerous escape routes, relying on unproven, unsafe technologies.

The hypocrisy of wealthy nations, particularly the USA, as they continue to expand fossil fuel operations massively while merely paying lip service to the green transition, stands exposed.”

OPEC: oil and gas have critical role

Mohamed Hamel, Secretary General for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), and Haitham Al Ghais, Secretary General for OPEC said in a statement:

“The oil and gas industry will play a constructive and critical role in sustainable development and poverty eradication, while contributing to a just, orderly and inclusive energy transitions, in particular through enhancing efficiencies and developing and deploying advanced technologies, such as carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS). They stressed that continued investment in oil and natural gas is essential to meet future demand and ensure global market stability.”

Power Shift Africa: Genie is out of the bottle

Mohamed Adow, Director of Power Shift Africa, said in a statement:

“For the first time in three decades of climate negotiations, the words ‘fossil fuels’ have made it into a Cop outcome. We are finally naming the elephant in the room. The genie is never going back into the bottle. Future Cops will only turn the screw even more on dirty energy.”

“Finance is where the whole energy transition plan will stand or fall. We also need much more financial support to help vulnerable people in some of the poorest countries to adapt to the impacts of climate breakdown.”

CEEW: Disappointed on all fronts

Dr Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water, said in a statement:

“This Cop has largely disappointed on all fronts. It hasn’t sufficiently raised climate ambition, held historical polluters accountable, or established effective mechanisms to finance climate resilience and a just low-carbon transition for the global south.

“While the operationalisation of the loss and damage fund on the first day marked a noteworthy success, subsequent developments revealed a discordant trajectory. The global stocktake’s final text lacked the candid acknowledgment of problems and the teeth required to fight them.”

350: Partial win for people power

May Boeve, executive director of activist network 350.org, said in a statement:

“People power has propelled us to the doorstep of history but leaders have stopped short of entering the future we need.

“It is frustrating that thirty years of campaigning managed to get ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ in the Cop text, but it is surrounded by so many loopholes that it has been rendered weak and ineffectual.”

Climate Analytics: Weak energy package

Bill Hare, climate scientist and CEO of Climate Analytics, said in a statement:

“The energy section is weak and simply doesn’t have enough hard commitments to bring the 1.5C warming limit within reach this decade, and there’s no commitment to peak emissions by 2025. The goal of tripling renewables and doubling of efficiency is very welcome, but will need hard work to implement.

“The agreement opens the doors to false solutions like carbon capture and storage at scale, and the reference to transition fuels is code for gas, which is absolutely not a transitional fuel. This has been promoted by LNG and fossil gas exporters.”

The post Dubai deal: Ministers and observers react to the UAE consensus appeared first on Climate Home News.

The “UAE consensus” did not go so far as to call for a “phase-out” as more than a hundred countries wanted. It settled on “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”.

Still, after coal was targeted for a “phase-down” two years ago in Glasgow, it extended that scrutiny to the oil and gas sector.

Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber brought down the gavel on a deal late Wednesday morning, one day into overtime. “We have language on fossil fuel for the first time ever,” he said, to applause.

One delegation not joining in the ovation was Saudi Arabia. Oil-exporting states fought hard against the phase-out language that appeared in earlier drafts.

Many emerging economies were also wary of signing up to quit fossil fuels, given limited finance on the table to support cleaner development paths.

Dubai deal: Ministers and observers react to the UAE consensus

Samoa complained they were not yet in the room when the deal was adopted. Small island states had pleaded for a rapid fossil fuel phase-out to hold global warming to 1.5C, seen as critical for their survival.

Excerpt from the global stocktake text agreed at Cop28 addressing fossil fuels

The energy package included a push to triple renewable capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. It called for accelerating the implementation of technologies like carbon capture, utilization and storage, “particularly in hard-to-abate sectors”.

Controversially, it cited a role for “transitional fuels”, which can be taken to mean fossil gas.

Attention now turns to the next round of national climate plans which, the deal says, should align with limiting global warming to 1.5C. But the pathway to do so is vanishingly small.

The post No ‘phase-out’, but Dubai deal puts oil and gas sector on notice appeared first on Climate Home News.

It’s a measure of how far the discourse has moved since the Paris Agreement that Sultan Al Jaber has taken that line in the run-up to Cop28.

As president of the UN climate summit starting in Dubai on 30 November, Al Jaber could not ignore mounting calls to quit coal, oil and gas.

“We cannot address climate catastrophe without addressing its root cause: fossil fuel dependence,” said UN chief Antonio Guterres last week. “Cop28 must send a clear signal that the fossil fuel age is out of gas – that its end is inevitable.”

But Al Jaber has not quit the day job as chief of Emirati state-owned oil company Adnoc, which is increasing production. The conflict of interest is writ large.

And despite the longstanding scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is the main driver of the climate crisis, there was no political consensus to name them in UN climate decisions until very recently.

At the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, UK, countries made a breakthrough agreement to phase down coal power generation. A group of around 80 countries pushed to extend that to oil and gas in Sharm-el-Sheik last year, but were stonewalled. Will Al Jaber’s rhetoric translate into an international agreement?

Phasing down or cashing in?

The science is clear: we need to substantially reduce the use of fossil fuels to stand a realistic chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. There is no room for new oil and gas fields, the International Energy Agency agreed.

While there is money to be made, though, mining and drilling continue. Buoyant oil prices since Russia invaded Ukraine last year have spurred development.

The top 20 fossil fuel-producing nations plan to extract twice as much by 2030 as the level consistent with meeting the Paris Agreement goals, according to the UN’s 2023 Production Gap report.

The difference between governments’ fossil fuel plans and projections and levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C and 2°C remains wide. Credit: UN Production Gap Report

The first global stocktake of the Paris Agreement is due to conclude at Cop28 – a prime opportunity for a course correction. Two elements of the energy package under negotiation have broad support: a tripling of renewable energy capacity and a doubling of energy efficiency by 2030. But on a third plank – the fossil fuel phase-out – divisions remain stark.

“We are not going to solve the problem by scaling up renewables alone,” says Ploy Achakulwisut, a research fellow at SEI and one of the UN report’s authors. “Governments need to step up and commit to stronger language on fossil fuels now. Accepting a phase-out is the first step towards coordinating and implementing a well-managed and equitable transition.”

A fractured field

On one end of the spectrum, fifteen countries under the banner “high ambition coalition” are calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels production and use: no ifs, no buts. The group includes rich Western countries like France and Spain, African states, including Kenya and Ethiopia, and Pacific island nations.

Oil, carbon and loss: navigating Cop28 with Climate Home News

On the opposite end, Russia says nyet to any proposal of cutting the oil and gas production that makes up most of its revenues. “We oppose any provisions or outcomes that somehow discriminate or call for phase-out of any specific energy source or fossil fuel type,” the country’s recent submission to the UNFCCC said.

In between are developed countries justifying continued oil and gas development on energy security grounds and emerging economies resistant to any check on their growth.

One word is likely to dominate discussions: unabated.

Abatement fight

A universally-recognised definition of “unabated” does not exist – and that is a big part of the problem. Fossil fuel abatement generally refers to efforts to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emitted throughout their life cycle, chiefly by using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.

But what percentage of emissions needs to be captured and how countries ensure this is not a delaying tactic are open questions.

“Differing views on abatement are causing hostages to fortune and allowing fractures to appear that are not helpful in terms of actually achieving fossil fuel phaseout,” Camilla Fenning, a fossil fuel transition expert at E3G, told Climate Home. “A clear definition is something that would be very useful.”

Chevron’s Gorgon gas project in Australia has one of the largest carbon capture and storage plants in the world. Photo: Chevron Australia

Rich countries all call for some form of phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, in line with what was agreed at a G7 meeting in Hiroshima last May.

Their interpretation is not univocal, however.

The EU wants to designate some clear boundaries around the use of technofixes. “Exaggerated expectations from CCS should not be a pretext to delay climate action now,” an EU negotiator told Climate Home. “It will not deliver what we need before 2030. In the longer term, we will need it in hard-to-abate sectors, but we need to see what is possible.”

Meanwhile, the US is betting big on CCS and curbs on methane leakage to limit the climate damage of oil and gas operations. It is a position that brings it closer to petrostates like Saudi Arabia and Cop28 hosts UAE.

EU law pushes foreign oil and gas producers to cut methane

China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua has also come out in favour of CCS while calling a global fossil fuel phase-out “unrealistic”.

The country, which is expanding both coal power capacity and renewables, risks being a major blocker to an agreement. Highlighting “the significant role of fossil fuels in ensuring energy supply security”, its latest submission said the transition needs to be achieved by “establishing the new before abolishing the old”.

For Cuban Ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, chair of the G77 group of developing countries, development needs take priority over a fossil fuel phase-out. “The most important thing for developing countries is eradicating poverty and guaranteeing a right to development within a sustainability framework,” he told Climate Home.

Equity and money questions

For many developing countries, equity concerns will need to be addressed before signing on to any deal.

Negotiators from Africa and India are planning to push rich nations to commit to phasing out fossil fuels faster than the rest of the world. Their position is based on the “common but differentiated responsibilities” principle, where the wealthy countries who are most responsible for causing climate change take the lead in tackling it.

They will highlight the contradictions between what some developed countries advocate for in climate talks and what they do at home. For example, the US is responsible for more than one-third of the expansion of global oil and gas production planned by mid-century, followed by Canada and Russia, according to Oil Change International.

Cuba’s Pedroso Cuesta called this a “severe contradiction”. “Those who are proposing these initiatives [fossil fuel phase out] should lead by example. I don’t think they are currently,” he added.

France, Kenya set to launch Cop28 coalition for global taxes to fund climate action

Another sticking point is money. A huge amount of it will be required for developing countries to wean themselves off fossil fuels while investing heavily in renewables and energy efficiency, the other elements of the COP28 energy package. “Developing countries need to be given assurances about more financial support to encourage confidence in signing up for those commitments”, says E3G’s Fenning

It is not yet clear who is going to provide finance and on what terms. Energy transition partnerships between rich countries and South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam have stuttered over the last year. Promises of significantly higher levels of support from development banks and the private sector still need to materialize.

Activists gearing up

While country delegates refine their rhetoric, activists are also gearing up their campaigning firepower to make sure a fossil fuel phase-out remains top of the agenda in Dubai.

Demonstrations and protests are expected to be limited to the UN-designated zones, given the harsh rules clamping down on dissent in the UAE, campaigners told Climate Home. But more creativity and better coordination will ensure impact, they promise.

Campaigners are planning to target anyone blocking a deal on fossil fuels. Not only governments but also industry lobbyists expected to descend onto the petrostate in vast numbers.

