But the money pledged still falls short of the $4 billion a year needed for the rest of this decade to wean poor African households off traditional dirty fuels including charcoal, kerosene and firewood, while climate campaigners criticised efforts to switch them to fossil gas.

Countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and India have made progress in recent years, in line with a global goal to provide clean cooking for all by 2030. Yet four in five Africans still use highly polluting cooking methods – around half of the 2.3 billion people who lack clean options worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told the summit his organisation’s aim of making 2024 “a turning point” for clean cooking was being realised.

“It’s now or never,” he said, adding that the IEA will track the commitments made in Paris and share the results with the international community in a year’s time. “We will follow it as if it is our own money,” he emphasised.

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Separately, the African Development Bank (AfDB) confirmed an earlier pledge, first made at the COP28 climate summit last year, to mobilise around $2 billion for clean cooking over the next 10 years, earmarking 20 percent of its energy finance for that purpose.

Speaking in Paris, AfDB president, Akinwumi A. Adesina, said his own eyesight had been damaged by smoke from cooking fires during his childhood in Nigeria, while a friend and members of her family had died in an accident after she was sold petrol instead of kerosene as cooking fuel.

“Why do we let things like that happen?” Adesina asked, adding that enabling clean cooking is a matter of “human dignity, fairness and justice for women”. “It is about life itself,” he said.

Experts have long pointed to the health damage to women and children from carbon monoxide and black soot emitted by cooking over open fires or with basic stoves. Dirty cooking contributes to 3.7 million premature deaths annually, according to the IEA, with women and children most at risk from respiratory and cardiovascular ailments linked to indoor air pollution.

Ahead of the Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa this week in Paris, some climate and gender activists pointed to the small number of African women represented at the gathering – who they said accounted for less than a fifth of registered participants.

World Bank tiptoes into fiery debate over meat emissions

Janet Milongo, coordinator of renewable energy for Climate Action Network International, said the event was biased “towards the continuation of the colonial, patriarchal representation of the continent”.

Speeches were made largely by male leaders of governments and companies, with the notable exception of Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and Damilola Ogunbiyi, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All.

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (left) with the presidents of Sierra Leone, Tanzania and  Togo, the prime minister of Norway; H.E. Maroš Šefčovič, Executive Vice President of the European Green Deal and Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group at the Clean Cooking Summit for Africa in Paris, May 14, 2024 (Photo: International Energy Agency)

Clean cooking ‘opportunity’ in NDCs

Ogunbiyi, who is Nigerian and has worked on clean energy policy for the government, said her country had made a big effort on solar electrification but had forgotten about clean cooking.

“We can’t make that mistake again,” she said, calling for clean cooking to be a key part of African governments’ investment plans for their energy transition.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged more governments to seize the opportunity to include measures to boost clean cooking in the next updates to their national climate action plans (NDCs) due by early next year.

As of December last year, only 60 NDCs included one or more measures that explicitly target clean cooking, such as Nepal’s goal to ensure that by 2030 half of households use electric stoves as their main mode of cooking and Rwanda promising to disseminate modern efficient cookstoves to 80% of its rural population and 50% of people in cities by that date.

Stiell noted that planet-heating emissions from dirty cooking methods are “significant”, amounting to about 2% of the global total – the equivalent of emissions from the aviation and shipping sectors combined.

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He said the world has the technology to shift people onto modern, cleaner sources of energy and cut emissions in the process, calling it “low-hanging fruit”.

Dymphna van der Lans, CEO of the Clean Cooking Alliance, a global partnership of organisations working on the issue, said it was important to raise awareness not just about the scale of the problem – but to ensure people understand it is an issue that can be solved.

“The technologies exist – they are out there, there are fantastic companies providing these fuels and solutions and services to these customers that actually can be deployed immediately… and reach the populations in Africa,” she told Climate Home after the summit.

LPG conundrum

On stage in Paris, companies ranging from fossil fuel giants such as Total and Shell to smaller manufacturers of cookstoves said they would expand their efforts to reach new customers with more efficient stoves running on modern energy, including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), bioethanol and electricity.

While there is widespread consensus over ending the use of firewood and charcoal – which contribute to deforestation – there is less agreement over which fuels should replace them.

Efforts to build new distribution networks for LPG – a form of fossil fuel gas – are particularly controversial. At the summit on Tuesday, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said his company wants to increase its 40 million African LPG customers to 100 million and will invest more to boost its LPG production capacity in East Africa.

Pouyanné said there is a need to make LPG cooking affordable – noting that the $30 upfront investment required for a stove and gas canister is too high for most people – which could be done through “pay as you cook” loans.

Some international development agencies that work on the ground to help poor households access clean cooking – including Practical Action – support the use of LPG as a “transitional step” towards clean cooking where options like electricity or ethanol are not available.

“Our primary objective is to ensure people, especially women and children, have access to the best possible solutions which don’t compromise their health and that in the long term aren’t contributing to the worsening climate crisis,” said Practical Action CEO Sarah Roberts.

In the IEA’s “least-cost, realistic scenario” to reach universal clean cooking this decade, LPG remains the primary solution, representing nearly half of households gaining access, while electric cooking is the main option for just one in eight homes.

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The IEA’s analysis shows that this strategy, centred on LPG, would drive up emissions by 0.1 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2030. But that would be more than offset by reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from switching away from firewood, charcoal and inefficient stoves, resulting in a net reduction of 1.5Gt of CO2 equivalent by 2030.

Net greenhouse gas emissions annual savings from clean cooking access in the IEA Access for All scenario by 2030 (in Mt CO2-eq) (Source: IEA)

Red = Combustion; Orange = Avoided combustion; Yellow = Unsustainable harvesting; Green = Net savings          

At the summit, Togo’s president Faure Gnassingbé described LPG as “really the way forward” for clean cooking, and said more production capacity was needed in Africa. He added that ESG investors – which normally apply green and ethical standards – should adjust their environmental criteria so they can back LPG cooking projects despite it being a fossil fuel.

“We should be clear-headed and not open up to sterile debates on this issue,” Gnassingbé told the summit.

Some climate justice activists disagreed, criticising high-level backing for fossil gas as a clean cooking solution.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based energy and climate think-tank, said on social media platform X that the need for clean cooking alternatives “is used by many African politicians as an excuse for building gas infrastructure” which is intended to develop an export industry and never reaches poorer households.

Here’s my response to yesterday’s summit on Clean Cooking in Africa & the declaration issued by #IEA.

“This declaration is a lazy & misguided statement which seems to rely on the private sector to use gas as a solution to this problem.

However, there’s no evidence that will…

— Mohamed Adow (@mohadow) May 15, 2024

He said the money raised at the summit should be channelled instead into high-efficiency, low-cost electric cookers for African women, which could be powered by renewable energy.

Carbon finance principles

Another controversial way of promoting clean cooking, backed by the IEA-hosted summit, is by developing and selling carbon credits for the emissions savings from new technologies and fuels.

The IEA said that around 15% of the total amount pledged in Paris would come via carbon finance, with the proceeds from selling offsets helping subsidise customers’ access to clean cooking.

But Climate Home found in an investigation last year that the methodologies used to calculate emissions reductions from more efficient cookstoves in India had overstated their greenhouse gas savings.

To counter such problems, the Clean Cooking Alliance announced a new set of “Principles for Responsible Carbon Finance in Clean Cooking” in Paris, backed by 100 organisations working in the space.

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The voluntary principles, which aim to build confidence in carbon markets for clean cooking, say project claims should be evidence-based, case-specific and substantiated, and their benefits should be transparent. The alliance is also working with the UN climate secretariat on a new methodology for clean cooking carbon credits which it hopes will be ready this year.

Van der Lans said the goal was to strengthen the quality and integrity of clean-cooking carbon credits in line with the latest science, to achieve a higher, fairer price that fully reflects the work being done to protect forests by moving away from charcoal and firewood.

“Everybody within the clean cooking ecosystem is signing up to these principles,” she noted – from banks to carbon credit verification agencies and companies selling the technology.

“That is a good signal that we’re doing the right things and we’re moving this market in the right direction,” she added.

(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by Joe Lo)

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For years, the region has suffered blackouts which worsen during Israeli attacks and wealthier Gazans have turned to solar panels for reliable electricity.

After Hamas militants invaded Israel on 7 October and massacred over 1,400 civilians, the Israeli defense minister ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off electricity and fuel supplies.

