Speaking on Monday at an old London coal power plant-turned-shopping centre, IEA head Fatih Birol said he would be “very happy” to see new NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) that “include no new unabated coal and also early retirements of existing coal”.

In 2021, the Glasgow Climate Pact, agreed at the COP26 UN climate summit, called on countries for the first time to accelerate efforts “towards the phase-down of unabated coal power”. “Unabated” means power produced using coal without any technology to capture, store or use the planet-heating carbon dioxide emitted during the process.

Birol, a Turkish energy analyst, said that stopping coal-plant construction was “as our North American colleagues would say, a no-brainer”. Yet, he added, while “the appetite to build new coal plants is in a dying process, some countries still do it”. He singled out China’s plans to build 50 gigawatts (GW) of new coal plants.

Shutting down existing coal plants, particularly young ones in Asia, is more difficult because the companies that have built and operate them would lose money, Birol noted. There is almost $1 trillion of capital to be recovered from existing coal plants, “so who is going to pay for this?” he asked, calling it “a key issue”.

Birol praised the Just Energy Transition Partnerships that have been set up between wealthy countries and several coal-reliant emerging economies like South Africa and Indonesia to help address the problem. He added that “there are some countries in Asia who can, in my view, afford to retire their coal plants earlier”, without mentioning which.

Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof announced at the event organised by the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which includes 60 countries, that Malaysia aims to reduce its coal-fired power plants by half by 2035 and retire all of them by 2044. It will also tackle social and economic challenges through reskilling programmes for workers and promoting renewable energy adoption, he added.

Speaking later at London’s defunct Battersea power station, Indonesia’s deputy minister for maritime affairs and investment, Rachmat Kaimuddin, explained some of the challenges his country faces in phasing out coal.

Kaimuddin (right) speaks alongside Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan (centre) in London on June 24, 2024. (Photo: Powering Past Coal Alliance)

After China and India, Indonesia has the world’s biggest pipeline of new coal power plants under construction. Kaimuddin said the state energy company would not build any more but added that cancelling existing contracts is “very, very difficult” unless the company constructing the plant wants to pull out – which none have yet.

In addition, shutting down existing power power plants is expensive, he said, because many coal power plants have “take or pay” contracts signed in the 1990s under which the government pays them whether their electricity is required or not.

Another concern is that the Southeast Asian nation does not want to lose its energy security in the switch to renewables, Kaimuddin noted. Indonesia currently mines domestically most of the coal it uses. “We’re trying to partner with other people to try to build [a] renewable supply chain in the country,” he said.

Millions of people in Indonesia work in the coal industry, he added, so a shift towards clean energy will need to include new jobs for them. “It doesn’t have to be green jobs – it has to be jobs, right?” he said.

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Singapore’s climate ambassador Ravi Menon told the same event that the economies of China, India and Indonesia are growing and so are their energy needs, meaning that renewables have to be rolled out rapidly to meet demand.

Energy storage is also required to smooth intermittent supply from solar and wind, while electricity transmission infrastructure, including power lines, is needed to transport power from solar and wind farms to cities that account for a large share of consumption.

Both Kaimuddin and Menon said carbon credits should be used to offset losses for the owners of coal plants that are shut down early. “Retiring [plants] definitely will destroy financial value and… and we also need a better way to compensate them,” said Kaimuddin.

The event’s focus on coal raised concerns among some campaigners. Avantika Goswami, climate lead at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Climate Home that “singling out coal” in the NDCs, rather than including fossil fuels more broadly, “equates to giving a free pass to oil and gas-dependent countries, many of whom are wealthy”.

It could penalise many developing countries, where coal is a cheap source of fuel and energy needs are still growing, she warned.

“A global climate policy that allows unfettered use of oil and gas – which together account for 55% of fossil fuel emissions – is incomplete and inequitable,” she added.

Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at advocacy group Oil Change International, said the IEA’s head should know that “the time to focus only on coal as a climate culprit is over”. He pointed to a subsequent agreement at COP28 last year where governments agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels in their energy systems, without setting a deadline.

“We need a full, fast, fair, funded phase-out of all fossil fuels. Setting such a low bar for ambition is out of touch and inequitable, keeping the door wide open for major oil and gas producers,” Ioualalen added in a statement.

He called on rich countries that are “most responsible” for the climate crisis to foot the bill for a just transition. “We know they have more than enough money. It’s just going to the wrong things like fossil fuel handouts,” he said.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)

This story was updated after publication to include comments from Avantika Goswami at the CSE and Romain Ioualalen at Oil Change International,.

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At Cop26, all countries agreed to “revisit and strengthen” their 2030 climate plans, to close the gap between national action and the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.