“The fact that we’re closer than ever to a decision on fossil fuel phase-out in a UN space means that the industry is mobilising more strongly to oppose this,” says Collin Rees, an activist at Oil Change International. “The industry has been forced to come out and show its face. Having that fight in full public view will be very important”.

The post The ‘inevitable’ fossil fuel fight set to dominate Cop28 appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Vaca Muerta Sur terminal could bring a surge in Argentina’s oil and gas exports, unlocking the Vaca Muerta field, which holds the world’s second-largest shale gas reserves and the fourth-largest shale oil reserve.

The terminal’s construction site in the San Matías gulf is a hotspot for marine biodiversity and a popular site for whale-watching.

Relevant authorities in Río Negro province support the project, citing economic benefits. They are holding public hearings to approve the terminal’s environmental studies.

Campaigners held demonstrations against the project, accusing the authorities of a lack of transparency and shutting down critics.

Ahead of elections, Argentina’s leaders wrap fossil fuels in the flag

According to the Argentine Institute of Oil and Gas (IAPG), Vaca Muerta could produce three times more oil and gas than it does today. It is limited mostly by a lack of infrastructure and investments. The Vaca Muerta Sur terminal is a key piece of infrastructure to unlock the field’s potential.

The coalition of climate NGOs Global Gas and Oil Network called Vaca Muerta a “carbon bomb”, citing its potential to release up to 50 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere across its lifetime.

The EU, in particular, has shown interest in the Argentina’s gas supplies. In July, the bloc signed an agreement with the country to work on a “stable delivery” of gas from Vaca Muerta to Europe. Brazil has also contributed funds to unlock Vaca Muerta’s exports.

Push from local government

The export terminal is a key piece of YPF’s plan to develop the Vaca Muerta field, which has received overwhelming support across political factions. Regional decision-makers in particular have been instrumental to advance the project.

Provincial regulations have prohibited hydrocarbon projects in the San Matías gulf since the 90s, but in 2022 regulators reversed the provincial legislation to allow YPF to develop the terminal.

Last week, the Sierra Grande municipality held public hearings where YPF presented environmental impact studies for the terminal and the associated 570 km pipeline. 

Cristian Fernandez, from the legal department at the Argentine Foundation of Natural Resources (FARN), criticised the environmental studies submitted by YPF. He said there is no contingency plan for pipeline leaks and oil spills.

Protesters on the coast of Río Negro during the Second Plurinational Encounter, which took place in March 2023. (Photo: Carolina Blumenkranc)

But local authorities defended the project, and claimed to have risks under control. Sierra Grande’s mayor, Renzo Tamburini, said the project would help develop the region.

Dina Migani, Secretary of the Environment and Climate Change of Río Negro province, also voiced her support for the project and played down concerns, despite the project’s proximity to whale transit routes.

“In the survey of the entire trace there are no indigenous lands, and the oil monobuoy is 7km away, near the route where the right whales (Eubalaena australis) transit, as happens in Chubut below Puerto Madryn,” Migani told Climate Home.

Shutting down opposition

Fabricio DiGiacomo, a resident in the neighbouring Las Grutas community registered at the public hearing, voiced his opposition to the project, but was not allowed to enter the session. 

“Vaca Muerta has had, on average, about five (oil-spilling) accidents per day since it began its operations, so I do not see how they are capable of defending it”, added DiGiacomo, who rejected the public audience for being “fraudulent”.

The Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers said in a statement they would submit a legal challenge to the process, which they claimed lacked open access to information and left opposers out of the hearings in an “unjustified” way.

They also claimed that, during the hearings, demonstrators received threats and intimidation from police and supporters of the project.

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Pablo Lada, a local activist from the neighbouring province of Chubut, says that other nearby communities were left out of the conversation on the San Matías gulf, San José gulf and Golfo Nuevo — which all encompass the Valdés Peninsula, a World Heritage Site.

Dina Migani, from Río Negro’s provincial Ministry of the Environment defended the process and said registrations were open to all residents of Sierra Grande.

Fragile site for biodiversity

The Vaca Muerta Sur terminal is meant to connect the Vaca Muerta shale fields through a 570 km pipeline to the sea. This would allow for Argentina to enter the international market as a major oil and gas exporter.

But the export terminal needed for this to happen is located in a fragile site for biodiversity, according to experts. 

Marine species such as right whales, dolphins and killer whales could be affected by oil spills and shipping traffic, said Raúl González, marine biologist from the National University of Comahue.

Southern Right Whale specimens tracked by scientists in the San Matías gulf. Organised by name and colour, they are Aguamarina (red), Zafiro (yellow), Topacio (green), Fluorita (light blue), Coral (blue) and Turquesa (pink). Source: Siguiendo Ballenas.

The impacts to biodiversity, González said, depend on the contingency plans for oil spills and the routes selected for shipping transit.

The Argentine Association of Whaling Guides called for the cessation of the project, citing Argentina’s commitment to the Cop15 biodiversity pact to protect 30% of oceans by 2030.

In a letter sent to provincial legislators, a coalition of environmental NGOs said pushing the terminal “is to condemn the present and future of current and future generations”.

This story was edited on August 31, 2023, to amend Fabricio DiGiacomo’s residence.

The post ‘Carbon bomb’ in Argentina gets push from local government appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the past, his earnings have been sufficient to provide for his family. But Gakpo is now struggling to make ends meet. 

Once the poster child economy for West Africa, Ghana is suffering from its worst economic crisis in a generation. The debt-laden nation is gripped by soaring inflation and a depreciating currency that has pushed it to default on some of its debt payments. 

The energy sector has been a major contributor to the country’s financial woes. A lack of planning and unfavourable fossil fuel contracts have previously locked Ghana into paying for gas power far in excess of what it could use, pushing the sector into spiralling debt. 

Electricity tariffs have increased around 50% for small businesses and households since September alone. Gakpo says his electricity bill has doubled in a year. To cope, he is cutting back buying food for his family. 

John Gakpo milling corn flour in his workshop in Accra. (Photo: Emmanuel Ameyaw)

Yet opposition lawmakers, energy analysts and local NGOs have warned that Ghana’s plans to import liquified natural gas (LNG) under a 17-year agreement with oil giant Shell could make things worse. 

The agreement, they say, risks pushing electricity prices even higher, perpetuate a cycle of fossil-fuel related debt and leave little space for renewable energy. 

Until 2020, the UK, Germany and the African Development Bank indirectly channelled development funds for a new LNG terminal in the country.  

The project is part of a $245 billion expansion of gas infrastructure in Africa, according to Global Energy Monitor. But it is among the first to allow commercial LNG imports to a Sub-Saharan African nation. 

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A gamble for economic development  

Ghana is heavily relying on gas to meet its growing power needs. Gas generates half of its electricity, while less than 1% comes from solar. 

The government argues importing LNG will shore up Ghana’s energy security as electricity demand is projected to double between 2022 and the early 2030s. 

Proponents say gas power will need to meet virtually all of this added demand, arguing that domestic gas production is reaching capacity and imports from Nigeria are unreliable. 

LNG, they say, will help power the country’s industrial development, displace dirtier and more expensive heavy fuel oil and support the roll out of intermittent renewable energy. 

This is tied to the construction of a $400 million LNG terminal in the port of Tema. The project aims to turn Ghana into a hub for providing LNG to the West African market. 

But critics have denounced the LNG terminal as an example of how mismanaged gas and power investments are financially crippling the country and failing to deliver reliable and affordable energy. They have urged the government to suspend the project.  

Analysts agree that additional gas supplies could be needed in future. But under the deal, Ghana will have to pay charges for some of the LNG even if it unable to use it –– a type of gas contract known as “take-or-pay”. 

However, neither the contract nor the liabilities Ghana could incur have been made public.  

For many developing countries, take-or-pay obligations can become a form of public debt, explained Accra-based analyst Rushaiya Ibrahim-Tanko, of the Energy for Growth Hub. “That’s why we are asking for these contracts to be made transparent,” she said.  

Opponents say Ghana cannot afford such an opaque deal at a time when the country is receiving its 17th bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the lender of last resort. 

Denis Gyeyir, the Africa programme officer at the Natural Resource Governance Institute in Accra, likened the deal to a rope “hanging around our necks” that could leave cash-strapped Ghana to “suffocate” in more debt. 

Containers in the port of Tema in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst / World Bank)

Energy sector crisis

Ghana is still unable to pay for all the power it consumes. Independent power producers have threatened to shut down their plants if the government doesn’t find a way to pay  $1.7billion in outstanding debt it owes.  

At the same time, the country isn’t using all its own resources. The government has allowed British oil company Tullow to flare gas from its TEN and Jubilee oil fields because it is unable to process the gas. 

Flaring is a wasteful practice that releases climate-heating carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere and is harmful to human health. 

Analysis of government data shows that between 2019 and 2022, Tullow flared or re-injected into its oil fields 325 billion cubic feet of gas – worth close to $400m, according to the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (Acep). 

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In 2022 alone, Tullow flared or re-injected two and half times more gas than what Ghana could receive in LNG in the first year of the deal. 

“With the amount of gas that we are flaring we could meet a lot of demand for power generation if we are able to create new processing capacity," Charles Ofori, climate policy lead at Acep, told Climate Home. 

The company, which has committed to end routine flaring by 2025, says it is committed to agree a long-term gas sales deal with the Ghanaian government. 

The Tema project

Located in the eastern port of Tema, in Ghana’s industrial enclave, the LNG terminal will combine a purpose-built floating regasification unit and a former tanker converted to receive and store the liquid gas. 

The project developers say the terminal will have the capacity to process 1.7 million tons of LNG a year – or around 30% of Ghana’s electricity generating capacity. 

It is developed by a partnership between two leading Africa-focused private equity firms: London-based Helios Investment Partners and the Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM). 

AIIM’s investments in the project included funding from the African Development Bank, and the UK and Germany’s development finance institutions. Both the UK and Germany defended their investments in AIIM, arguing the firm funded necessary infrastructure to meet growing energy demand in Africa. 

The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund, which is backed by European donors, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa also contributed finance. 

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Keeping a low profile

First expected in 2020, the LNG terminal has been repeatedly delayed – something critics have described as “lucky”. Europe’s soaring demand for LNG to replace Russian gas pushed up prices and contributed to the delay. 

Commercial operations are now expected to begin in 2025 and LNG deliveries will be phased in to reach capacity towards the end of the decade.  Plans for Ghana to re-export the LNG to neighbouring countries remain elusive. 

The project partners are keeping a low profile about the plans. AIIM is the only partner to have responded to Climate Home’s questions. 