Residents of Gaza told Climate Home these solar panels, while still vulnerable to Israeli bombardment, were helping keep the lights on.

Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. (Photo: Naaman Omar apaimages)

Twenty-nine year old Amjad Al-Rais lives in Gaza City, the part of the Gaza Strip which Israeli fighters have attacked the most. He has had solar panels on the roof of his house for five years.

He told Climate Home: “Solar panels are very important to our lives and they are the best option during the current time with the outbreak of war, to produce electricity around the clock without interruption.”

Like many Gazans, Al-Rais had previously relied on fossil fuel generators but said these require a lot of fuel “which is not currently available due to the Israeli blockade”.

Muhammed Al-Yaziji owns a company that sells solar panels in Gaza and said that “there has been a significant demand during the last five years… with the frequent power outages in Gaza”.

Bad in peace, worse in war

For over a decade, Gaza has not had enough electricity to meet its needs, leading to blackouts.

The United Nations says this has “severely affected the availability of essential services, particularly health, water and sanitation services, and undermined Gaza’s fragile economy”.

The electricity that Gazans do have comes partly from a gas-fired power plant and partly from electricity cables from Israel, paid for by the Palestinian authority. Some Gazans supplement this with their own generators or solar panels.

Since Israel cut off supplies, hospitals in Gaza have struggled to provide care to the sick and injured.

URGENT UPDATE: Doctors in #Gaza have issued an urgent warning that the lives of 130 premature babies are in imminent danger if fuel does not reach hospitals soon.

1/4 pic.twitter.com/JiVFQIdOwJ

— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) October 21, 2023

This sparked protests from humanitarians. The head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, Melanie Ward, said that 130 premature babies were in danger from the hospital’s lack of electricity.

“The world cannot simply look on as these babies are killed by the siege on Gaza… A failure to act is to sentence these babies to death,” she said.

Prior to the recent explosion of violence, the World Bank attempted to build Gaza’s resilience, offering grants to put solar panels on hospitals and in refugee camps.

No silver bullet

Like other imports to the Gaza Strip, solar panels are subject to Israeli custom duties, pushing up costs.

Anas Abu Sharkh is a 46-year old teacher in Gaza City, who paid $8,000 in installments for eight solar panels.

He said this price which he said was “extremely high” but cheaper than running a generator. The average Gazan earns $13 a day.

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Electricity systems based on rooftop solar are harder for armed groups to destroy than centralised systems based on fossil fuel power plants.

This, along with their falling price, has led to a boom in their use in war-torn countries like Yemen.

But solar panels are not immune from war. Three of Sharkh’s solar panels were damaged by Israeli bombs and Al-Rais said his panels were “subjected to severe damage”.

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But they warned the South African government should not row back from a clear commitment to cutting long-term emissions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told Parliament last week the timetable to shift away from coal “must be relooked at” while the country struggles with crippling daily blackouts.

The US, UK, EU, Germany and France are contributing funds for a landmark plan, known as a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JetP) to clean up South Africa’s coal-reliant electricity system.

Local business group tries to keep South Africa’s coal plants alive

A spokesperson for the German development ministry told Climate Home the group of rich countries behind the JetP show “understanding for the current emergency and sees the need for short-term measures” in South Africa.

But they also warned against backsliding on the coal to clean energy transition: “A clear commitment by the South African government to long-term emission reduction strategies is and remains an important component of our cooperation”.

Uncertain plans

The programme hinges on the ability to replace most of its 14 existing coal power plants with solar and wind power.

South Africa’s coal plants often produce less electricity than the country needs and state-owned energy firm Eskom respond by implementing planned power cuts, which it calls load shedding.

These can last up to 10 hours and have significantly worsened over the last year, angering citizens and businesses and damaging Ramaphosa’s popularity ahead of elections next year.

Ageing and unreliable coal-fired power plants frequently breaking down and Eskom’s dire financial situation have been blamed for the crisis.

Now the government is considering delaying the closure of further coal power plants to help ease electricity cuts.

“Our own pace”

Rampaphosa told the National Assembly last week that “we will transition to cleaner energy but at our own pace and own time”.

“We have got to do it, taking into account the needs of our people and the requirements of energy security”, he added.

Alongside the closure and repurposing of coal-fired power plants, the partnership is also meant to cover an expansion of social protection and retraining for workers who lose their jobs.

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But an investigation by Climate Home News and Oxpeckers found coal-reliant communities have scarce details on how funds for re-skilling will be invested.

The uncertain prospects are fuelling hostility to the programme in coal heartlands. A proposal from a business group to keep coal power plants alive is gaining support from local politicians and some residents, Climate Home News has found.

Debt concerns

The type of financing offered has been another continuing sticking point in the rich nations partnership with South Africa.

Grants make up only 3% of the package. The rest is loans, raising concerns South Africa’s debt burden.

Just over half of the funding is earmarked as concessional loans, with better-borrowing terms than South Africa can access on the open market.

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Like South Africa, Germany has kept coal plants open for longer than it wanted because of a short-term crisis.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany and the rest of Europe sought to drastically reduce their reliance on Russian gas.

To ensure that the supply of electricity met demand over the winter of 2022, Germany temporarily re-opened two coal power plants. Overall though, the crisis has sped up Europe’s transition away from fossil fuels to renewables.

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After all, there’s no use making clean electricity if you can’t get it to anyone who needs it. 

But, while anyone with a few million in their back pocket can throw up a solar farm, who has got the billions to build power cables across the country?

Well the Indian government does. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised $1bn towards cables linking renewable projects in the Himalayan state of Ladakh with states that people actually live in.

Over in Washington DC, the Climate Investment Funds does too. It has just lent Colombia $70m for transmission lines and other green projects. It has got $230m more in the pot for projects like this and is asking rich nations to top it up so they can roll out the programme to big hitters like India, Brazil and Indonesia.

This week’s stories

• Colombia gets $70m from new global renewable integration fund
• Coal communities fear South Africa’s clean energy transition
• India announces $4.3 billion investment in clean energy
• France seeks EU loophole for French Guiana to power space sector with biofuels
• Taiwan’s failure to clean up industry endangers its net zero pledge
• DR Congo delays rainforest oil auctions
• EU plans restrictions on climate-wrecking fishing method

In Colombia though, there are fears that having to consult with every community the cables pass through could slow the project down more than is helpful in a climate crisis.

Over in South Africa’s coal country, locals complain that they’ve not been consulted over plans to shut down coal power plants. They fear being left behind.

Making the energy transition both fast and fair is no easy task.

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The UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) has scrapped its flagship Team Energy Africa initiative after reviewing the involvement of the African Energy Chamber, a trade group headed by oil and gas lobbyist NJ Ayuk.

In 2007, Cameroonian-born lawyer Ayuk pleaded guilty to fraud in the US after impersonating a congressman to obtain visas for fellow Cameroonians. In 2015, he was investigated by Ghana’s central bank on suspicion of laundering $2.5 million.

“After reviewing its relationship with some of the private sector partners in Team Energy Africa, ECA has decided to cancel the initiative with immediate effect,” the commission’s climate director Jean-Paul Adam said in a short statement on Thursday evening.

He added that Uneca remains committed to working with the private sector to improve energy access through renewables across the continent and that the commission will “review the best mechanism to allow this to happen”.

UN gives platform to convicted fraudster lobbying for African gas

Team Energy Africa, a coalition of African investors and institutions, was created earlier this year to mobilise $500 billion of private sector investment into 250GW of “clean” energy across Africa by 2030.

The group was due to launch a dashboard at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, to showcase how African energy investments are being used. While the focus was on deploying renewable energy, it left space for some gas investments. Gas projects in Senegal were going to be part of the presentation.

‘Gas baby gas’

Ayuk had strongly argued that African countries should pursue gas extraction to spur Africa’s development. He came to the Cop27 climate summit with the motto: “Gas baby gas.”

Uneca has defended a role for gas to in the transition to clean energy in “very specific cases”.

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Africa is behind the curve on deploying wind and solar power, while hundreds of millions of people have no electricity. Only 2% of global investments in renewable energy in the last two decades were made on the continent, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

One of the fiercest debates at Cop27 concerns whether fossil gas is part of the solution to energy poverty, or a trap African leaders should avoid.