23 September was the cut-off date for inclusion in a UN Climate Change progress report and was highlighted as a deadline by Cop26 president Alok Sharma.

As that date passed, just 23 of the nearly 200 countries which signed the Glasgow agreement had submitted updated 2030 climate plans. Of these, most offered more policy detail rather than strengthening headline targets.

Top three emitters the USA, EU and China worked on implementing pledges made last year but did not increase their ambition. India formalised promises made by prime minister Narendra Modi at Cop26 into an official four-page document.

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare told a webinar last week: “The bottom line is there has been really little progress since Cop26. Politics and geopolitics is dominated by the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine which then sent energy markets into turmoil but still, we feel countries should be moving ahead.”

He added: “There’s a massive emissions gap remaining and the IPCC assessment has been very clear that we do need to get down and close that gap if we have much of a chance of limiting warming to 1.5C.”

I welcome the updated NDCs from Indonesia UAE & Uganda and Gambia’s Long Term Strategy

23 parties including UK have submitted new or strengthened NDCs to @UNFCCC since COP26

I encourage all countries, and especially major emitters, to do so ahead of #COP27

— Alok Sharma (@AlokSharma_RDG) September 26, 2022

Of the major emitters, Australia stands out for significantly increasing ambition. The newly elected Labor government pushed up its 2030 target from 26-28% on 2005 levels to 43%, a similar level to other developed economies.

Indonesia, Cop27 hosts Egypt and Cop28 hosts the United Arab Emirates submitted stronger targets, while the UK clarified how it would achieve its emissions cuts.

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Indonesia improved its unconditional 2030 target from 29% to 31.89% compared to a business-as-usual predicted level. With international finance, it could achieve 43.2% cuts, up from 41% in the previous plan.

The Cop27 host Egypt quantified its emissions reduction targets for the first time. But the plan only covered certain sectors not the economy as a whole and is entirely conditional on international finance.

The Cop28 host UAE improved its 2030 emissions reduction target from 23.5% to 31%, compared to a business-as-usual baseline.

Brazil raised its 2030 target from 37% to 50%, compared to 2005. But it also changed how 2005 levels were measured, making the target easier to meet. According to Climate Action Tracker, Brazil’s updated climate plan is therefore less ambitious than before.

In June, several major emitters said they were updating their climate plans but have yet to do so. These countries were Chile, Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam.

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The European Union reportedly plans to update its climate plan to capture a step-up in medium-term ambition since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Although countries like Germany have been frantically chasing gas deals to get them through the coming winter, they plan to move faster off fossil fuels by 2030 in response to the invasion.

The USA has not updated its target but has made major progress towards meeting it by passing the Inflation Reduction Act.

Analysis from the Rhodium Group suggests this will reduce the US’s emissions by one billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year by 2030.

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Climate Action Tracker estimates the gap to being on track for 1.5C of global warming is 17-20 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year by 2030.

At Cop26, Climate Action Tracker predicted the world was on course for 2.7C of global warming based on government policies.

If an optimistic scenario, in which governments implemented all their announced targets, global warming could be limited to 1.8C, they said. That latter forecast was echoed by the International Energy Agency.

Climate Action Tracker’s assement published at Cop26, which will be updated at Cop27 (Photo: Climate Action Tracker)

In some areas, governments have gone backwards since Cop26, Hare said. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has provoked a global energy crisis and the overflow from that is from my perspective we’re seeing the oil and gas industry really taking advantage of that and promoting massive gas developments particularly in Africa, Asia, Australia which will render the Paris agreement targets unachievable if implemented.”

Hare added that the European Union had encouraged this gas development by classifying gas as a green investment in its “sustainable taxonomy”. “That’s being used at a rhetorical level around the world to justify gas as green,” Hare said.

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Speaking from New York’s climate week, he added: “I was at a reception last night hearing leaders from Latin American countries talking about how green gas was because the Europeans said it. I’ve heard that from Africans as well.”

The European Climate Foundation’s CEO Laurence Tubiana told reporters last week that the energy crisis had pushed governments, particularly in Europe and China, back towards fossil fuels.

That “weakened” pledges made at Cop26 in Glasgow, she said, adding that the real economy continues to move in the right direction.

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The small Middle Eastern country is battling its worst economic crisis for decades, which has pushed over half its population into poverty.

This week, Lebanon announced in a submission to the UN that it aims to cut carbon emissions by 20%, up from 15%, by 2030, compared to business-as-usual projections. The country raised its conditional emissions reduction target, which is dependent on foreign financing, by just one percentage point, to 31%.