It said the project will ensure “a significant portion of the population in Ghana can benefit from cleaner and more economical energy sources” and help reduce the cost of power generation. 

But energy analysts are concerned the opposite may be true. Extracts of the contract obtained by Acep show the price of LNG is indexed on the price of crude oil – a common practice for long-term LNG contracts which exposes countries to volatile crude prices.   

Several analysis found LNG could be Ghana’s most expensive gas supply. 

“What Tema LNG will do is make the electricity much, much more expensive,” opposition lawmaker John Jinapor, former deputy minister of energy, told Climate Home. “It could result in huge financial debt. It’s really serious,” he said.   

A woman sets up her breakfast stand near a mobile money box on the side of the road in Accra, Ghana. (Photo: IMF Photo/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

Take-or-pay contracts: Ghana’s curse

Former minister Jinapor is familiar with the consequences of excessive gas contracts. 

In response to a period of power shortages in 2012-2016, known as “dumsor” – literally “off -on” – his party, then in power, signed dozens of emergency “take-or-pay” power agreements with support from development finance institutions. 

From a severe undersupply crisis, Ghana soon experienced the opposite problem: it became contracted to purchase gas and power beyond what it could use.   

The IMF estimates that the take-or-pay contracts and inadequate power tariffs cost the country 2% of its GDP annually since 2019. At the end of 2020, a former energy official revealed excess power and unutilised gas were costing Ghana $1.2bn a year. 

Among the reasons for this bloating bill was an unfavourable “take-or-pay” agreement with oil company Eni to buy 90% of gas produced from its deepwater Sankofa field off Ghana’s western coast at a high price. It was backed by $1.2bn in World Bank Group guarantees and debt financing. 

But a lack of infrastructure meant Ghana was unable to use all the gas it purchased despite paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually for it. The deal was widely criticised for putting undue burden on the country’s finances. 

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The World Bank argued the take-or-pay clause was necessary to make the project viable for private investors. A spokesperson told Climate Home the Sankofa development has been “key to providing energy security to Ghana”. 

While there are no formal discussion to restructure the deal, the World Bank is considering another $300m loan to help Ghana clear its power sector arrears. 

Tess Woolfenden, senior policy officer at Debt Justice, told Climate Home the proposed loan “exemplifies that Ghana is in a lose-lose situation with these take-or-pay contracts,” describing “a very toxic cycle” of fossil fuel investments that exacerbate debt. 

Omar Elmawi, of the ‘Don’t Gas Africa’ campaign, urged African countries to stay away from “expensive and inflexible take-or-pay gas contracts” and prioritise renewable energy. 

Impact on the energy transition

The fallout of Ghana’s energy sector debt has diverted investments away from sustainable development and left little room for the deployment of renewable energy.   

In its 2023 budget, the government has planned to spend three times more to offset the energy sector shortfalls than on investments in the agriculture, fisheries, roads, education, gender, social protection and health sectors combined. 

To address the power oversupply issue, the government suspended licences for grid-connected solar and wind projects. The six-year-old ban was only lifted in April. In 2019, Ghana postponed by 10 years a goal to achieve 10% of renewables in its energy mix by 2020. 

Dennis Asare, of the think tank Imani, told Climate Home the LNG deal will continue to incentivise the use of gas and “delay the energy transition”.   

“We have enormous renewable resources to meet our energy needs but the government is more focused on this LNG agreement,” he said, warning that lower-income households, like the miller Gakpo and his family, will “bear the brunt” of a deepening crisis.   

Emmanuel Ameyaw contributed with additional reporting.

The post Gas lock-in: Debt-laden Ghana gambles on LNG imports appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is the first time that Ecuadorians will vote on an ecological issue of this magnitude. Experts consulted by Climate Home News said the referendum will define the economic model for the country’s future.

The environmental referendum is a first of its kind for Ecuador and, if approved by a simple majority of Ecuadorians, would ban all new oil wells in the Yasuní park, as well as phasing out existing concessions.

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Pedro Bermeo, spokesperson for Yasunidos, a coalition of NGOs that led the call for the vote, said the public debate around climate change is already a victory. He added the referendum is a “milestone in the history of Ecuador”.

“Beyond the result, we must see this as an opportunity to value what this referendum has already provoked: a national debate that has never existed before,” Bermeo said.

The vote is scheduled to take place on August 20. At the time of publication, there have been no public opinion polls.

Vote for the rainforest

The Yasuní National Park, Ecuador’s largest, hosts one of the largest biodiversity hotspots on Earth, and is the home of the Tagaeri and Taromenane people in voluntary isolation. 

For decades, Yasuní has been threatened by extractive industries, such as mining and oil. For over six years, Ecuador’s State oil company, Petroecuador, has been operating in this territory. 

According to reports from the Andean Amazon Monitoring Project, at least 689 hectares have been deforested in the Yasuní, most of it, by the oil industry.

This is the size of 1,200 American Football fields and exceeds the 300-hectare limit established after a previous referendum in 2018.

Ecuador, Amazon Rainforest, Rio Napo, Near Coca, in the Yasuni National Park, on November, 14 2022. (Photo: Reuters / Stevens Tomas / ABACA)

Data provided by the Ministry of Environment, shows there have been more than 1,500 oil spills in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the last decade, which means at least 12 occur every month. 

Experts warn that both deforestation and oil spills threaten the unique biodiversity of the Amazon.

Activists have called for a vote on whether to keep drilling for oil in this region but, in 2013, the country declared Yasuní as an area of national interest and began extracting crude soon after. 

Bermeo’s Yasunidos proposed a referendum to nullify the declaration, but the process was blocked by an electoral court.

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Climate debate

The current government says approving the referendum can have “catastrophic” effects on the economy. Still, they’ve claimed they won’t campaign against it.

Fernando Santos, Energy Minister, has said in several interviews that the country “won’t gain anything by not producing [the Yasuní] ITT oil”. He has also argued that removing existing infrastructure will actually have negative costs for the country.

But experts claim the benefits from oil in Ecuador’s Amazon could be short-lived. 

During a hearing at the Constitutional Court, Petroecuador’s technicians explained the oil from Yasuní is low-quality “extra-heavy crude”, which requires high investments to process and sell.

When drilling began in Yasuní, Petroecuador expected to reach a daily production of 200,000 oil barrels by 2022. However, official data shows it has remained at 55,000 — about a quarter of what was expected. Pedro Bermeo says that the “figures they [the government] are giving are false”. 

As a result, a 2019 study by the Geological and Energetic Research Institute, a public research institution in Ecuador, estimated that by 2029, “oil could no longer be the main source of income” in the country. The study called for a change in the economic model.

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An important precedent

Luis Suárez, Executive Director at Conservation International Ecuador, said the referendum is an opportunity to rethink the country’s future, and suggested a move to tourism and bioeconomy. “What is the country going to bet on?”, he asked.

Domingo Peas, Territory Coordinator for the Cuencas Sagradas Initiative and a longtime leader of the Achuar nationality, says the vote will be “historic for Ecuador and the world” because “it will frame strategies for the next generation”. 

For the indigenous nationalities living in the Amazon, including the Tagaeri and Taromenane, the referendum is a way of respecting their human rights, he added.

“We, indigenous people, have said that we only want a dignified life”, and the approval of the referendum will grant that, Peas said.

Still, all experts consulted said the referendum will not stop oil production overnight. “We know these changes take time”, said Peas, “but it is imperative that they occur eventually”.

The post ‘Historic milestone’: Ecuador nears vote to keep Amazon oil in the ground appeared first on Climate Home News.

After years of work to “preserve and protect the health, land, and lives of the Black descendant community located in Louisiana’s River Parishes” through their non-profit, The Descendants Project, they were one step closer to halting decades of plastic, petrochemical, and industrial pollution inflicted on their community.

This last stretch of undeveloped land in the 85-mile long chemical corridor–known as Cancer Alley–was placed on a list of “endangered sites” by the National Trust of Historic Preservation, due to its rare cultural and historical significance. Once a site makes it on this list, it is likely to be preserved for generations to come.

While celebrated, this progress came with some trepidation. The Banner sisters know that without a unified movement to put people over pollution, local victories will be short-lived if we lose the global battle for climate action.

From the Mississippi River to Paris

This week, the Banners are joining me and other members of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign at the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in Paris.

This is the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) where 175 world leaders will hammer out a solution to address the plastics crisis. If done right, the plastics treaty could be one of the most significant environmental agreements in history.

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Today, one-third of plastic production is devoted to making single-use plastics, specifically plastic packaging. We all know what spaghetti looks like, so why do we need the little plastic window on every box?

These “pointless plastics” are difficult to recycle so the majority end up in landfills, rivers, lakes, and ultimately the ocean.

Recycling not the answer

Only six percent of plastic in the U.S. is recycled. Any improvements in recycling rates and capacities will be outpaced by continued rapid growth in plastics production, which is projected to double by 2040.

We are not going to recycle our way out of this problem.

Ninety-nine percent of plastics are made from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels, contributing to the climate crisis.

Petrochemicals are known carcinogens including chloroprene, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde and benzene, which poison the air, water and land of communities near industry facilities, deemed “fenceline communities”.

An oil refinery along the Mississippi River in Louisiana. Photo: Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation

While people in fenceline communities experience the most acute exposure to toxins from these plants, petrochemicals impact everyone.

Drinking from a disposable water bottle, putting on makeup, or ordering takeout, nearly every aspect of our daily lives intersects with petrochemicals. It is no surprise that every one of us ingests a credit card’s worth of plastic each week.

Petrochemical expansion

The petrochemical industry’s impact on climate progress is staggering. It is the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases and rapidly becoming the largest driver of global oil demand.

A report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) found that “emissions from the plastics sector rose 15 percent from 2012 to 2018”. In 2019 alone, plastic production equaled the emissions of 189 large coal plants.

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From Cancer Alley in Louisiana to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, the pollution and other dangers from these facilities are concentrated in places the oil and gas industry deems “sacrifice zones”: low-income, Black and Latino communities.

The fossil fuel industry is planning a massive build-out to increase production of single-use plastics. More than 120 new or expanded petrochemical plants are expected in the U.S. alone. This is a threat to public health, precious natural resources, and any progress we’ve made on climate change.

The time to act is now.

Low ambition

In the first round of plastics treaty negotiations last November, the US presented a proposal to achieve “the sustainable production and consumption of plastic”. It wants to achieve that by incentivizing chemical recycling, facilitating reuse, and strengthening demand for more recycled content.

This does not include the most meaningful action we could take: capping the production of plastics. For this and other reasons, the US was relegated to a category of so-called “Low Ambition” countries.