For some developing countries with existing resource and infrastructure, gas “will play a major role in their transition to a net zero future,” said Uneca executive secretary Antonio Pedro. “For all others, developing new fossil fuel infrastructure would result in billions of stranded assets and debt for future generations.”

Ayuk has yet to respond directly to Climate Home’s request for comment. In an article published on the African Energy Chamber’s website, Ayuk made unfounded personal attacks on the messenger. He did not address his criminal record or the money laundering allegations.

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Njock Ayuk Eyong, better known as NJ Ayuk, is chairman of the African Energy Chamber, a trade group that connects oil and gas executives with government officials.

The Cameroon-born lawyer describes himself on his website as “an internationally-acclaimed thought leader, lawyer, thinker, speaker and entrepreneur, who advises major companies on corporate strategies with a focus on investing in Africa’s future”.

Behind Ayuk’s slick appearance and gushing marketing prospectus is a murkier past.

Court documents seen by Climate Home News show Ayuk was convicted of fraud in the US for impersonating a congressman. In connection with his law firm Centurion Law Group, which brokers oil and gas deals across the continent, he was investigated for money laundering by Ghana’s central bank.

This hasn’t stopped the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) from giving him a prime platform to promote gas extraction in Africa during the Cop27 climate summit.

Sustainable Energy For All (SEforAll), which works with the UN to ensure access to sustainable energy worldwide, was part of the initiative spearheaded by Uneca. Following Climate Home’s reporting, SEforAll pulled out of the alliance on Wednesday, citing the African Energy Chamber’s involvement.

Fraud conviction

In 2007, Ayuk pleaded guilty to illegally using congressman Donald Payne’s stationery and signature stamp to obtain visas to the US for 11 people from Cameroon while an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland. He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation and expelled from the country.

In 2015, The Finder newspaper reported allegations that Ayuk was involved in laundering $2.5 million in Ghana and repatriating $1m to Equatorial Guinea, where he lived. The director of Centurion’s subsidiary in Ghana was arrested and detained during the investigation. GT Bank told investigators that Ayuk showed up at a branch with two bags containing $2.5m in cash, to deposit in a Centurion company account.

Ayuk reportedly told the bank that the funds were for legal expenses related to Centurion’s activities in Ghana. The case appears to have stalled.

Climate Home reached out by email to NJ Ayuk for comment but did not receive a response.

After publication of the story, in a lengthy response published on the African Energy Chamber’s website, Ayuk accused Climate Home of having an anti-Africa agenda. He did not address his criminal record or the money laundering allegations.

Ayuk wrote: “We are proud about the work we do at the African Energy Chamber and our work to make energy poverty history.”

Earlier this year, the African Energy Chamber partnered with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) to create Team Energy Africa. At the time, SEforAll was part of the initiative.

A brochure describes it as “an informal coalition of like-minded African investors and institutions keen on investing in, and championing Africa’s energy transformation”.

The initiative aims to unlock $500bn of private investment to deploy 250GW of clean energy by 2030, bring electricity to 600 million Africans and spur economic development.

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For the team, gas, of which there are large reserves across the continent, has a role to play to eradicate energy poverty. Both the heads of Uneca and SEforAll have previously supported gas as a “transition fuel” from dirtier coal and oil to renewable energy.

“One conversation will be around gas. We need to go to Cop27 to talk about this. We need a team with the private sector in the room, ” Vera Songwe, who headed Uneca until September, said of the initiative.

‘Gas baby gas’

“Drill baby drill: that should be Africa’s message to the world. If you want to solve energy poverty, gas baby gas,” Ayuk told Africa Energy Week in South Africa last month. “We need to go to Cop27, backing up our energy producers. We should not be apologizing for our energy sector.”

In a comment piece he published from Sharm el-Sheikh, Ayuk argued that African governments “must push back on the attempts by certain global interest groups and financiers” to prevent the continent from developing its gas reserves.

“This leads us to believe that Africa cannot rely on international partners,” he said.

Oil and natural gas will be playing an ongoing role in Africa’s energy mix for years to come. Renewables are expensive, unreliable and can’t do the heavy lifting for now. We need to drill for Gas and Make Energy Poverty History while fighting Climate Change. #cop27egypt #COP27 pic.twitter.com/RYx8hssMvl

— NJ Ayuk (@nj_ayuk) November 5, 2022

Team Energy Africa formally launched at the Africa Energy Week organised by Ayuk’s Africa Energy Chamber in South Africa last month.

Photos of the presentation seen by Climate Home show that a “natural gas expert group” is planned alongside a “renewable expert” one.

The team will be crucial in “driving private sector investments to boost energy sector growth in Africa whilst ensuring the continent does not continue begging for funding from international parties,” Ayuk said.

The event trailed a dashboard to showcase how African energy investments are being utilised. It included gas projects in Senegal. Climate Home understands it is due to be launched at the SEforAll pavilion at Cop27 on Tuesday 15 November. A senior Uneca official told Climate Home this was “a flagship Uneca initiative”.

Jean-Paul Adam, climate director at Uneca, told Climate Home the initiative was about “African investors channeling their own resources into investments across the continent”.

Uneca “is working with a range of private-sector partners to support this initiative. The major focus of these investments will be in renewable energy,” he said.

However, after being approached by Climate Home for comment, SEforAll decided to pull out from Team Energy Africa.

Tracey Crowe, chief of staff at SEforAll, said: “The initiative was first envisioned as a UN vehicle to serve as a catalyst for transformative private sector investments in clean energy. With the inclusion of a new partner that does not share our views on a clean and just energy transition for all countries, we are no longer a part of this programme.”

‘Pure folly’

While proponents argue Africa must use all resources at its disposal to lift people out of energy poverty, critics warn fossil fuel investments are a risky bet.

“Far be it for global north nations to tell global south actors what to do with their assets. Whether it’s a good idea for economic reasons is another question,” said Kaya Axxelsson, research assistant at Oxford University’s Smith School. “In some places it may not be wise to build new gas infrastructure that gets stranded and locks them into a cycle of debt, especially when renewables may be a cheaper and safer option.”

The majority of gas projects under development across the continent are destined for export, not alleviating energy poverty. European nations are seeking extra supplies in the short term to replace Russian imports, but this demand may not last as they scale up renewables.

The Don’t Gas Africa coalition is urging African leaders at Cop27 to back wind and solar energy instead.

“The African dash for gas is pure folly and will only bring more climate harm to the people of Africa,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa. “It’s horrifying to see an African Cop used to promote fossil fuels and exacerbate the climate suffering of African people. What is especially galling is that most of the gas being proposed will be sent to be burned by Europeans.”

The story was updated after publication on 09/11/2022 to include SEforAll’s decision to pull out of Team Energy Africa and NJ Ayuk’s blog post. 

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The plan was published on a purpose-built website and launched by vice president Yemi Osinbajo during an online event last week supported by Sustainable Energy For All. The Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet provided funding.

It aims to provide electricity to an estimated 90 million people who lack it by the end of the decade, while putting the country on a path to achieve net zero emissions by 2060.

To deliver, Nigeria is relying on gas as a transition fuel. It expects to significantly increase gas consumption during “the decade of gas” declared by president Muhammadu Buhari. It estimates the price tag at $410 billion by 2060.

“For Africa the problem of energy poverty is as important as our climate ambition. The current lack of power hurts livelihoods and destroys the dreams of hundreds of millions of young people,” said vice president Osinbajo.

Climate and energy experts welcomed high level political attention on the issue. Some criticised the focus on gas, while oil and gas workers complained they had not been consulted.

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Nigerians able to afford it have been relying on polluting diesel and petrol generators as backup to frequent power outages – something the government wants to end by 2050 by massively expanding solar generation capacity.

By 2060, it would replace all polluting cookstoves with electric or biogas ones and electrify 100% of passenger vehicles.

Gas consumption is set to double in the power sector in the 2020s and significantly increase in the cooking and industrial sectors before nearly phasing out by 2050. Oil and gas refining capacity will massively expand.

Ovigwe Eguegu, a Nigerian policy adviser at consultancy Development Reimagined, praised the package. “I think the energy transition agenda that the vice president is championing is rooted in the realities of the ground,” he said.

But while gas power stations burn cleaner than household diesel generators, they still rely on fossil fuel, which generates greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is a missed opportunity for more ambitious near-term action,” Carley Reynolds, of Climate Analytics, told Climate Home. It “risks Nigeria investing in stranded assets and locking into carbon-intensive infrastructure, when it should be investing in ever-cheaper renewables”.