“Despite its hardships, Lebanon remains committed to fighting the climate crisis,” Lebanon’s submission says. 

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The government said it plans to boost sustainable economic growth by creating jobs in the renewable sector, rolling out welfare programmes and protecting natural resources. 

By 2030, Lebanon aims to generate 18% of its electricity and 11% of its heating  from renewable sources, up from a previous combined target of 15%. 

“Lebanon will need international support to successfully overcome the economic downturn, and to sustainably rebuild its economy and the resilience of its society,” the government said in its submission.

Lebanon will prioritise adaptation measures, such as combating desertification and helping farmers increase their resilience to climate impacts, over the next decade, the government added. The arid country is vulnerable to drought and rising sea levels.

“Lebanon views climate change as a threat multiplier to its current struggles. Adverse climate impacts will add an additional layer of challenges and set back any improvement in the Lebanese socio-economic status,” Mary Awad, who works in climate policy at the United Nations Development Programme, told Climate Home News. 

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa and Cop26 president Alok Sharma both welcomed Lebanon’s announcement on Twitter. 

I welcome Lebanon’s submission of its updated NDC, which is showing enhanced efforts in both mitigation and adaptation.

Only through efforts towards ambition by all, we will be able to achieve the goals of the #ParisAgreement.

— Patricia Espinosa C. (@PEspinosaC) March 16, 2021

Lebanon’s climate plan was published amid mounting public anger at the political and economic turmoil. Protesters took to the streets in Beirut this week, blocking roads and burning tyres as the Lebanese currency crashed to a tenth of what it was worth at the start of the economic crisis in late 2019.

The country has been grappling with the disintegration of Syria for over a decade, taking in over 1.5 million Syrian refugees since 2011.  It has one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the region. 

Lebanon’s troubles deepened last summer when a deadly explosion at Beirut’s port devastated huge swathes of the city and left 300,000 people homeless. 

The Lebanese government resigned following the blast but a deadlock between former president Michael Aoun and his designated successor Saad al-Hariri has delayed the formation of a new cabinet.

The country is embroiled in a long-standing maritime border dispute with neighbouring Israel over a 330-square-mile area of ocean which has abundant reserves of methane gas. Access to the offshore gas would be a major boon for Lebanon’s economy but a resolution to the dispute has not been reached.

“Lebanon will have to undergo extensive institutional, administrative, financial and political reforms in order for the  implementation [of its climate plan] to be swift, effective and impactful,” said Awad.

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While rich countries primarily focus on carbon-cutting measures in their national contributions to the Paris Agreement, poor nations set out their plans to bolster climate adaptation and deal with economic and other losses and damages associated with global warming.

In climate plans filed ahead of the UN deadline on 31 December 2020, several countries stressed the mounting costs they face from severe climate impacts. Emissions cuts and adaptation efforts are not enough to prevent climate change from destroying homes and livelihoods in their countries.

The Maldives’ environment minister, Hussain Rasheed Hassan, told Climate Home that the low-lying island nation “will be lost to the world” if sea levels rise faster than coastal defences. 

“We believe that we must be compensated for impacts caused by climate change. We are not responsible. Our total emissions are 0.003% [of the global total],” Hassan said, adding that the country needs an estimated $8.8 billion to ensure coastal protection for its 185 inhabited islands. 

The Maldives plans to establish climate risk insurance mechanisms to build resilience to climate loss and damage, the island state outlined in its updated national contribution. 

“We need to develop the financing capacity so that any shocks we have to endure in future can be mitigated. Our economy and life is tied to the oceans,” Hassan said. 

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There has been a “staggering” rise in climate disasters over the past 20 years, which have led to global losses of $2.97 trillion, according to the UN. 

For countries vulnerable to climate change, loss and damage is a key issue which they argue should feature high on the agenda at the Cop26 summit in November. Rich countries, however, have long resisted putting any money behind it.

In 2013 the Warsaw International Mechanism was set up to address loss and damage, but with no clear mandate to mobilise financial support. In 2015 countries agreed that “loss and damage” references in the Paris Agreement did not provide a basis for liability or compensation. 

“The key issue that remains is the relationship between loss and damage and climate finance,” Spencer Thomas, who helped draw up Grenada’s national contribution, told Climate Home News. 

Grenada’s updated climate plan includes a specific pledge to address loss and damage. “This will include strengthening resilience to respond to impacts beyond the limits of adaptation and addressing human mobility and settlements,” the plan states. 

The small island nation is already experiencing severe climate impacts, Thomas said. “We see a decline in the productivity of our coral reefs because of heavy rains and pollution. Hurricanes have destroyed our forests. How do we prepare our economies for this?”