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Since then, the Biden Administration has made strides in environmental justice with its Justice 40 Initiative, new EPA pollution rules that acknowledge the communities hardest hit with petrochemical pollution, and ensuring disadvantaged cities and towns are first in line for investments to create new clean energy jobs.

We need our policy leaders to bring that same energy to the international stage and set a global tone of environmental justice for all.

Plastic production cap

The Beyond Petrochemicals campaign is helping support the activists, organizers and academics who are standing up to the petrochemical industry. We are in Paris to advocate for a cap on plastic production and pollution so we can stop digging the deep hole we find ourselves in.

Our campaign is a collage of communities where we live, work, play and pray. Communities that experience the impacts of plastic and petrochemical pollution day in and day out. Communities where we have lost friends and loved ones, but where babies continue to be born, and where we all want something better for the next generation.

It is the voices of these communities that push us to Paris and with the urgency of ten generations of ancestors poisoned by toxic water, air, and land.

We’re showing up from cities on the frontlines to stake a claim in the City of Lights – for environmental justice, for climate action and for putting people over pollution. We hope the US delegation joins us.

Heather McTeer Toney is the Executive Director of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, which aims to halt the expansion of the petrochemical industry. 

The post How a local victory against petrochemicals can spur global action on plastics appeared first on Climate Home News.

Last month climate ministers from the group of wealthy nations stated they are “steadfast in their commitment to … keeping a limit of 1.5°C global temperature rise within reach”.

If they want to stay true to their word, they must close the door to new gas investments, including for hazardous Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), keep their commitment to end international fossil fuel finance, and resist Japan’s push for fossil-fuel based technologies.

End fossil fuel investment

Stopping new gas projects is critical to avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

The latest reports from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show that maintaining a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires an immediate end to investments in new coal, oil, and gas production and hazardous liquified fossil gas infrastructure.

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These findings remain unchanged in the context of the war in Ukraine and its impact on global energy markets.

Leaving the door open for new investments in gas is also in direct contradiction to last year’s G7 commitment to end international public finance for fossil fuels by the end of 2022 “except in limited circumstances … consistent with a 1.5°C warming limit”.

Broken promise

Last month in Sapporo G7 ministers claimed they fulfilled this commitment.

But this is simply not true.

We understand that Italy approved financing for the Santos Basin oil and gas production project in Brazil this year.

The Japanese export credit agency, JBIC, recently approved $393 million for a gas-fired power plant in Uzbekistan.

During a recent visit to Mozambique, Prime Minister Kishida also committed to reviving controversial Mozambique LNG projects which have been associated with local devastation, repression and violence.

A bilateral meeting between Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida and the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. Photo: Number 10

Germany has not yet presented a policy for implementing the commitment to end international fossil fuel finance. The USA has adopted a policy, but it is not public.

The G7 members that have followed through, Canada, the UK and France, are in a strong position to push back against backsliding at the G7 Leaders’ Summit, while supporting fellow members in their implementation efforts.

Redirecting billions towards clean energy

An Oil Change International briefing underlines the importance of advancing this agenda. It shows that between 2020 and 2022 fossil fuel support from G7 countries totalled at least $73 billion. This is almost 2.6 times their clean energy support over the same period.

By upholding last year’s commitments, the G7 can directly shift $24.3 billion a year in public finance out of fossil fuels and into clean energy.  This would raise G7 finance to a sum almost large enough to close the clean energy access gap.

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Rather than promoting outdated and climate-destroying fossil fuel technologies across Asia and Africa, Japan should meet its promise to end international finance for fossil fuels.

It should also ensure that, together with fellow rich countries, it delivers its fair share of climate, loss and damage and just energy transition finance support to the Global South.

Shifting to clean energy and phasing out fossil fuel reliance is critical to permanently bring down soaring energy costs and increase energy security.

Renewable energy technologies are more affordable and can be scaled up more rapidly. They also help avoid fiscal instability linked to volatile fossil fuel prices and stranded asset risks as global gas demand drops.

A plea to Japan

Japan should not be allowed to continue to misuse its position as the G7 host to promote its fossil-fuel heavy energy strategy. Japan, and other G7 countries who are breaking their commitments, are harming our planet, and it is time for the world to hold them accountable.

The only effective answer to the climate crisis and energy security objectives is explicitly ruling out investments in new upstream gas and liquified fossil gas infrastructure, delivering on commitments to end international public finance for fossil fuels and phase-out fossil fuels in line with 1.5°C.

By shifting to renewable energy and phasing out fossil fuel reliance, we can secure a more secure, prosperous future for Africa, Asia, and worldwide. The G7 must act now to ensure a just and equitable transition to a clean energy future.

Elizabeth Bast is the Executive Director of Oil Change International, Tasneem Essop is the Executive Director of the Climate Action Network and Kanna Mitsuta is the Executive Director of Friends of the Earth Japan.

The post G7 leaders must fulfil their promise to stop funding fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UAE has been discussing an initiative, provisionally named the Global Decarbonization Alliance, alongside a group of company executives.

The alliance is expected to set a goal to reach net zero emissions from extracting oil and gas by 2050, according to a leaked letter from Cop28’s energy transition lead reported by the Financial Times.

But Romain Ioualalen, a campaigner at Oil Change International, told Climate Home the initiative was just a “recycling” of similar programmes which he says have not amounted to much action.

Most emissions ignored

Campaigners have also criticised the focus on just the emissions from producing oil and gas rather than the much larger emissions from the use of fossil fuels.

Roughly 80-95% of the oil and gas sector’s emissions are from the use of their products but the initiative would only target those from extracting them.

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Producing fossil fuels damages the atmosphere as gas leaks into the atmosphere or is burned as a waste product. Many of the vehicles and machinery used in the industry are polluting too.

Similar existing alliances have the same focus. These include the US-led net zero producers forum (NZPF), the energy importers and exporters on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and the industry-run oil and gas climate initiative.

Nations split over fossil fuels and carbon capture

Ioualalen said the proposed alliance is another example of a “tried and true tactic” of the fossil fuel industry to carry on business as usual.

“They are talking about everything but the one thing that really matters in driving down emissions, which is reducing oil and gas production,” he said. “As long as these are not the terms of discussion, it can’t be described as a legitimate effort”.

The International Energy Agency has found that fossil fuel production should drop by a factor of nearly four between 2020 and 2050 if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5C.

Denmark and Costa Rica have led an effort to get governments to end oil and gas production but only a handful of fossil fuel-producing nations have signed up.

No announcement

The Financial Times reported the alliance would be discussed in a workshop taking place this week in the UAE.

On Wednesday the Cop28 president-designate Sultan Al Jaber hosted a meeting with executives from fossil fuels, financial and tech companies in the UAE.

Al Jaber called on the oil and gas industry to work collectively to reach net zero by 2050 and net zero methane emissions by 2030.

On the sidelines of #UAEClimateTech, #DrSultanAlJaber chaired a decarbonization roundtable.

The President-Designate highlighted the importance of collaboration on the decarbonization pathways and discussed tangible solutions to address the urgent need for emissions reduction. pic.twitter.com/lk4wG7jhIW

— COP28 UAE (@COP28_UAE) May 11, 2023

He also remarked on the importance of “building up an integrated creative partnership”, but stopped short of launching a formal alliance.

According to a source with knowledge of discussions, the plans are still being developed with no clear timeline for an announcement.

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The Cop28 chief has repeated several times that the oil and gas industry should be invited to the negotiating table.

Launching his agenda last week, Al Jaber said that he sees a role for fossil fuels “in the foreseeable future”, calling for a phase-out of “fossil fuel emissions” rather than “fossil fuels”.

That opens the door to the continued use of fossil fuels as long as their emissions are captured by carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

Industry’s involvement

The Cop28 team has been developing plans for the initiative with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a group of over 200 companies including some of the largest oil and gas producers.

Peter Bakker, the group’s CEO, wrote last week that “WBCSD has been in close contact with the UAE Cop28 team to help shape the agenda”.

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He added the organisation’s efforts focused on a “big push for decarbonization action in the oil and gas and hard-to-abate sectors through the Global Decarbonization Alliance”.

The WBCSD told Climate Home the Cop28 team is currently in the process of developing plans to ensure a comprehensive approach.

The Cop28 team said it would not comment on leaked reports.

Deja-vu

The leaked outline of the proposed Cop28 alliance bears many similarities to existing net zero initiatives for the fossil fuels industry.

In April 2021 the United States launched the Net-Zero Producers Forum, alongside major fossil fuels-producing nations Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The initiative aimed to “develop pragmatic net-zero emission strategies”. This could include stopping methane leaks and flaring, deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies, and diversification from reliance on hydrocarbon revenues, according to the original statement.

Underwhelming outcomes

After the initial announcement, the initiative went quiet for nearly a year. Energy ministers from the five participating countries re-launched the forum again in March 2022, when they held an inaugural meeting in Houston, the USA’s oil and gas capital.

Fossil fuel executives from Chevron, Saudi Aramco and Equinor also attended the meeting. The main outcome was the creation of a working group to find solutions to phase out unabated fossil fuel emissions.

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Two months later the United Arab Emirates joined as the sixth member of the initiative. There has been no public mention of the activities of the Forum since then and its lead, the US Energy Department, did not respond to a request for comment.

Another country-led coalition took shape at Cop27 last November. The US, European Union, Japan, Canada, Norway, Singapore, and the United Kingdom committed again to reducing emissions associated with fossil energy production, with a particular focus on methane.

Industry’s own alliance

The fossil fuel industry has separately been working on its own alliance. In 2014 twelve major oil and gas companies set up the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative.

Like the Cop28 initiative, it sets signatories a target of reaching net zero emissions “from operations under their control”. But it does not set a target date.

Gas flaring in an oil extraction plant. Photo: (blake.thornberry)

The emissions from producing oil and gas can be significant. Recent satellite data reported by the Guardian revealed that Turkmenistan’s oil and gas infrastructure leaked more greenhouse gas than the whole of the United Kingdom in 2022.

While some campaigners dismiss it as a distraction, others like Clean Air Task Force’s methane director Jonathan Banks, support action to reduce oil and gas’s direct emissions.

He told Climate Home News last April: “Reducing oil and gas methane is by far the simplest and biggest thing we could do in the next few years to dramatically reduce global warming. It’s not rocket science. We don’t have to build any fancy new technology. It’s basically plumbing.”

The post Cop28 moots oil and gas initiative despite greenwash accusations appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ministers from around 40 countries gathered in Berlin this week to kick-start negotiations ahead of this year’s climate summit.