Vice president Osinbajo said he was seeking an initial $10 billion from rich countries to support the plan, along the lines of the package offered to help South Africa pivot away from coal. Coal is largely absent from Nigeria’s energy mix.

Osinbajo is visiting the US this week to make the pitch.

Comment: Sri Lanka food crisis has its roots in the globalisation of the 1970s

Afolabi Olawale, general secretary of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, told Climate Home the union hadn’t been properly engaged in discussions about the transition. “You cannot make a plan without talking to those being impacted. We are finding it quite difficult to see how the plan will work,” he said.

By 2030, the government anticipates 140,000 jobs in the oil and power sectors to be cut compared with 2020 levels. By 2050, that number would increase to 260,000, including job losses in the gas sector.

Shifting to cleaner energy sources would overall create more jobs: 340,000 by 2030 and up to 840,000 by 2050, largely in the power, transport and cooking sector. But Olawale said these involved different skills to oil work and no plan had been laid out to retrain those poised to lose their livelihoods.

Chukwumerije Okereke, a professor in environment and development at Reading University, said “reputable” international consultants had provided the “ground thinking” for the plan “but the process hasn’t been very inclusive and open” and broad stakeholder consultation hadn’t taken place.

This “may mean the plan isn’t workable because of a lack of a sense of ownership,” he said.

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Okereke has previously warned that overreliance on international consultants undermines the development of expertise in poor countries. For example, Nigeria still lacks robust monitoring, reporting and valuation systems for greenhouse gas emissions.

Sustainable Energy for All works to deliver affordable, reliable and sustainable energy to all by 2030 and has backed a pro-gas approach in Africa. It has set up an energy transition office under Osinbajo to implement the plan. Consultancy McKinsey also advised on the initiative.

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet provided funding to set up the office and for data collection and modelling tools. It told Climate Home that it considers consultations “very important” but doesn’t prescribe the policy or the approach.

“We strongly believe that developing countries must own their transition plans”, said Joseph Nganga, who heads the alliance in Africa.

There is a tension between building local capacity, which takes time, and producing credible energy transition plans that can be supported by the international community and accelerate climate action in the short term, he added.

The alliance and the Rockefeller Foundation are partnering to identify capacity gaps in the region and propose long-term funding arrangements to address them.

SE4All said it was unable to respond to Climate Home’s questions. The Nigerian government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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Aurelie Shapiro, the lead author on an upcoming report by the Food and Agricultural Organization, said an oil rush risked wiping out the benefits from promoting sustainable farming and energy use.

At the end of July, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) opened an auction for 27 oil and 3 gas blocks. Some of these overlap with a tropical peatland complex, one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks.

Oil majors including Total, Eni, Exxon Mobil, BP, Equinor and Shell have ruled out bidding. But campaigners fear smaller companies with less scrutiny and lower operating standards could take the risk.

Citing the work of climate scientist Simon Lewis and Greenpeace campaigning, Shapiro described this as “a giant carbon bomb”.

It raises questions on the priorities of climate finance in the region. The Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) supports six countries in the Congo Basin to preserve the forest, meet development goals and reduce poverty with funding from eight donor countries.

On a webpage about its work in the DRC, Cafi states that “forest loss is due to poverty, to a local need for land and forest products (small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal) exacerbated by strong population growth”.  It doesn’t mention any other drivers.

A $500m deal signed between Cafi and DRC bans oil drilling only where it is “incompatible with conservation objectives in Protected Areas”. It does not identify the carbon value of peatlands as grounds to prevent development.

Prevailing wisdom

Charcoal production has dominated the narrative about deforestation in DRC because its use is ubiquitous in the country. Only 17% of the population had access to electricity by 2019, according to the World Bank. The government says the rate is 9%. Fast-expanding urban areas like Kinshasa drive a huge demand for charcoal briquettes.

But Shapiro said it was unlikely to be a main driver of forest loss.

The FAO study, commissioned by Cafi, takes a detailed look at the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation annually in the Congo Basin from 2016 to 2020.

Researchers checked high-resolution satellite imagery of more than 12,000 sample plots in the region going back to 2015. The findings are due to be published in the autumn, subject to peer review.

They found that deforestation during the period was much higher than before 2015, but hasn’t increased year-on-year. “Everybody is saying that deforestation [in the Congo basin] is exploding. We aren’t seeing this,” Shapiro said.

Germany hypes green hydrogen alliance while shopping for Canadian fossil gas

The study confirms that small-scale agriculture remains the most widespread deforestation driver in the region.

It identifies important forest degradation, much of which is likely to be caused by charcoal production. But the data is patchy.

While satellite imagery has become better at identifying small forest clearings, it cannot determine why the trees are being felled.

A 2018 study in Science Advances estimated that charcoal production does not exceed 10% of forest loss in DRC.

‘Nibbling on the edge’

Without access to chainsaws or heavy machinery, “people are nibbling on the edge of the forest,” Shapiro explained. They don’t cut the biggest trees, which store the most carbon.

Importantly, she added, this has a shorter-lived impact on the forest than industrial activities such as mining and large-scale agriculture. Oil drilling, which has yet to start in the region, is not in the scope of the FAO study.

Slash-and-burn techniques are used by communities to clear trees close to villages. They plant and grow crops for three to five years in one place before leaving the land fallow, allowing wild vegetation to return. The younger trees can in turn be felled to produce charcoal. “The point is to stop blaming people who have no alternative,” she said.

The DRC government argues that the country needs oil and gas exploitation to boost economic growth and lift people out of poverty.

British company forces Italy to pay €190m for offshore oil ban

Civil society groups welcomed the reframing of the debate on deforestation in the region.

Alphonse Valivambene, a civil society leader in Eastern DRC, told Climate Home that poor rural communities had been “an easy target to blame” for the country’s poor forest governance. They received barely any climate finance.

Valivambene called for a more “holistic” approach to policy that considers the poverty people live in.

The Rainforest Foundation has long argued the models that informed funding and policies for reducing emissions from deforestation in the Congo basin were based on “simplistic assumptions”.

“The disproportionate targeting of small-scale agriculture, which mostly occurs on a rotational basis on the periphery of villages, has allowed industrial threats to go unchecked,” said Joe Eisen, executive director of the Rainforest Foundation UK.

Earlier this month, the NGO sounded the alarm on a road-building project threatening a 200,000 hectare intact forest in Cameroon. It argued the road would not connect existing villages and wouldn’t contribute to local development.

Cafi declined to comment before the study is formally published.

This article was updated to clarify the scope of the Food and Agricultural Organization draft report, which does not directly address oil development. Opinions expressed on oil are the researcher’s own, based on other sources of evidence.

The post Oil not charcoal the biggest threat to Congo rainforest, top researcher warns appeared first on Climate Home News.

The executive council of the African Union had proposed that African nations adopt a common position at the Cop27 climate summit on Africa’s energy development.

It called on nations to “continue to deploy all forms of its abundant energy resources including renewable and non-renewable energy to address energy demand”. This would involve financing for gas, green and low-carbon hydrogen and nuclear energy to “play a crucial role in expanding modern energy access in the short to medium term”.

African Union officials presented the proposal to the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) during a three-day meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which ended on Thursday. They hoped climate negotiators would adopt it as the group’s position at the next UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November.

But climate diplomats, including representatives of the Egyptian presidency of Cop27, argued a pro-gas stance was too controversial and would distract from priorities like adaptation and climate finance, sources close to the discussion told Climate Home News.

While negotiators ultimately defer to political masters, it would now take an extraordinary intervention from African heads of state before Cop27 to force the position.

The AGN and the Cop27 presidency declined to comment on the discussions.

India approves climate plan with increased ambition, clarifying energy goals

At least 10 African nations support gas as a “transition fuel” and the Egyptian government has been seeking oil and gas deals.

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Egypt’s lead climate negotiator Mohamed Nasr, said that the Cop27 presidency’s work on the energy transition in Africa focused on energy access.

“Africa has the highest number of people with no access to energy: 600 million Africans do not have access to energy. When we discuss energy and energy transition, in our mind, it is affordable energy for Africans. We want to work on numbers and at least reduce this number by 50% in the coming five years,” he said.