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Under the Warsaw mechanism, loss and damage is defined as a subcategory to adaptation, rather than as an issue in its own right. As a result, developing countries say that the issue has not received the recognition and finance it deserves. 

“Small island states are clamouring for ease of access [to funding] and that mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage are equally represented in the climate finance landscape,” Thomas said.

One obstacle is a lack of comparable data on the scale of climate damages, said Hassan. “We have got to develop international standards and measurement mechanisms so that loss and damage can be assessed in a more scientific manner. The Warsaw International Mechanism is not capable of dealing with this.”

Nepal also placed a strong emphasis on loss and damage in its updated submission to the UN. The country plans to establish a national strategy on loss and damage by 2025 and allocate specific funds to this issue. 

Nepal, which has among the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the world, is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Himalayan glaciers in Nepal have been losing almost half a metre of ice each year since the start of the century and floods and landslides are common.

“Even if emissions are rapidly reduced, the residual climate impacts remain because of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Loss and damage will be equally important to mitigation and adaptation – we cannot shy away from this,” Manjeet Dhakal, head of the least developed countries team at Climate Analytics, told Climate Home News. 

He said that Nepal’s loss and damage strategy would likely cover a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, tourism and hydropower production, which are all already suffering from climate disasters.

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Although that might sound like a technical issue, it’s really not; his decision on how to manage it will be a crucial factor in setting the tone ahead of this year’s critical UN climate summit in Glasgow.

An NDC is a Nationally Determined Contribution – the pledge that each country makes to all others in terms of tackling its own greenhouse gas emissions.

Governments first put forward NDCs in 2015, in the run-up to the UN climate summit in Paris. In the Paris Agreement they ‘requested’ each other to put forward enhancements, or upgrades, starting this year.

Those upgrades could include a number of elements but the key expectation is that governments will accelerate their carbon-cutting for the decade to 2030.

Currently the assembled NDCs put the world on course for something like 3C of global warming by the end of the century – a marked contrast to their promise in Paris to ‘make efforts’ to hold it to 1.5C.

The case for upgrading NDCs strengthened markedly in 2018 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its landmark special report that getting on track for 1.5C basically means halving global carbon emissions by 2030.

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Although more than 100 governments have said they will put forward an enhanced NDC before the Glasgow summit, only three have actually done so. Question marks therefore hang over how many others will – and when – and how much they’re going to accelerate their carbon clampdowns.

So the issue before the UK government is: as self-proclaimed climate change leaders, how do they manage things in order to get the maximum number of other nations to take an ambitious step forward?

Having left the European Union, the UK must at some point submit a national NDC anyway – the bloc uses a joint one. And to burnish its leadership credentials and encourage other countries to step up on their NDCs, an obvious route is to go early and go large.

The obvious time to do this would be before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in June. There, Boris Johnson will be able to talk NDCs directly with Narendra Modi of India, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and other leaders of Commonwealth countries able to step up a little.

The Commonwealth meeting is also the ideal stage on which the UK can proffer a package of measures to help the poorest nations on Earth (which includes a number of Commonwealth members) protect themselves against climate impacts and green their economies, which many will need in order to step up the pace on carbon-cutting.

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But here’s the problem: the UK can’t both go early and go large.

If the UK puts forward an NDC in or before June, it would have to base the headline number on its current legally-binding target for 2030, as laid down in the fifth national carbon budget. That’s a 57% reduction from the 1990 baseline.

On paper, that’s a marked advance from the EU’s NDC, which pledges a 40% cut.

But it would be just that – a paper advance – because national legislation, the Climate Change Act, already commits the UK to a 57% cut. No-one, including those other governments that the UK wants to impress, would give any credit for that.

Due to a technicality of the way UK emissions are currently accounted for, the 57% figure translates into an actual emissions reduction of 61%. If the UK leaves the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) at the end of the year when the Brexit ‘transition period’ ends, the 57% figure would then automatically become 61% – more impressive-sounding, but still absolutely the same level of ambition.

Given that the transition period ends on 31 December, there may be no clarity on this until late in the year, perhaps even after COP26.

The problem gets bigger.

The 57% or 61% cut by 2030 was set to be compatible with the previous 2050 target of an 80% cut in emissions, not with the current net zero target.

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So, the criticism would run – the UK is pitching in a number that’s not even compatible with its own legally-binding 2050 target and calling it ‘leadership’.

To add Mr Sharma’s headache, the government’s advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, will submit new official advice in September making clear what the net-zero-compatible 2030 target should be. Previous work suggests it’ll be in the range of 62-65% – again, corresponding to a higher number if the UK leaves the ETS.