The head of Cop28, the UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber, set the tone of the discussions by backing the phase-out of “fossil fuel emissions”. The wording has been interpreted as creating a loophole. The inclusion of “emissions” leaves the door open to the continuing use of fossil fuels if their emissions are kept out of the atmosphere with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

During the ensuing talks, several countries underlined the need to “phase out fossil fuels as a major source of emissions”, according to an official summary. The document does not name specific representatives, but two sources with knowledge of the talks said these included the European Union, Chile, Colombia and small island nations.

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They faced opposition from other governments claiming that “fossil fuels currently are the most affordable form of energy”, the summary said.

Oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia showed the biggest resistance to an outright phase out of fossil fuels, the two sources said.

While taking a more moderate position, sources said the United States also failed to come out in support of that pledge, underscoring Al Jaber’s focus on “fossil fuel emissions” rather than fossil fuels.

These governments argued this is especially true in developing countries, where the rollout of renewable energy has a “high up-front cost”.

The International Energy Agency says utility-scale solar and onshore wind are the cheapest options for new electricity generation in a significant majority of countries worldwide.

Phase out battle

A broad coalition of nations has been pushing for an agreement to “phase out fossil fuels” at Cop28. They are keen to avoid a repeat of last year’s climate summit in Egypt.

An alliance of more than 80 countries wanted that commitment to be included in the final joint declaration. But a small group of fossil fuel-producing states like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia opposed the motion.

Cop28 head backs fossil phase-out with carbon capture caveat

Saudi Arabia’s lead negotiator Albara Tawfiq told the plenary that the UN climate convention “needs to address emissions and not the origins of the emissions”.

Agreements need to be signed off by every country so the language did not appear in the final text.

Al Jaber’s agenda

This week, the UAE’s Cop28 head used the platform of the Petersberg Climate Dialogues to set out his agenda for the summit at the end of November.

In the closing press conference, Sultan Al Jaber said that he sees a role for fossil fuels “in the foreseeable future in helping meet global energy requirements”.

His remarks have added to some observers’ concerns over the appointment of Al Jaber, who heads the UAE’s state fossil fuels giant Adnoc, alongside his Cop28 gig. Adnoc plans to boost investment in oil and gas capacity over the next five years.

CCS loophole

The debate in Berlin also revolved around the role of “technical solutions” for reducing carbon emissions.

Cop28 boss slams rich nations “dismal” $100bn finance failure

“Some representatives saw the need to support broader deployment of carbon management technologies for existing fossil fuel facilities”, the chair’s summary of the talks said.

But other governments urged caution “due to concerns about the cost, unclear timescales, potential to delay the transition, and environmental impacts”.

International divisions

Last week, one European official told Climate Home that the “strongest voices” in favour of CCS “are currently coming from fossil exporting countries”.

The official said that CCS “will play a key role” in some sectors that are hard to clean up. “But for now, it’s an expensive option, a luxury technology”, they said, and renewables and energy efficiency “are the most affordable and readily available mitigation technologies”.

CCS debate

CCS remains expensive and unproven at large scale.

According to the IPCC’s scientists, stopping a tonne of carbon dioxide with CCUS costs between $50 and $200. Replacing fossil fuels with renewables usually saves money.

Many climate campaigners have called it a “distraction” that gives fossil fuel companies a licence to keep extracting more climate-harming coal, oil and gas.

But the IEA’s head Fatih Birol disagrees, calling it “critical for ensuring our transitions to clean energy are secure and sustainable”.

The post Nations split over fossil fuels and carbon capture appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a speech setting out his agenda for the talks in Dubai in December, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) climate envoy Sultan Al-Jaber told a gathering of climate ministers in Berlin: “In a pragmatic, just and well-managed energy transition, we must be laser focused on phasing out fossil fuel emissions while phasing and scaling up viable, affordable zero-carbon alternatives.”

A broad coalition of nations have been pushing for an agreement to “phase out fossil fuels” at Cop28, so the addition of the word “emissions” is likely to be seen as a loophole for continuing to use such fuels if their emissions are kept out of the atmosphere with CCS.

#Info: starting at +/- 10.30 am CEST you can follow the opening session of the 14th Petersberg Climate Dialogue #Petersberg2023 and remarks by Foreign Minister @ABaerbock and designated #COP28 president & co-host Dr. Sultan Al Jaber here live. https://t.co/nLiyfUt4Dx

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) May 2, 2023

Cops and fossil fuels

Although the burning of fossil fuels is the key driver of climate change, they were for decades not mentioned in joint agreements put out by governments at international climate talks.

But at Cop26 in the UK in 2021, countries agreed to “phase down” the most polluting fossil fuel coal, after India and China objected to the term “phase out”.

At Cop27 in Egypt the next year, a broad coalition of nations pushed for a commitment to “phase out” fossil fuels.

What is the global stocktake of climate action and why does it matter?

But Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia opposed that language and the host Egypt did not include it in the final text.

While they accepted that agreement, the governments of countries like Germany, Chile and Tuvalu said they were dissapointed.

UAE strikes balance

In February, UAE environment minister Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri told the Munich Security Conference that the oil and gas sector should decarbonise and “then phase out oil and gas in a just way”. But she also said “we need the oil and gas sector to be with us”.

As well as calling for the targeting of “fossil fuel emissions”, Al Jaber today called for “smart government regulation to…make carbon capture commercially viable”.

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Al Jaber leads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and, in November 2021, called for increased global investment in oil and gas.

“The future is clean but it is not here yet. We must make progress with pragmatism,” he told an Abu Dhabi oil conference.

International divisions

A focus on “fossil fuel emissions” rather than fossil fuels is likely to anger some nations. Last week, one European official told Climate Home that the “strongest voices” in favour of CCS “are currently coming from fossil exporting countries”.

The official said that CCS “will play a key role” in some sectors that are hard to clean up. “But for now, it’s an expensive option, a luxury technology”, they said, and renewables and energy efficiency “are the most affordable and readily available mitigation technologies”.

Despite Taiwan and spy balloon tensions, China invites US for climate talks

The US, which is the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, takes a different stance. In a recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine, the US’s climate envoy John Kerry spoke about the damage fossil fuels cause, then corrected himself.

“Unabated fossil fuels,” he said. “Let me be clear on this. Unabated is a critical component of this. If you can capture 100% and do something useful with this and build the infrastructure and its cost-competitive, go for it!”

Other major oil and gas producers, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, have also talked up CCS. Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexey Overchuk told a recent World Bank meeting that carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) was “of utmost importance to the green agenda” while a Saudi minister said it had “great potential to serve the climate mitigation agenda”.

The debate

CCS remains expensive and unproven at large scale.

According to the IPCC’s scientists, stopping a tonne of carbon dioxide with CCUS costs between $50 and $200. Replacing fossil fuels with renewables usually saves money.

There are currently only 35 commercial facilities applying CCUS with a total annual capture capacity of 45 Mt CO2, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Most are in North America and in the gas processing industry.

Many climate campaigners have called it a “distraction” that gives fossil fuel companies a licence to keep extracting more climate-harming coal, oil and gas.

But the IEA’s head Fatih Birol disagrees, calling it “critical for ensuring our transitions to clean energy are secure and sustainable”.

The post Cop28 head backs fossil phase-out with carbon capture caveat appeared first on Climate Home News.

Just days after Amer was offered the new job, a close friend working as a contractor for an oil and gas company died after getting lost in the desert. Other workers told Amer it was work-related, but officially, the man’s death was listed as natural causes.

Despite knowing the circumstances of his friend’s death, Amer still celebrated his new contract with the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), a UAE-based engineering and procurement company, by ordering sweets for his family back home in Lahore, Pakistan. It was a better paid job, Amer said, and “all work is risky here.”

UAE and its neighbor, Qatar, are in the midst of a major build out of infrastructure to increase gas production and exports, encouraged in part by Europe’s recent demand for alternatives to Russian gas. They will rely on migrant labour to get it done.

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But stories like Amer’s friend’s are not uncommon. In 2022, a coalition of non-government organizations, Vital Signs, estimated that 10,000 South Asian migrant workers die each year in the Gulf region, and as many as half are reported as only “cardiac arrests” or “natural causes,” a suspiciously high percentage that potentially obscures how many of these deaths were work-related.

Industry observers and workers note that the UAE’s oil and gas sector has better safety protocols than other industries in the country, but they also point to a lack of transparency and potential conflict of interests in how work-related injuries or accidents get reported.

A Climate Home News investigation found that, while migrant workers will build a major gas expansion in the UAE to supply Europe with energy alternatives, these workers face harsh conditions and a lack of transparency when risk turns deadly.

Activists warn that the UAE’s gas plans could clash with the country’s role as president in the next round of UN climate negotiations, Cop28. The president of the upcoming Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

The International Energy Agency has said that limiting global warming to the Paris Accord target of 1.5C requires no new development of oil and gas fields.

Migrant workers for an ADNOC oil and gas project chatting on the street in Abu Dabhi, UAE. (Photo: anonymous based in UAE)

Gas expansion

As Europe searched for quick replacements for Russian gas last year, several countries turned to UAE to cover their needs, including France, Germany and Austria. Germany’s agreement with Adnoc covers at least two years. The European country has also signed a 15-year contract with Qatar and recently opened two floating import terminals.

Niklas Höhne, a climate policy expert and co-founder of NewClimate Institute, says the German government is consiering building up to 13 import terminals.

“It is a huge overcapacity if it is built,” says Höhne, adding gas deliveries from existing pipelines from Norway would be more efficient.

UAE’s state-owned energy company, Adnoc, is boosting its gas production to stop importing gas from Qatar and expand its own exports.

Qatar already exports more liquified natural gas (LNG) than any other country in the world. It is now expanding gas production in the offshore North Field, with plans to increase exports by nearly 60% by 2027. Both countries’ energy ministers have suggested that they will keep producing gas for several decades.

The expansion is already underway in the UAE. Amer’s new company has been hired by Adnoc to develop a new $548 million pipeline to expand gas production in the Lower Zakum field in the shallow waters offshore of Abu Dhabi.

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The country has also revived plans for a LNG export terminal in Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz choke point, to ship gas to both Asia and Europe, and is seeking to speed up construction. The terminal would more than double UAE’s current export capacity.

At least two leading contracting groups have shown interest in developing the project, with bids likely to come in the next months, energy news outlet Upstream reported.

These projects will be built by the country’s migrant workforce. Almost 8 million people, mainly from South Asian countries like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, work across all industries in the UAE, and represent 90% of the country’s total workforce, according to the United Nation’s International Labour Organization (ILO). Amer, for instance, is the main income earner of his family of five back home in Pakistan.