Jean-Paul Adam, director of the climate change division at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, which hosted the meeting, told Climate Home that many African countries don’t have access to renewable sources such as geothermal and hydropower that can provide baseload generation.

“The common position is not calling for a unbridled investment in gas, but it is calling for a scientific approach to accelerating energy access driven by a transition to renewables, with clarity on the mode of transition which would be country specific,” he said.

The technical paper behind the African Union proposal, dated June and seen by Climate Home, makes the case that under current investment patterns, about 570 million people in Africa will remain without access to modern energy by 2030.

To plug the gap without compromising economic development, the African Union called for openness to all sources of energy, clean and dirty. “Africa will need an ‘energy development space’ to keep pace with its ambitions for universal access,” it reads.

An accompanying figure moots investment in oil and coal in the medium term, with financing for gas, renewables, nuclear and green hydrogen into the long term.

The paper described the outcome of the Cop26 climate talks on phasing down coal power, phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and for countries to step up their 2030 climate ambition this year as “leav[ing] Africa in a disadvantaged position to use specific energy resources to accelerate access”.

Rich countries fall $17bn short of 2020 climate finance goal

African civil society disagreed. They sent climate negotiators a 25-page memo calling the proposal “irreconcilable with success at Cop27” and urging them to focus on the continent’s “massive renewable energy potential”.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, said: “It would be a shameful betrayal of African people, already on the front line of the climate crisis, if African leaders use this November’s Cop27 climate summit on African soil to lock Africa into a fossil fuel based future.”

“What Africa does not need is to be shackled with expensive fossil fuel infrastructure which will be obsolete in a few years as the climate crisis worsens,” he added.

A recent briefing on the energy transition in Africa by Climate Action Tracker argues that no new investments should be made into gas exploration and production, including in Africa, if the Paris Agreement goals are to be met. Betting on development strategies that rely on gas risks infrastructure being stranded and oil and gas exploration have often been counterproductive to development objectives, it adds.

The civil society memo adds that the technical paper failed to analyse “why current, largely centralised, largely fossil fuel-dependent, largely export-oriented energy systems have failed to deliver energy access to hundreds of millions of ordinary Africans”.

US set to fine oil and gas companies for methane leaks

One diplomat told Climate Home that developed countries’ “envisaged backsliding on fossil fuel” and growing interest in importing Africa’s untouched gas reserves “is making things very difficult”.

The EU is set to label some gas investments as “green” in its new taxonomy and European nations have been courting African gas producers to shore up their supplies and replace Russian imports.

In June, G7 leaders deemed that temporary gas investments overseas were “necessary” to address the energy crisis.

The post African climate diplomats reject African Union’s pro-gas stance for Cop27 appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a pointed message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Guterres said scaling up solar energy would help solve two of India’s key development priorities: alleviating poverty and bringing power to 64 million Indians still lacking energy access.

Speaking at Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) on Friday, Guterres said ongoing support for fossil fuels around the world was “deeply troubling”. India is subsidising fossil fuels seven times as much as clean energy.

Modi recently launched an auction of 41 coal mining blocks to private investors. The prime minister said this would create hundreds of thousands of jobs at a time of economic fallout from Covid-19 and reduce India’s dependence on imported coal.

But Guterres warned rising temperatures caused by emissions from coal and other fossil fuels, would see India endure more intense heatwaves, floods and droughts, increased water stress and reduced food production if global warming edged over 1.5C by the end of the century.

“This strategy will only lead to further economic contraction and damaging health consequences. It is, simply put, a human disaster and bad economics,” he said. “Clean energy and closing the energy access gap are good business. They are the ticket to growth and prosperity.”

Extra UN climate talks mooted for 2021 to help negotiators catch up

Guterres, who has championed a green recovery to the pandemic, has become increasingly direct in his climate rhetoric. He is demanding the world’s largest economies, known as the G20, end fossil fuel subsidies, put a price on carbon pollution and commit not to build any new coal power plants or mines after 2020.

Last month, Guterres confronted China over its coal boom during a lecture at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, urging the world’s largest emitter to recover green.

However, few leaders are listening. Since the start of the pandemic, G20 countries have pledged $204 billion of support to fossil fuels. That is 52% of all public money committed to the energy sector, compared with 35% for clean energy, according the Energy Policy Tracker.

India, the world’s third largest emitter, has committed $8.9bn to fossil fuels, $6.8bn of it to coal, compared with $1.2bn for clean energy.

And yet, renewable generators have proved more resilient than coal, which bore the brunt of the collapse of energy demand caused by coronavirus restrictions, and is struggling against increasingly competitive solar prices.

Analysis by think-tank Ember found India’s share of wind and solar in electricity generation rose from 3% in 2015 to nearly 10% in the first half of 2020, while coal’s share fell from 77% to 68% in the same period.

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Half of India’s coal will be uncompetitive in 2022, reaching up to 85% by 2025, Guterres warned. “This is why the world’s largest investors are increasingly abandoning coal,” he said. “The coal business is going up in smoke.”

On Friday, the CEOs of 20 leading Indian businesses signed up to a “call for action” highlighting eight areas that could deliver “a step change in sustainable growth” as the government focuses on restarting the economy and addressing rising unemployment rates.

Accelerating the transition of the power sector to clean energy sources, electrifying transport and increasing research in clean technology such as hydrogen should be prioritised to create jobs, lower energy costs and cut emissions, they say.

Ajay Mathur, director general of Teri, told Climate Home News a number of Indian businesses and financiers understood that investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency provided both “short-term profitability and long-term sustainability”.

Guterres’ message, he said, comes at a time when Indian financiers are “starting to consider the possibility of a renewable-based future” – something unimaginable just five years ago.

India’s solar boom is threatened by anti-China trade tariffs

Guterres insisted investments in renewable energy would generate more jobs than in the fossil fuel sector and boost India’s recovery.

But although such investments would create healthier and higher quality jobs, they are not a ready alternative for the estimated 500,000 coal miners in India, Swati Dsouza, a New Delhi-based energy consultant, told CHN.

She cited a study published in the Environmental Research Letters journal in March which found that although nearly all coal mining areas in India would be suitable for solar power generation, installed capacity would need to increase 37 times to transition all of India’s coal miners who live in suitable areas to solar jobs.

“We already have a very big base of people employed in the coal sector and there is no transition plan for them,” she said, adding coal mining supported livelihoods and activities of entire towns in coal-rich regions. “What are we going to do about that?”

Despite efforts to scale up Indian solar manufacturing, the homegrown capacity remains limited, Dsouza said, adding solar installations jobs required a level of education that miners often lacked.

The post Guterres tells India coal business ‘going up in smoke’ as investors back clean tech appeared first on Climate Home News.

In an op-ed for German business newspaper WirtschaftWoche, Gerd Müller, Germany’s economic cooperation and development minister, and Claudia Kemfert, economist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), warned that people in Africa and other developing regions are hardest hit by climate change and without the help of rich, developed countries they face an uncertain future.

Energy transformation is key to their development and economic well-being, they added. “The energy transition in Africa requires an investment and innovation offensive: German and European technologies can make it the greenest continent.”

The pair called for the EU’s New Green Deal – a climate plan to make the bloc carbon neutral by 2050 – to include a strong African component and for the bloc to involve Africa in the global transformation of energy systems by investing in solar and wind power and hydrogen.

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Such a move, they said, would not only give people in poorer countries a livelihood and economic development opportunities, it would also help to tackle social injustices, defuse regional and geostrategic conflicts, and protect global resources.

“This major task must become the focus of the new EU-Africa Treaty,” they wrote.

The EU is hoping to agree a new EU-Africa partnership at a high level summit with the African Union planned in October. The two blocs are currently discussing partnerships in ten policy areas, including the energy transition, digital transformation and sustainable growth.

In recent years, the EU has lost ground in Africa to China. Under a new strategy, the EU hopes to cement its position as the continent’s largest investor and intensify political co-operation with African nations.

This story was originally published by Clean Energy Wire. The story has been amended to reflect CHN’s style.  

The post EU can help Africa become the ‘greenest continent’: German minister appeared first on Climate Home News.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) – perhaps the world’s most influential energy forecaster – gave the company an easy defence.

In its climate strategy, Total cites the IEA’s most “sustainable development scenario”, which sees methane gas consumption soaring between now and 2040 to meet a quarter of global energy demand.