Logically, the UK should make this new 2030 number the basis of its NDC. And it would represent a genuine increase in carbon-cutting ambition, and therefore be a credible marker of leadership.

However, the government can’t know exactly what the net-zero-compatible 2030 number is until the committee has calculated and published it. But September is far too late to begin using an ambitious NDC as a calling-card to entice other governments to step up.

To make matters worse, ministers could prolong the agony by deciding they need to discuss and debate the number and run their own calculations before accepting it.

So as things stand, the UK risks heading into the year, close up to the climate summit and possibly even beyond, asking others to rally behind a ‘climate leadership’ banner while touting an NDC, the most important international measure of leadership, which is demonstrably un-leader-like.

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There are two ways in which Mr Sharma can square the circle.

One is by making an unequivocal commitment early in the year that the UK will publish an enhanced NDC in September, and that it will contain whatever 2030 number the Committee on Climate Change calculates.

The second is to publish an NDC containing the 57% or 61% figure early in the year, alongside an unequivocal commitment to upgrade it later in the year to reflect the committee’s advice. In both cases ministers will have to approve the recommended number in double-quick time.

Whichever route it wants to take, ministers need to decide soon – and for a successful COP26 with UK leadership at the centre of its offer, doing nothing except proudly proclaiming its current figure, even if expressed in the impressive-sounding form of an ETS-free 61%, is not an option.

The dilemma is clear. Decision time is due soon.

Richard Black is the director of the think-tank the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. 

The post To be credible at Cop26, the UK needs a plan for its climate plan appeared first on Climate Home News.

With nine months to go before the summit, or Cop26, the UK faces a steep climb to provide the confidence and diplomatic lift the world needs to galvanise political leaders into taking more ambitious action and curb greenhouse gas emissions growth.

But preparations for the summit have been off to a rocky start – and the job of rallying countries into bolder action could prove to get tougher yet.

Last week, UK prime minister Boris Johnson sacked former clean growth minister Claire O’Neill as Cop26 president. Her replacement is expected to be announced as part of a cabinet reshuffle in the coming days.

As she went, O’Neill slammed Johnson for showing no leadership over preparations for the summit, which she said were “miles off track”. “He doesn’t get it,” she told the BBC of the summit’s diplomatic gravitas.

Johnson launched Cop26 on Tuesday without a president to oversee the summit, nor a clear strategy to leverage the world’s largest emitters into submitting tougher climate plans before the Glasgow talks.

He urged all countries to follow the UK’s lead in setting net zero emissions goals before the end of the year – a goal that the UK itself is not on track to meet and that none of the world’s large emerging economies have signed up for so far.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is also failing to show enthusiasm for upgrading their climate plans.

Under a UN decision to implement the Paris Agreement, February 9 is the theoretical deadline for countries to communicate new or updated climate plans this year. Only the Marshall Islands and Suriname have so far met the deadline.

In a must-read report, Alister Doyle looks at the legality and implications of the missed deadline.

Back in the UK, Johnson does have a vision, one of a “global Britain” after Brexit.

How the government balances this double act of re-defining its place in the world while calling on leader to take greater climate action will be key to the success of its leadership this year.

Indeed, some confidence remains that the UK’s diplomatic leverage could still deliver a positive outcome at Cop26. But in private, negotiators are expressing concerns that time for action is now strikingly tight.

African youths’ call

When African youth activist Vanessa Nakate was cropped out from a picture at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it was one example too many of the lack of attention to the voices of those that are most affected by climate impacts.

The incident, which sparked outrage across the world, also led young African activists to highlight the lack of action by both African and world leaders to tackle the climate crisis on the continent.

“The biggest threat to action in my country and in Africa is the fact that those who are trying as hard as possible to speak up are … not able to tell their stories,” warned Nakate.

Turbines

A record 3.6 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity was installed across Europe in 2019. As the cost of building offshore wind farms continues to fall, the economic incentive for the continent to embrace wind power should be a given.

But the pace of deployment is too slow to meet the EU’s 2050 net zero emissions target, according to the industry.

The EU Commission estimates Europe will need between 230 and 450 GW of offshore wind by 2050 to decarbonise its energy system. At the end of 2019, total capacity reached 22 GW. Still a long way to go.

This week’s top stories

• World misses symbolic February deadline to ratchet up climate action before Cop26
• UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start
• Offshore wind deployment boom ‘too slow’ to meet EU climate target
• Democratic contenders in Iowa caucus aim to rejoin Paris accord in green goals
• UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020
• UK government drops Claire O’Neill as president of Cop26 summit
• Youth activists urge African governments to do more to curb climate change

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