An Adnoc worker walking by an oil and gas infrastructure project in Abu Dhabi. (Photo: anonymous based in the UAE)

There are no publicly shared figures on how many workers are currently employed in the UAE’s oil and gas sector, but 30% of the country’s GDP is directly based on the industry. Adnoc alone has approximately 55,000 direct employees, according to one 2016 report, not counting contractors and other third-party workers.

High risk in Lower Zakum

Amer’s friend went missing in the desert while working as a jeep driver on a pipeline construction project. He and his colleague were missing for two days.

By the time the vehicle was traced, he had died and his colleague was in critical condition, according to an Adnoc health & safety officer, who agreed to share limited information about the death because of fears of retribution. Adnoc did not make public a complete disclosure of the event.

The death was formally ruled a heart attack by Adnoc and other government officials, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.

“In case of serious accidents or deaths, it becomes a police case and a medical expert will conduct a postmortem [examination],” the health and safety officer said. “If it is deduced a heart attack or a natural death, then companies don’t have to pay families.”

Nations seek compromise on fossil fuel phase-out ahead of Cop28

The source said that government officials do influence the death reports that medical experts produce.

“Companies have to report accidents to government authorities such as the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (Oshad). But if you are the government authority, like Adnoc, you will usually conduct investigations yourself,” says the health officer.

“Even when police and doctors are involved to assess a situation, it is hard to really assure there is no conflict of interest.”

A spokeperson for Adnoc told Climate Home News the “health and safety” of its workforce is a top priority, but offered no comment on the specific event or the potential conflict of interests.

“Any work-related incident is thoroughly investigated, and learnings are shared internally. We include contractor activities in all our safety approaches and data, and we value all of the people that work for ADNOC,” the spokesperson added.

Activists have previously called out the lack of transparency around the high rate of unexplained heart attack-related or natural deaths of young migrant workers across the Gulf.

“There is clearly a problem with the manner in which deaths are investigated and certified in the UAE and the Gulf more broadly,” says Nicholas McGeehan, founding co-director of Fair/Square.

“This is particularly true when the deaths involve non-nationals and the lower down the social strata you go, the more likely it is that a person’s death won’t be investigated even in cases where employer negligence is suspected,” McGeehan added.

Migrant workers chatting outside an oil and gas project in Abu Dhabi. (Photo: anonymous based in UAE)

The main risks on oil and gas infrastructure projects like Lower Zakum are fires, equipment-related injuries, falling overboard, and inhaling poisonous gas, according to an Adnoc engineer who has worked on offshore expansion projects and who also wished to remain anonymous over similar concerns.

While Adnoc’s risk assessment controls are generally effective, the engineer said, when there are accidents, they rarely get reported.

“The main issue is that the bureaucracy sweeps these things under the rug, especially if the victim is a low-skilled person,” he said. “If there was more transparency and accountability, even the rare accidents will be taken seriously because of negative public perceptions,”

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The wages are also not proportionate to the high risks of the work that low-skilled migrant workers do.

“Engineers will get paid okay but low skilled workers really don’t,” the engineer said. “It might be better than other industries but it is still extremely exploitative given the intense work that is done.” A low skilled contractor will typically get paid around US$300 per month, according to several workers spoken to about their wages.

Rising temperatures could make the job even more challenging for workers. A 2015 MIT study estimated that, under a very high emissions scenario, temperatures in Gulf nations may cross the limit of survivability for humans in the second half of the century.

Already, the Gulf is one of the regions with the hottest weather anywhere on Earth according to a 2020 study published in the journal Science Advances.

A risky — but attractive — job

Mohammed Amer says that he’s well aware that the work in oil and gas is a “dangerous environment.” He was willing to take the job in the hope for better pay.

“I had been suffering for four years working in the heat and not getting anything in return. I moved to this work because even if I am still suffering, at least I will get something in return,” says Amer. “All work is risky here.”

A worker at an oil and gas project in Abu Dhabi leaving the site. (Photo: anonymous based in UAE)

The Adnoc health and safety officer says that the UAE’s oil and gas sector offers relatively better living standards to migrant workers, but more risk.

“Accidents can be catastrophic if they occur. This might be why they also offer relatively better living conditions for workers,” the officer said. “Whatever company is working on an Adnoc project, for example, must provide accommodation, food, and other basic facilities of a certain standard that are far superior to what is being offered elsewhere in the UAE.”

But workers who are directly employed with large companies are the primary beneficiaries of these living conditions. Large, well-established firms like NPCC and Adnoc have to answer to a range of stakeholders that include shareholders and the government. Third-party companies are rarely held to the same standards. Most companies also hire third party contractors for construction and engineering.

“The high rate of deaths among the migrant workers who migrate to major destination countries such as the Gulf after passing rigorous medical examinations in Nepal has been a sign of considerable concern,” Anurag Devkota, a human rights lawyer, specialising in labour migration in Nepal.

“It is quite concerning that the majority of causes of death are either unknown or are being reported without a full postmortem. These deaths can be prevented with greater effort from both employers and the government of the country of destination.”

Varun Jangir, a migrant oil rig worker at gas fields and off-shore rigs in the UAE has been working for a third-party contractor for about a decade. His monthly salary is AED1700 ($460) but he does experience wage delays regularly.

“I have never been hired by the company I am working for directly, they always just rent us out from our agency,” he says. “I don’t know if working for big companies is better, I have never experienced it but I know that nobody cares if we are paid or not, or if we live or die, and our employer will never even get in trouble for our deaths.”

The post Migrant workers face risks building Europe’s new gas supplies in the UAE appeared first on Climate Home News.

The bank announced a deal last week to finance the Néstor Kirchner pipeline, a project that would allow the country to export gas from the Argentinian Patagonia’s Vaca Muerta field, which campaigners have described as a ‘carbon bomb’ due to huge emissions potential.

Vaca Muerta currently holds the world’s second-largest shale gas deposit and could lead to “record oil and gas production,” according to Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández.

Sergio Massa, minister of economy, said in the past that Argentina did not have the finance to carry the project forward, but now they have an “opportunity for Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay to access the world’s largest reserves of gas, which we have at our disposal”.

The move could contribute to pushing global temperature rise beyond 1.5C – a threshold above which climate impacts will be significantly worse for people and ecosystems. The International Energy Agency stated in a 2021 report that new oil and gas projects are incompatible with international climate goals.

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Carbon bomb

Activists are critical of the initiative due to its impact on carbon emissions. However, the national government points to Vaca Muerta as an economic hope.

According to 350.org in Latin America, the project is a “carbon bomb” that threatens to use up more than 11% of the world’s remaining carbon budget to reach 1.5C.

Talks to expand gas exports from Vaca Muerta date back to the early 2000s, but were abandoned after Argentina focused its gas production for domestic use. But a 2010 discovery found large gas reserves and led to initiatives to boost exports.

Currently, 31 oil and gas companies have contracts to operate in Vaca Muerta, among them Shell, ExxonMobil and Argentinian company YPF.

To transport shale oil and gas from Vaca Muerta, the Néstor Kirchner pipeline will run more than 570 kilometers from Tratayén, in the shale fields, to northern Argentina’s Santa Fé province.

A map of the Vaca Muerta field in the Argentinian Patagonia. (Photo: Ministry of Economy of Argentina)

Ilan Zugman, 350.org Latin America managing director, said the fracking technique used in the oil and gas extraction is dangerous to the environment. Chemicals used in the process are polluting rivers.

According to 350.org estimates, costs from healthcare, stranded assets and oil spills from Vaca Muerta’s operations could reach between $2.2 and $5.6 billion, compared to the estimated project profits of $2.1 billion if all the oil and gas is exploited.

The first stretch of the pipeline is set to be inaugurated by the middle of this year. At the same time, Argentina is experiencing its hottest recorded summer. The combination of heatwaves and drought is affecting agricultural yields, causing economic losses and negative health impacts.

The high temperatures and drought sparked fires that affected critical energy infrastructure. For several days, about half of Argentina faced blackouts.

Help from abroad

Zugman said Argentina does not have sufficient resources to bring to market all of Vaca Muerta’s oil and gas by itself. As a result, the government is seeking deals overseas to finance critical export infrastructure.

President Fernández discussed the issue with a number of European leaders. Meanwhile, state-owned oil and gas company YPF has landed a deal with Malaysia’s Petronas to develop an LNG terminal at the port of Bahia Blanca, in Buenos Aires.

In January, during a meeting between Fernández and Brazilian president Lula da Silva, the latter  considered financial support for the project. “We’re going to create the conditions to finance within our possibilities and help the pipeline,” Lula said.

EU agrees diplomatic push for fossil fuel phase out ahead of Cop28

Earlier this year, the Argentinian government sent a delegation to Brazil to secure gas sales from Vaca Muerta.

President Lula has promised to gradually reduce fossil fuel use, but he said he will support oil and gas production in Brazil.

Zugman said Brazil’s support for the pipeline would contradict Lula’s environmental policies.

While Lula’s government claims to prioritise the protection of indigenous people, supporting Vaca Muerta represents a threat to the Mapuche people in Patagonia, he said.

The Brazilian National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) told Climate Home that it currently has no plan to finance oil and gas projects outside Brazil.

The post Argentina secures funding boost to kickstart gas exports from ‘carbon bomb’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate Home News reported on major events – including world-changing elections, clashes between major economies and climate negotiations – while digging deeper into mysteries and underreported issues.

Here are five of our must-read stories from 2022, on the international dimensions of the climate crisis and the complications of addressing it. Keep up to date with our news, investigations and analysis by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. 

1. Crypto bubble: The hype behind a $70,000 carbon credit

Early in the year, the sale of a single carbon credit for an eyewatering $70,000 at auction caught Chloé Farand’s eye. At the time, millions of credits from the same project were selling on the market for less than $20 each.

Who would pay such a premium? The answer lay in a cryptocurrency venture called Save Planet Earth and a community of investors convinced it was the next big thing.

Unfortunately, their faith was unfounded. SPE claimed it had contracts to plant 1.1 billion trees in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, but was not able to back this up – and experts on the ground said it was not credible.

2. Race for lithium pollutes water in Argentinian villages 

The transition towards cleaner energies comes at a price for communities in Argentina, where a key mineral used in batteries is extracted. There, lithium mining companies have sparked fears of water shortages among locals. 

Natalie Alcoba, traveled to Fiambalá, a small Argentine mountain village which is rich in metals that will fuel the renewable energy revolution. 

But the methods for extracting lithium from the ground consume a lot of water and can pollute freshwater deposits.