Gas, Total insists, “is the best option currently available for combating global warming”. This is just one example of how oil and gas companies use IEA forecasts to justify investments in fossil fuels.

Under the direction of Turkish economist Fatih Birol, the agency has become increasingly supportive of clean energy. Yet it continues to appeal to its oil-producing funders, ducking hard questions about the endgame for dirty energy.

“The IEA is an organisation that was set up and designed for a different era and it needs a radical transformation if they are still to have relevance in the modern era,” Kingsmill Bond, an energy strategist at Carbon Tracker, told Climate Home News.

With a reputation for having excellent analytical skills and a deep understanding of the energy system, the IEA could be repurposed to show the full cost of fossil fuels and drive the energy transition, Bond said. That would be “a game-changer”.

Seven countries back Africa’s biggest investment, a $20 billion gas project

The Paris-based energy agency was established in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis to ensure the security of oil supplies. Oil security remains central to the IEA’s mission. It is best known for its in-depth analysis and data on the energy market, which provides reference material for companies and governments alike.

The coronavirus pandemic confronted the IEA with the opposite problem: over-supply. The price of oil tumbled and even turned briefly negative in the US, as demand collapsed – a foretaste of shocks that could be in store if and when action to cut emissions accelerates.

As lockdown measures to contain the pandemic started to take a toll on the economy, Birol led the narrative on putting clean energy at the heart of stimulus packages. In an interview with Climate Home News in March, he said recovery packages offered governments “a historic opportunity” to accelerate the clean energy transition.

The IEA then set out its vision for a sustainable recovery in a special report last month, providing governments with a guide for how short-term energy investments could reboot the economy and create jobs while cutting emissions.

It’s a message many leaders have yet to heed. Major economies in the G20 have so far spent more recovery money supporting fossil fuels than clean energy, according to initial findings of the Energy Policy Tracker launched by 14 research groups earlier this month.

Speaking to CHN this month, Birol said the first tranche of recovery money had been focused on “creating firewalls around the economy, helping businesses and maintaining employment”. He expected stimulus in the second half of the year to focus on renewable energy, energy efficiency for buildings and the modernisation of power grids.

“Even countries that do not put climate change as a key priority in their political agenda need to focus on these energy policies because they will boost economic growth and create jobs. Energy efficiency is a job machine – it is very labour intensive and it will reduce emissions,” he said.

Long read: This oil crash is not like the others

Notably absent from the IEA’s “sustainable recovery” report is any reference to the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. Under the pact, governments aim to hold global warming “well below 2C” and aim for 1.5C, the tougher target seen as critical to the survival of some vulnerable nations.

Oil Change International said this reflected a chronic failure of climate ambition at the agency. “Given the IEA’s rhetoric and calls for leadership, omitting 1.5C is a pretty significant oversight,” said campaigner Hannah McKinnon.

Then there is a certain evasiveness around what those goals mean for fossil fuels.

On the “mission” page of its website, the IEA says it takes an “all-fuels, all-technology approach”.

In November 2017, the IEA launched a Clean Energy Transition Programme to support clean energy deployment in emerging economies such as Brazil, China and India.

A few months earlier, Birol told an oil and gas conference in the US: “Our message to the oil industry here in Houston is invest, invest, invest”.

Renewables overtake fossil fuels in EU electricity generation

At the World Energy Forum this year, Birol called for “building a grand coalition” to bring down global emissions. He later said 2020 was “the year for the clean energy transition“.

In May, he told an online energy event: “I don’t think it’s the end of oil yet. We still need oil for years to come,” citing ongoing demand from the transport and petrochemical industries.

“There is a strong rhetoric and desire by the IEA to lead on [the clean energy transition],” said Peter Wooders, senior energy director at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). “But the agency hasn’t always provided all the tools and clear signalling of the way forward…

“By sitting on the fence and backing all forms of energy, there is a danger that they will perpetuate the unsustainable pathway we are on rather than showing what could be achieved in the future.”

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In an interview with CHN this month, Birol called for a phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel consumption subsidies that give citizens cheap petrol or cooking gas, for example. Such subsidies create “a major distortion in the market” and “an artificial challenge for the clean energy transition,” Birol said.

But he avoided questions about subsidies supporting the production of coal, oil and gas, such as the public finance poured into the Mozambique gas project by seven other countries.

Nor would he comment on whether a managed decline of oil and gas production was needed to meet international climate goals.

Claudia Strambo, a research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute, said ignoring the supply side of the equation was “extremely problematic”.

The lack of attention to fossil fuel production subsidies misrepresents the relative costs of coal, oil and gas compared with other energy sources, making them appear more competitive than they really are, she said.

By failing to provide policy guidance for a managed transition away from fossil fuels, Strambo said the IEA was doing “a disservice” to producers. “History shows that failing to manage this process can have severe long-term economic, social and political implications.”

Comment: World Bank policy advice boosts oil and gas, undermining climate goals

Business leaders, scientists and investors have urged the IEA to make a 1.5C-compatible scenario central to its flagship annual publication, the World Energy Outlook, opening up a debate over the IEA’s role in setting norms around global energy use.

In response, the IEA last November extended its Sustainable Development Scenario, which sets out what would need to happen for the world to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2C”, to reach the 1.5C goal.

However, it relied on using unproven negative emissions technology towards the end of the century, rather than accelerating a shift away from burning coal, oil and gas.

The campaigning coalition, led by former UN Climate Change head Christiana Figueres, is not impressed.

Guterres confronts China over coal boom, urging a green recovery

Sue Reid, principal advisor on finance at Mission 2020, which convened the campaign, said companies and investors lacked the data they need to align their business plans and investment portfolios with international commitments.

In its 2019 annual report, Italian oil company Eni said it had not tested its investment plan for compatibility with 1.5C because the tools to do so were not yet available.

Reid suggested investors and businesses could seek alternative sources of analysis on 1.5C if the IEA failed to meet demand.

“The more time elapses with the IEA not developing a 1.5C scenario, the more time it gives for other models to emerge that could supersede the IEA’s tools,” Reid told CHN. “It risks losing its influence if it doesn’t catch up with the world’s direction of travel towards 1.5C.”

If the IEA is serious about wanting to accelerate the clean energy transition, McKinnon said it will have to develop a central 1.5C scenario and address fossil fuel production. Its approach to the issue in its next major report in November “could make or break the legitimacy of its climate rhetoric,” she said.

The post For all its green talk, the IEA still gives comfort to oil and gas producers appeared first on Climate Home News.

We never wanted a lesson in decarbonisation and our lack of resilience that condemned hundreds of thousands to death.

But the cleaner air that followed the coronavirus outbreak does represent a golden opportunity: our last best chance to shift our economies away from fossil fuels and reset the governance and institutional rules we need to deepen international cooperation.

As climate impacts intensify, how can governments be better prepared in supporting resilient societies and economies?  How can we build the international system we need for the difficult years ahead?

To ensure 2020 isn’t a lost year for climate action, but anchors climate risk and resilience at the centre of decision making, three areas of focus are important.

First, it’s not about the Cop – shorthand for the annual UN climate negotiations which have become the focal point of climate diplomacy. It’s about the calendar.

IMF chief: $1 trillion post-coronavirus stimulus must tackle climate crisis

There is nothing in the Paris Agreement that binds governments to ratchet up ambition by Cop26. But there is for the end of 2020.

In a year when most governments are scrambling to stop the haemorrhaging of lives and livelihoods from Covid-19, that ambition will have to be expressed in recovery packages, not necessarily in standalone climate plans. And some countries will miss deadlines.

It’s also the year to think about the format of negotiations.

We have long relied on an annual and expanding Cop as the mechanism to ramp up incremental progress that pushes smaller countries and quieter voices to the fringes.

In a post-pandemic world, tens of thousands of delegates and negotiators huddled in a conference centre may prove prohibitively difficult. How do we redesign negotiations so that they are fair and open, transparent and efficient and designed to move the process forward?

Merkel: don’t neglect climate finance to the world’s poor

Secondly, the short-term needs of economic recovery must be guided by a principle of “do no harm” to the decadal imperative of decarbonisation.

Short term stimulus that creates jobs and supports businesses can be aligned with long-term resilience goals, resource efficiency and carbon neutrality.

In the energy transition already underway, we have an opportunity to leap forward.

Comparing 2020 to 2019 energy production across UK and the EU, Finnish power company Wärtsilä reported that coal had slumped 25%, emissions were down 20%, energy demand was down 10% and renewables were providing over 45% of energy generated.