3. Extreme heatwaves dried up water sources across the world 

Extreme weather kept breaking all records in 2022. Last summer saw extreme heatwaves all over the northern hemisphere and their impacts to water sources were visible from space.  

An analysis of satellite imagery by Sebastián Rodríguez, in partnership with the monitoring platform Planet, shows how freshwater ecosystems degraded across the world.

Rivers and lakes were at the frontline of this summer’s extreme weather. If we use these ecosystems as measure of our readiness to climate change, experts said we’re not prepared. 

4. Fossil fuel fights at Cop27: how the industry escaped censure

Fossil fuels were one of the strongest forces at play in this year’s UN climate negotiations, as industry lobbyists outnumbered almost every national delegation. In late-night closed meetings, the industry’s efforts paid off, as fossil fuels escaped censure at Cop27. 

Joe Lo and Chloé Farand reconstructed the industry’s role in this years climate negotiations, and told the behind the scenes story of how oil and gas producers managed to delay decisive climate action at the UN summit. 

One diplomat called the process “negotiation by exhaustion” as they were overwhelmed with new texts in the early hours of the morning. 

5. The ‘junk’ carbon offsets revived by the Glasgow Pact 

A militarized hydroelectric dam in Myanmar is one example of the hundreds of projects that could be used to greenwash national and corporate emissions reports thanks to a decision taken at last year’s Cop26. 

Through an exclusive data analysis, Chloé Farand and freelance data reporters Maribel Ángel-Moreno, Léopold Salzenstein and Jelena Malkowski indentified over 800 problematic projects whose past emissions reductions can now be bought. 

Some projects showed a patchy human rights record, while others evidenced an outright failure to deliver promised climate benefits. 

The post Climate Home’s five must-read climate change stories from 2022 appeared first on Climate Home News.

No, it would take a state actor to blast through concrete-reinforced pipes deep on the seabed. Which one? Most fingers are pointing at Russia, pending further investigation. The Kremlin denies it, saying the US has more to gain from taking out a competitor. The White House, too, dismissed any suggestion it was responsible.

Is it a climate disaster? Yes and no.

Methane fountains up to a kilometre wide are reaching the air, where the gas will have a warming effect. The flow will not stop until the pipelines are empty, releasing more than the massive 2015 Aliso Canyon oil well blowout in California, US. Estimates of the CO2 equivalence vary widely. Germany’s Environment Agency says the leaks have led to 7.5 million tonnes of CO2e emissions, or 1% of Germany’s annual emissions. The Danish Energy Agency puts it at nearly double that – which to the smaller country is 32% of national annual emissions.

On the other hand, it is only a fraction of the methane pollution routinely spewing from coal mines and oil and gas installations. China, Russia and the US each release comparable amounts from their fossil fuel sectors on a weekly basis, analyst Ketan Joshi calculates.

What is clear is that fossil fuels are vulnerable. Any of the ships, rigs and LNG terminals fast-tracked to divert Europe from Russian supplies could be a target. Drones have been sighted hovering around the newly inaugurated Norway-Poland gas pipeline.

Anyone arguing that gas is either a low carbon or a low cost answer to the energy crisis had better explain how sabotage and military defence factor into their accounting.

This week’s news…

• Hurricane Ian could cost US $67bn in economic damages
• Nord Stream pipeline blowouts highlight vulnerability of fossil fuels
• Scaling up renewables means big changes to electricity networks
• Gap to 1.5C yawns, as most governments miss UN deadline to improve climate plans

…and comment

• Public procurement can play a bigger role in greening construction – Rana Ghoneim, UNIDO
• Corporate pushback against climate action is getting desperate – Thomas Hale, University of Oxford
• The fate of the Amazon rests on the outcome of Brazil’s election – Adrian Ramos, Instituto Socioambiental

It feels almost naive, in the current omnicrisis, to ask whether governments have kept up to date with their climate homework. They haven’t, with a handful of honourable exceptions.

The promise of Glasgow to “keep 1.5 alive” faded fast. This week it’s the people of Florida and Cuba paying the price.

We know the answer: quit fossil fuels and invest in clean energy like our lives depend on it. Because they do.

23 out of 197

The number of countries that met a UN Climate Change deadline for updating their climate plans

The post Exploding an energy security myth – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Campaigners say that Shell is breaching its international climate obligations and threatening the lives of these citizens by continuing to invest billions of dollars each year in the production of fossil fuels. 

Seven environmental groups, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth the Netherlands, also known as Milieudefensie, filed the lawsuit against Shell in April last year, on behalf of over 17,000 Dutch citizens.

They are demanding that Shell cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 and to zero by 2050, compared to 2019 levels, in line with the toughest 1.5C temperature limit in the Paris pact. This would force one of the world’s largest energy companies to quickly phase down production of oil and gas and invest in clean energy sources instead.

Four public hearings took place in December in the district court of the Hague, where Shell has its headquarters, concluding on Thursday. A verdict is expected in May next year. 

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Campaigners have built their case on a precedent set by the ‘Urgenda case’, a major climate lawsuit taken to the top of the Netherlands court system last year.

In December 2019, the Supreme Court in the Netherlands ordered the Dutch government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the end of 2020, compared to 1990 levels, as its fair share to tackle climate change. The court ruled that the Dutch government was causing an “unacceptable danger” to citizens, for which it has a duty of care, by continuing to pollute. 

The victory by Dutch environmental group Urgenda was seen as a landmark moment for climate justice. 

“We are arguing that you can apply the same [duty of care] law to companies,” Sara Shaw, a campaigner for Friends of the Earth International, told Climate Home News. 

Shaw said that while climate litigation cases are becoming more common, it is unusual for the plaintiff not to claim financial damages and focus instead on setting a future course of action. 

Shell argues that climate policy should be set by governments, not companies and that forcing one energy firm to cut back on oil and gas will only have a minor impact as long as others continue to produce fossil fuels.

“The judge should not intervene with Shell’s policy. It would also be unfair to force one company to take certain climate action if states and consumers do not do so or do so insufficiently,” a lawyer for Shell told the court.

UK Supreme Court lifts ban on Heathrow airport third runway

Unlike the Dutch government, Shell is not a signatory to the 2015 Paris Agreement. But campaigners argue that Shell should help countries achieve Paris goals and accuse the company of violating human rights by undermining global efforts to keep temperature rises below 1.5C. 

“Shell’s policies put it on a collision course with international climate agreements,” said Roger Cox, the lawyer representing the group of campaigners. “It is clear that Shell’s policies continue to pose a major threat to the environment and humanity to this day. A judge can put a stop to this environmental damage,” he told the court. 

“It is impossible to achieve the Paris Agreement climate targets without regulating multinationals,” Donald Pols, chief executive of Friends of the Earth the Netherlands, told Climate Home News. 

On the company website, Shell says it is aiming for net-zero operations by 2050, which does not cover the impact of customers burning its products. The company aims to reduce its carbon intensity, the amount of CO2 emissions produced per energy unit sold, 30% by 2030 and 65% by 2050, compared to 2016 levels.

Shell’s focus on carbon intensity is problematic as it allows the company to claim it is reducing emissions while increasing the sale of fossil fuels, according to Pols. “While they should be reducing their CO2 emissions, Shell [plans to] grow their production of oil and gas by more than 34% by 2030.”

Campaigners and lawyers say the verdict of this case could set an important precedent for other climate litigation cases relating to the Paris Agreement. 

“Big polluters and fossil fuel executives should be quite nervous watching this,” said Shaw. “It would be great to see this spark a wave of climate litigation cases against corporations.”

The post Shell faces Dutch court in case testing how Paris climate goals apply to businesses appeared first on Climate Home News.

If China achieves its goal by 2060, it could lower global warming projections by 0.2 to 0.3C, the single biggest reduction measured since countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, according to Climate Action Tracker (CAT).

“This would mean that China, responsible for a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, would phase out any conventional use of coal, oil and gas by the middle of the century, unthinkable a few years ago,” Professor Niklas Höhne of New Climate Institute said on Wednesday.

President Xi Jinping’s announcement was short on detail, however, raising a number of questions about how China will follow through on its promise.

1. Does the target apply to all greenhouse gas emissions?

China’s target appears to only cover carbon dioxide emissions, not other greenhouse gases like methane from cows, nitrous oxide from fertilisers or fluorinated gases used as coolants.

China has pledged “carbon neutrality” rather than “climate neutrality”, a less stringent target than that adopted by the EU and UK, Oliver Geden, scientist and head of research at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Climate Home.

“It takes much longer to get to climate neutrality than carbon neutrality, usually around 10-20 years,” he said. That is because some non-CO2 emissions are hard to eliminate and need to be offset by removing carbon dioxide from the air.

Certainly a major step forward that China now aims to achieve 'carbon neutrality' by 2060, but it can't be directly compared to EU's and UK's targets for 'climate neutrality' by 2050.
Net zero GHG harder to achieve than net zero CO2, takes 10-20 yrs morehttps://t.co/WuHKowAyMa pic.twitter.com/mHVTjsMD4R

— Oliver Geden (@Oliver_Geden) September 23, 2020

2. Does China plan to phase out coal?

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China would need to stop burning coal. That is a major ask for a country that is home to half of the world’s coal power capacity. As of July 2020, it had another 100GW under construction and 150GW in planning stages.

Yuan Lin, senior carbon analyst at data consultancy Refinitiv Carbon, told Climate Home that China’s pledge “could inject fresh momentum” into the debate over coal. “I expect the coal phase-out to speed up in China with the raised climate ambition,” Yuan said. 

Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, acknowledged that there is scepticism of the neutrality goal given China’s trajectory on coal but said the new pledge indicates that the government could be moving towards a commitment on phasing out the fossil fuel. 

“China rarely makes announcements unless it is confident that it will move towards achieving them,” Hare told Climate Home. 

3. How much earlier can China peak its emissions?

President Xi told the UN general assembly China would peak emissions “before 2030”, an only marginally stronger wording than its existing commitment to reach that peak “around 2030”.

According to Climate Action Tracker, China is already on track to achieving that goal and is in a strong position to update its national climate target. China outperformed its 2020 carbon emission target, reaching the goal three years ahead of schedule.

China could and should peak emissions before 2030, Li Shuo, Beijing-based senior energy and climate officer at Greenpeace, told Climate Home. “China should do so as soon as possible but no later than 2025,” he said. 

For context, China’s current NDC has CO2 peaking “around” 2030. Making it “before” 2030 is not enough, but at this stage shows positive political willingness. Key next step is to answer by how much before.

— Li Shuo_ASPI (@LiShuo_GP) September 22, 2020

4. Does this apply to China’s “belt and road” investments?

China’s climate impact is not limited by its borders. It is financing a quarter of coal plants under development in other countries through its “belt and road” initiative, with a capacity of 102 GW.