It is a glimpse of the future we can have.

The collapse of the oil price means governments have a chance to divert public money currently used to subsidise fossil fuels to ease an inevitable restructuring of the power sector.

Renewables most resilient to Covid-19 lockdown measures, says IEA

Stimulus funds, regulatory tweaks and other incentives can be used to accelerate investments in smart grids, energy efficiency, digitilisation and renewable energy installation and storage.

The fossil fuel sector, and national oil companies in particular, could be assessed from the perspective of bad and good assets that could be restructured as happened after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Back then we created a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Now, perhaps, we need the Global Bank for Clean Development.

With the price of oil hovering in low double digits and the WTI crude oil benchmark in the US recently in negative territory, Donald Trump’s administration is considering paying producers to keep their shale oil in the ground. Russia is exploring proposals to burn oil to cut production and support the limping price.

Make no mistake, Covid-19 is the respiratory crisis that should hasten the end of the current energy system.

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The pandemic has also laid bare our broken food systems. Food supply chains are broken, leaving hundreds of millions at risk of famine across sub-Saharan Africa and miles long lines for food banks and community pantries dangerously low on supplies across the US.

Again, we have an opportunity to build back better.

The food we consume is the leading driver of chronic disease which in turn is increasingly the biggest drain on public budgets. That diet is also killing the planet. Our current food and agriculture systems are unsustainable and wasteful.

There have been experiments to begin fixing parts of this, such as paying farmers to protect soils and health insurance companies providing clients with healthy meals.

In repairing each of these systems, the public’s new sensitivity to value what is ‘local’ may be enhanced while the risks embedded in global supply chains are better understood. Investing in local – from food production to distributed energy – could be a smart and job-rich resilience strategy.

UN development chief calls for green shift away from ‘irrational’ oil dependence

Finally, we need a level of international cooperation not seen in recent years.

For while Covid-19 may not be an existential threat to us as a species, it most certainly is for our international system of governance. The scale of the economic response to the pandemic is testing the capacity and model on which the UN and the global monetary system are build.

Just like governments must focus on short and long term goals simultaneously, the UN and global financial institutions must prop up existing international instruments while, at the same time, start laying the groundwork for the multilateralism that can ready the world to face truly existential threats.

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) will need to pool capital and expertise to rise to the challenge and should prepare countries for future shocks and a decarbonised world.

Development aid from the West will have to rise above the dizzying array of specialised funds and bespoke solutions and find ways to work with greater speed and scale. And China and India should be brought into a constructive dialogue about support to developing countries.

The preamble of the UN Charter describes the need for cooperation and tolerance born of the hard lessons of two world wars. It speaks of social advancement, rights and peace. It is a charter of the people.

Today, as many feel let down by their governments which, with rare exceptions, have been flatfooted at best and callous in their disregard for science and wellbeing at worst, we, the people, have to demand more.

Competence and compassion seem like good places to start in seizing that golden opportunity.

Rachel Kyte is the Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts. She is the former CEO and special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All. 

The post No silver lining to coronavirus, but a golden opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.

A study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), an independent research group, found that CO2 intensity of international shipping had already been reduced by 30% from 2008 levels in 2018.

That year, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) set a 40% reduction target by 2030.

The paper’s authors suggested widespread “slow-steaming” – a practice that reduces ship’s operational speed and fuel use by not using the engine at full power – was behind the drop in CO2 intensity.

Overcapacity in ship transport supply has caused ship speed to drop by 20% between 2008 and 2015, according to the ICCT.

“This suggests that the 2030 goal may be tightened when International Maritime Organisation (IMO) revises the strategy in 2023,” the report noted.

Dan Rutherford, the ICCT’s programme director for marine and aviation and one of the study’s authors, told Climate Home News the findings pointed “to the need for the IMO to adapt a more stringent 2030 target”.

The report added that ship speeds could rebound by 2030, depending on factors such as the state of global trade, oil prices and freight rates.

The findings were submitted to the IMO on Monday ahead of a round of talks at the end of March.

Marshall Islands, Suriname, Norway upgrade climate plans before Cop26

In 2018, the shipping sector committed to reduce its emissions by at least 50% from 2008 levels by 2050, with efforts to curb carbon intensity of international shipping by 70% by 2050.

International shipping accounts for 2-3% of global emissions but, like aviation, the sector’s emissions are not covered by the Paris Agreement.

Projections by CE Delft for the IMO found that shipping emissions could increase up to 120% by 2050 and, under a business as usual scenario, the sector could account for 10% of global emissions by mid-century.

The IMO is working to finalise measures to support its CO2 intensity reduction goals this year.

Proposals include submissions backed by France and Greece for a speed limit on tankers and bulk carriers. Norway and Japan have also proposed plans that would allow companies to decide how to meet energy efficiency targets by using cleaner fuel or more efficient vessels.

Among Japan’s proposals is a plan to fit ships with engine power limitation devices to indirectly reduce speed and fuel use.

Japan is the world’s third largest ship-owning country and an influential voice inside the IMO. Hideaki Saito, of Japan, chairs the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) – the committee which deals with climate change and emissions reduction issues.

The ICCT study aimed to assess the effectiveness of using engine power limitation to reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions. It concluded that mandatory engine power limitations measures “will not directly reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions” because ships are already operating slower than the proposal’s implied limit.

Engine power limitations measures “would need to be aggressive in order to contribute to the IMO’s climate goals,” the report said.

Campaigners urge African Union to stop fossil fuel proliferation on continent

Research found that limiting engine power by 30% or less would have a negligible impact on emissions and would deliver theoretical on-paper emissions reductions, rather than real-world cuts, Rutherford told CHN.

Only by limiting engine power by more than 50% would the measure lead to more meaningful CO2 reductions, the report said. Halving engine power would reduce emissions of existing fleets of about 3% compared with business as usual, taking into account 2018 speed and different types of ships.

Increasing that number to 60%, would reduce emissions of the global fleet by about 6%, according to the ICCT. However, such reduction of engine power would “begin affecting significant numbers of [ship’s] operational hours” the study noted.

In contrast, research funded by the EU Commission found restricting ship speed by 20% below 2012 levels could achieve up to 34% of CO2 emissions reduction by 2030.

John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition and senior policy advisor at Seas at Risk, accused Japan of leading a “ignore-the-science coalition”.

“In a technical-sounding debate about ‘short-term measures’, Japan is proposing CO2 rules that are weak, opaque, and will fail to actually cut emissions,” he said.

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Across the sector, some companies and shipping associations have shown appetite for more ambitious climate targets.

In reflections published at the start of the year, Bimco, one of the world’s largest shipping association representing ship owners, said “substantial gains” in emissions reduction had been made since 2008.

“It is, therefore, not a question of if the shipping industry will meet the IMO 2030 objective of achieving 40% carbon efficiency improvements over 2008, but about what the target should be increased to in 2023 when the IMO adopts its final greenhouse gas reduction strategy,” it said.

Bimco was also part of a coalition of shipping association that proposed the creation of an emissions reduction research and development programme funded via a mandatory contribution of £2 per tonne of marine fuel oil purchased for consumption by ships – a move campaigners said fell far short of the need to cut emissions.

Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations by 2050 and to have developed commercially viable carbon neutral vessels by 2030.

The post Shipping could raise ambition of 2030 climate target, study shows appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ogunbiyi is due to take on her new role as UN special representative for sustainable energy and CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) in early next year.

She will be building on the work of Rachel Kyte, who led SEforAll for nearly four years before becoming the first female dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US, at the end of September.

Ogunbiyi will join the organisation in the critical period to 2030 – the deadline to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and bridge the energy demand gap with affordable, reliable and clean energy.

The task ahead is immense, especially in the region Ogunbiyi has spent her life and career. Across Africa, nearly 600 million people are estimated to lack access to electricity.

SEforAll’s latest tracking report showed the world was off the pace to meet the 2030 goal and roll out clean electricity and cooking everywhere.

As rich countries slow walk green finance, Putin offers Africa an alternative

Last week, another SEforAll report found that current investments levels were insufficient to meet the SDG goal with less than 1% of the estimated finance required to ensure clean cooking facilities for all by 2030.

Sub-Sharan Africa is “at risk of getting left further behind” in the energy transition, the report warned, as population growth outstripped the increase of energy access, “putting the continent’s status as an upcoming powerhouse on hold”.

Ogunbiyi successfully negotiated the Nigerian Electrification Project, enabling the construction of solar mini-grids and home systems across Nigeria.

She served as the general manager of the Lagos State Electricity Board, responsible for energy development in the Lagos state of southwestern Nigeria. Lagos is Africa’s most populated city.

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She previously consulted the UK’s department for international development and is also one of the commissioners for the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty.

Ogunbiyi said she was proud to join SEforAll and work to show “a clean energy transition is possible”.

“Access to energy is the key that will help unlock the Sustainable Development Goals,” she said “With 2030 growing ever closer, smart use of data, new partnerships, and scaled involvement of the private sector will be paramount for SEforAll’s work.”

Kyte said she was “delighted to hand the baton” to Ogunbiyi.

“There is no one better to shine a light on the critical path to success and the transformative effect of access to reliable, affordable and clean energy,” she tweeted.

The post Nigerian Damilola Ogunbiyi gets top UN sustainable energy job appeared first on Climate Home News.

In Paris, France, rich and developed countries met to replenish the Green Climate Fund. The UN fund was created as a carrot to convince developing countries, which have little historic responsibility for climate change, to curtail their greenhouse gas emissions.

With existing funds expected to run-out by the end of the year, the GCF’s two-day pledging conference sought to raise at least $9 billion of new cash by Friday to finance green projects in poor countries during the period 2020-2023.

Speaking ahead of the GCF pledging conference, Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the GCF, told Climate Home News the fund’s objective was “for countries not to have to chose between today and tomorrow”, between meeting energy needs and cutting emissions, but to integrate climate action and economic development.

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New contributions to the fund totalling between $9bn and $10bn would be “a big success”, he said, and would “send a positive signal to developing countries”.

But many African leaders, the continent where 600 million lack access to electricity and the fund’s cash could make the most difference, were 2,900km from Paris, courting a very different opportunity on the shores of the Black Sea.

Dozens of African heads of state, including the leaders of Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, along with ministers and thousands of business leaders arrived in the resort town of Sochi, to strengthen Russia-Africa cooperation and discuss prospective military, infrastructure and energy deals, largely focused on the oil, gas and nuclear industries.

The two-day summit, led by Russian president Vladimir Putin and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was the first Russia-Africa cooperation conference. It is a signal of Putin’s intent to compete for African business with China’s massive Belt and Road investment project.

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Opening the summit on Wednesday, Putin hailed Africa as “one of the cool centres of economic growth” and encouraged “building close business ties” in countries across the continent.

Making no mention of climate change, Putin praised the expanding work of Russian oil and gas companies Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil in Africa and the creation of a nuclear industry in Egypt and Nigeria. “We are most certainly going to support their plans at the government level,” he said.

Russian companies are currently developing oil and gas-fields in Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Angola. Russian total trade with African countries reached $20bn last year, a small amount compared with China’s $204bn the same year.

Egyptian president el-Sisi said Russia was “a reliable partner for the African continent” and welcomed investments in the development and infrastructure sectors that the continent needs. “We regard this forum as a platform to develop the relationship for mutual investment and cooperation,” he added.

Theo Neethling, head of political studies at the University of the Free State in South Africa, said: “Survival and developmental politics are much higher on Africa’s agenda than green politics.

“African states view Beijing and Moscow as partners – albeit senior partners – that could provide much-needed funding without any strings attached pertaining to democracy or human rights.”

Wealthy country’s commitment to delivering green finance is not viewed with the same level of trust. Rich countries have promised to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year from a variety of sources by 2020. The OECD estimates that flow reached $71.2bn in 2017 (a number Oxfam has called “grossly overestimate[d]”), but still admits rich countries are not on track meet the goal.

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Even if contributions to the GCF at the Paris summit reach the $10bn mark, it would be less than donors’ initial $10.3bn pledge to the fund for the previous period to 2020. It would also not be enough to fund the existing $15bn pipeline of projects seeking assistance as of December 2018.

The US and Australia, which collectively pledged $3.2bn last time around (although Donald Trump’s US reneged to the tune of $2bn), have said they would offer nothing in 2019. Other countries’ increased contributions have not yet filled the hole.

Sixteen countries have already promised to deliver $7.4bn. Germany, Norway, France, UK, Sweden, South Korea, Denmark and Iceland announced a doubling of their contributions. Others like Japan, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland Portugal and New Zealand are yet to make a contribution. Russia is one of the 25 delegations participating in the pledging conference. It gave $3m in 2014.

With clean technologies becoming increasingly cheaper, climate advocates hope development in Africa will proceed along a less-carbon intensive pathway than Europe, the US, Russia or even China.

If Russia is cutting oil and gas deals in Sochi, “they are no friend of Africa,” Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, told CHN, warning against the continent becoming “the dumping ground for other countries’ fossil fuel technology”.

“The GCF has become the most significant climate funder in Africa,” said Adow. “This funding is vital in diverting us from a path towards climate catastrophe towards one where the poorest people can have access to clean energy.”‘

But this vision is in danger of being outcompeted. Crispus Mugambi, resilience and climate change manager at Care Kenya, told CHN the money pledged to the GCF was “a drop in the ocean” compared to developing countries’ existing needs. This week, the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All issued a major report finding investment for electricity in sub-Saharan Africa was “alarmingly low” and had fallen in several countries.

“Africa probably needs hundreds of billions of dollars to be able to develop in a climate sensitive manner,” said Mugambi.

“There is common sense that development with clean energy is the way to go but African governments are trying to develop their economies with resources at their disposal,” he added.

The post As rich countries slow walk green finance, Putin offers Africa an alternative appeared first on Climate Home News.

This week, I’m attending the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC with a message for World Bank officials from my home country: It’s vital that the World Bank, under its new president, keeps its promises to tackle climate change and becomes a real champion.

This would demonstrate the bank’s leadership on climate change and investments in clean energy, like off-grid solar power to reach the poorest.

One billion people still live in the dark, without any electricity. Energy poverty is particularly stark in rural and remote regions in Africa. In Tanzania, less than a fifth of people in rural areas have access to electricity. Off-grid renewables, like small solar systems, often reach rural communities more quickly and cheaply than a central grid, and are safer and cleaner than local alternatives like kerosene.

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The Christian Council of Tanzania saw the benefit of this approach, and is working with Tearfund to pilot off-grid renewable projects and to advocate for greater government support. These kind of projects can improve people’s health, education, gender equality and income generation.

For example, solar power has also enabled basic computer classes to be held and has improved teacher retention rates in Tanzania’s rural areas. We have similarly seen how hydro mini-grids have improved health facilities, which with a reliable electricity supply can use microscopes and refrigerators for medicine storage.

A network of women entrepreneurs in Tanzania have substituted kerosene with solar lamps, using the savings for school fees, farming inputs and investment in businesses.

Rachel is a farmer and tailor in Makutupora in central Tanzania who bought a solar panel with a loan from a self-help group supported by Tearfund. Now that she has a solar light, she can work in the evenings, making clothes to sell to people in the village. By working three or four hours each evening, she has increased the family’s monthly income from 70–80,000 TZS ($31–35) to sometimes as much as 150,000 TZS ($66).

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Off-grid renewables can help support small businesses, enabling them to open longer hours and thereby reach a higher number of customers, increasing profits. Ali, from the Dodoma region of central Tanzania, has used solar light to open his kiosk in the evenings, selling cattle medicines to farmers when they return from the fields. He’s seen his income more than double, enabling him to buy a plot of land on which he intends to build a house for his family.

We need to see much more investment in initiatives like this in Tanzania and scale them up. Business as usual won’t ensure that the poorest have clean energy. The World Bank has made steps to increase their investments in off-grid renewables to $600m in 2018, but this is still a small proportion of their overall energy budget.

We need the World Bank to develop a roadmap on how it will ramp up its investments to meet the demand for clean energy in African countries like mine and mainstream off-grid renewable energy into its energy portfolio. For example, the African Development Bank has set an ambitious strategy to achieve electricity access by 2025.

The World Bank’s investments send a crucial signal to other investors so it must set the direction to clean energy and energy for all.

Emmanuel Kimbe represents the Christian Council of Tanzania, a Tearfund partner

The post One billion without power need new World Bank president to keep faith appeared first on Climate Home News.