If tougher targets at home lead to outsourcing of pollution, it will undermine the climate benefits. If China encourages other countries to join the net zero club, it will amplify them.

Yuan expressed optimism the pledge would drive investment into carbon capture and storage and clean energy in belt and road countries. “[China’s] new climate ambition will alter the world order in clean energy investments and abatement technologies,” Yuan said.

More broadly, the pledge will “shift the discourse”, said Geden, and “put other emerging economies under pressure to come up with explanations about why they don’t want to [achieve carbon neutrality].”

5. Will Chinese cities and companies set net zero targets?

A national-level policy on net zero could act as an important catalyst for companies and cities, encouraging them to declare their own net zero targets.

“We will definitely see more cities, companies set net-zero targets following China’s announcement and this effort,” Angel Hsu, assistant professor of environmental studies at Yale-NUS college in Singapore, told Climate Home. 

Earlier this year many Chinese energy and industry companies launched a “Zero Carbon China” initiative which signalled confidence to the government to adopt the carbon neutrality target, Hsu said. 

“Previously, we have seen few Chinese municipalities and companies committing to net zero, compared to their European peers. However, that was exactly due to lack of climate policy discussion in the domestic environment. With China’s 2060 goal, carbon neutrality will be higher on the agenda for local governments and companies,” said Yuan.

The post 5 burning questions about China’s carbon neutrality pledge appeared first on Climate Home News.

Writing in response to a report released by US NGO Oil Change International (OCI), McKibben and Monbiot echoed OCI’s conclusion that no new coal mines or oil or gas wells can be opened up, lest we exceed the carbon budget imposed on us by atmospheric physics.

In New Republic, McKibben had a characteristically elegant device to explain the findings. There are 942 gigatons of C02 stored in working mines and fields.

But the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that we can’t exceed 800 gigatons to stand a decent chance of staying within 2C. That’s the upper limit set by the Paris climate agreement.

Thus, said McKibben, the earth’s response to climate change would be henceforth governed by this inequation:

942>843

From this he concluded that no new extraction sites should be opened. To do so would be to fail the simplest of maths tests.

OCI founder Stephen Kretzmann put it this way: “Continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry is now quite clearly and quantifiably climate denial.”

A mathematician might write it like this:

942>843 ⇒ no new extraction

That symbol means ‘it logically follows’. But the logic is flawed. Critically, in reaching their final conclusion OCI made political and social choices that bear examination.

A year ago, Carbon Tracker Initiative looked at the same problem as OCI and came to a different conclusion. Yes, they said, opening new coal mines was bonkers. But some new oil and gas fields might be acceptable.

There are several reasons why having larger amounts of carbon in working fields that we can safely put into the air doesn’t automatically mean no new fields can be opened.

This new math profoundly changes our situation–fossil fuel frontier now closed, unless we want to break the planet https://t.co/FTCRvKY2Kd

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 22, 2016

An example of this nuance is that there is so much coal out there it dominates the measure, but how fast is it being dug up and extracted?

This matters because the longer it takes, the less competitive coal becomes against renewable energy sources and the more likely we are to see coal mines closed before they are exhausted. This could create some wriggle room.

Conversely, oil is going to be the most difficult fossil fuel to phase out because of the technological challenge of shifting planes, ships and trucks toward zero-carbon fuels.

At the same time, oil and gas wells decline in productivity toward the end of their lives sending their operating costs higher. This means that old fields might be closed early and new fields might fill the demand more cheaply – even with the start up costs.

This leads to the conclusion that:

942>843 ⇏ no new extraction

Not necessarily anyway.

The OCI report did take these dynamics into account, but it critiques the “least-cost pathway”. Just because some new oil drilling might cost less on paper, OCI argues, doesn’t make it the appropriate approach in reality.

New wells have investment and political interests behind them that makes them harder to shut down when the time comes.

“Since political action is required, we should look for solutions that are not just economically optimised, but politically optimised. Politically, it is much more difficult to demand the loss of physical capital – on which dollars have been spent, and steel and concrete installed – than to relinquish the future hope of benefits from untapped reserves,” argues the report.

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Here we find the crux of the disagreement. Carbon Tracker offers an olive branch of leniency to oil and gas companies to continue doing what they do for a while longer. OCI says they are drunk on profits and we should take away their keys.

Having made that decision, the maths was found to back it up. According to Kretzmann the major difference between Carbon Tracker’s report one year ago and Oil Change’s more recent one is the budget under which we allow ourselves and the fossil fuel companies to operate.

This is a risk judgement. In the climate world, the more carbon you emit, the less chance you have of achieving a certain temperature limit. Carbon Tracker base their budget on a scenario developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA) – called IEA 450.

A new report gives us the numbers we need: they show that the Paris agreement means no new coal, oil or gas. My col:https://t.co/I2dCEXkG82

— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) September 28, 2016

“IEA 450 is based on a 50% chance of 2C, which frankly we think is too low to represent the top end of the Paris range,” Kretzmann told Climate Home. “If this is our policy ambition, shouldn’t we be aiming for better than a coin flip’s chance of success?”

OCI chose a scenario that gave a 66% chance of staying within 2C. Their budget also gives the world a 50% shot of staying below 1.5C – the more ambitious end of the Paris agreement.

So the new maths is based on a decision about acceptable risk. Which is fair enough but hardly revelatory.

To sum it up:

Carbon Tracker: 50% chance of 2C ⇒ some new gas and oil OK

Oil Change International: 66% chance of 2C ⇒ no new extraction

The difference is important because it reveals a split amid influential thinkers in the climate debate about the best way to effect change.

The question hinges on whether to engage fossil fuel companies on their terms: the IEA is considered an authoritative voice within the energy sector and some new oil wells is better than none. Or is it time for all-out war?

McKibben notes that his initiation to carbon budgets came when he based a seminal essay on the subject on the work of Carbon Tracker. But he now clearly believes their approach is too weak for the times.

Writing in the Guardian, Monbiot frames it as the conflict we must have: “Preventing climate breakdown means defending democracy from plutocrats. It’s their interests versus the rest of humanity’s.”

The war has already begun. Climate activists are drawing “red lines” in the grassy hills of Dakota and the courtrooms of the US, in the mud of the Ecuadorean Amazon, on the backs of whales in the Great Australian Bight and dozens of other places.

Calls for a moratorium on new coal mines will now shift to all new fossil fuel extraction. The above formula will be cited as the justification.

The reason McKibben invokes mathematics is its immutability. “The numbers are the numbers,” he says. An equation is inarguable. But the simplicity hides the subtext.

A decision is being taken and as the maths gets more complicated, we shouldn’t ignore the rounding.

The post Why the new climate math is a declaration of war appeared first on Climate Home News.

If all the existing fuel were to be burned, projects currently operating or under construction could be expected to release 942Gt CO2, said the report by US-based think tank Oil Change International (OCI).

This exceeds the carbon limits that would most likely warm the world 1.5C and even over 2C above the pre-industrial average. These were limits agreed at last year’s climate conference in Paris.

It has been established for some time that the enormous unworked reserves claimed by fossil fuel companies contain vastly too much carbon to ever be burned safely. But OCI said that this was the first time an analysis had been done of how much greenhouse gas is stored in projects already working or under construction.

Founder of 350.org and climate campaign Bill McKibben said the report “change[d] our understanding of where we stand. Profoundly”.

It means that even if not a single new coal mine, oil or gas field were opened up, the carbon budget would be at risk, said OCI’s executive director Stephen Kretzmann.

Projected investment in new extraction sites and infrastructure over the next 20 years adds up to a staggering US$14tn, the report found.

“Continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry is now quite clearly and quantifiably climate denial” said Kretzmann.

Source: Oil Change International

The OCI report said existing oil and gas fields alone would exceed the carbon budget for 1.5C – which is a limit some small island states say would finish them and scientists believe would wipe out most coral reefs.

James Leaton, research director at the Carbon Tracker think tank which did much to popularise the concept of “unburnable carbon”, said research by Carbon Tracker in 2015 showed coal demand was declining so quickly that current reserves would be enough. But the picture was less clear for oil and gas.

“There is clearly no need for new coal mines to be developed if we are to stay within a 2C carbon budget,” said Leaton. “Because oil and gas production declines over time in any particular well, this may fall faster than the level of oil and gas demand in [a 2C scenario], in which case some new production would be needed. Depending on how much carbon budget you allocate to each fossil fuel, and the speed of the energy transition assumed, the window for new oil and gas will also start to close.”

In the UK, the government has committed to opening its shale gas resources to fracking. Ken Cronin, chief executive of the industry body UK Onshore Oil and Gas, said: “This report needs to look more deeply into the use of gas in a modern energy mix, looking at areas such as reformation of methane into hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, particularly for heating systems and potentially transport. The simple fact is that the best way to combat climate change is to remove coal ASAP and to do that you need to replace much of the coal capacity with gas.”

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The OCI report did not take into account carbon capture and storage (CCS), which it argued is still at an “uncertain” stage of development. The International Energy Agency reported last week that CCS, which is fitted to emissions sources to trap carbon, was being rolled out at a rate of just one project every year.

Study author Greg Muttitt said it was imperative for governments to focus on shutting down new mines and fields before a sod was turned.

“Once an extraction operation is underway, it creates an incentive to continue so as to recoup investment and create profit, ensuring the product – the fossil fuels – are extracted and burned. These incentives are powerful, and the industry will do whatever it takes to protect their investments and keep drilling,” he said.

There is new carbon math coming tomorrow that will change our understanding of where we stand. Profoundly.

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 22, 2016

Ben Caldecott, director of the Sustainable Finance Programme at the University of Oxford Smith School said: “One direct implication of meeting climate targets are stranded upstream fossil fuel assets. These stranded assets need to be managed, particularly in terms of the communities that could be negatively impacted. Policymakers need to proactively manage these impacts to ensure a ‘just transition’.”

The report expands on a call made by former Kiribati president Anote Tong last year to stop opening new coal mines. China, the US and Indonesia, the world’s largest, third and fifth largest coal producers, have banned any new coal mines. In the US, the moratorium is only on public land.

But in Australia’s Galilee basin, there are nine proposed coal mines with a total lifetime emissions of 24Gt CO2. This includes the massive Adani Carmichael mine, which the Australian government has approved. The Australian Department of Environment would not comment on whether it had assessed the impact of the Carmichael mine on the global carbon budget.

The post Existing coal, oil and gas fields will blow carbon budget – study appeared first on Climate Home News.