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.

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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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Steep cuts in CO2 emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, will be needed in the coming years if targets to limit a global rise in temperatures and prevent runaway climate change are to be met, scientists have said.

“Far from falling rapidly – as is required to meet the global climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement – CO2 emissions reached a new record high,” the IEA said in a report.

Global emissions from energy rose by 410 million tonnes, or 1.1%, in 2023 to 37.4 billion tonnes, the IEA analysis showed.

A global expansion in clean technology such as wind, solar and electric vehicles helped to curb emissions growth, which was 1.3% in 2022. But a reopening of China’s economy, increased fossil fuel use in countries with low hydropower output and a recovery in the aviation sector led to an overall rise, the IEA said in its report.

Moves to replace lost hydropower generation due to extreme droughts accounted for around 40% of the emissions rise, or 170 million tonnes of CO2, it said.

“Without this effect, emissions from the global electricity sector would have fallen in 2023,” the IEA said.

Energy-related emissions in the United States fell by 4.1% with the bulk of the reduction coming from the electricity sector, according to the report.

In the European Union emissions from energy fell by almost 9% last year driven by a surge in renewable power generation and a slump in both coal and gas power generation.

In China, emissions from energy rose by 5.2%, with energy demand growing as the country recovered from COVID-19-related lockdowns, the report said.

China, however, also contributed around 60% of global additions of solar, wind power and electric vehicles in 2023, the IEA said.

Globally electric vehicles accounted for one-in-five new car sales in 2023, reaching 14 million and up 35% on the level of 2022.

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The influential energy watchdog has downgraded the role of technofixes such as carbon capture and hydrogen in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. As their development is failing to live up to expectations – the IEA argues – countries should instead focus on the “most cost-effective” solutions, like ramping up renewables, energy efficiency and electrification.

The updated scenarios give less cover to the oil and gas industry and petrostates to promote these technologies for prolonging the use of fossil fuels.

“Removing carbon from the atmosphere is very costly. We must do everything possible to stop putting it there in the first place,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol in a statement.

The IEA is also calling on all countries to bring forward their net zero plans.

It says rich nations should reach net zero emissions by 2045 under an “equitable pathway” that sees historical polluters take the lead. Only a handful of European countries, including Germany, are aiming to achieve that target.

Carbon capture hype

The report is the first update to the road map for the energy sector to reach net zero by 2050 debuted by the IEA in 2021. That landmark report relayed a stark message to the fossil fuel industry: development of oil, gas, and coal must stop to remain within acceptable global warming thresholds.

Since then, as discussions around the possibility of phasing out fossil fuels heated up, the sector has increasingly taken shelter behind technofixes.

Countries that produce or rely on fossil fuels particularly advocate the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to trap their emissions, rather than ending the use of such fuels completely. This debate is expected to take centre stage at the Cop28 climate summit in November.

‘Unmet expectations’

The latest IEA assessment pours cold water on such a notion. It says the history of CCS “has largely been one of unmet expectations”, marked by slow progress and flat deployment. Only 0.1% of total annual energy sector emissions are currently captured in this way.

Catherine Abreu from the campaign group Destination Zero told Climate Home News it makes sense that models see a reduced role for these technologies. “The results of the small, tremendously expensive CCS projects that already exist make it clear that these projects are just about extracting more fossil fuels, not about cutting climate pollution,” she said.

In its new forecasts, the Paris-based agency has slashed the contribution of CCS to emission reductions in the power sector by around 40% compared to its 2021 scenario. But it can reduce or eliminate emissions in areas where other options are limited, such as heavy industries, the IEA added.

Hydrogen ‘problem’

The agency has also taken aim at hydrogen, describing it as “more of a climate problem than a climate solution” today. While demand for hydrogen has been rising, the overwhelming majority of it has been met with polluting production processes, mostly involving gas.

The IEA sees a diminished potential for hydrogen to decarbonise long-distance transport and iron and steel production, and only if it comes from “low-emission” sources such as renewables.

“Hydrogen was once considered a ‘wonderfuel’,” said Dave Jones from energy think tank Ember. “Now reality has hit home and there has been a real change in understanding of its limited uses.”

While CCS and hydrogen are underperforming expectations, the IEA keeps revising its projections for solar power and electric vehicles upwards. Cheaper renewables and stronger electrification prospects make them more appealing and viable options to reach net zero by 2050.

The IEA report comes at a time of rising tensions with oil producers. Two weeks ago Opec, the cartel of oil-producing nations, accused the agency of creating “dangerous” risks to energy security by stoking calls to end investment in fossil fuel projects.

Net zero acceleration

IEA’s Birol said “the pathway to 1.5C has narrowed in the past two years, but clean energy technologies are keeping it open”. He urged stronger international cooperation, ambition and implementation of climate plans.

The IEA’s roadmap to net zero in 2050

While calling on all governments to raise their net zero targets, the report offers a template for differentiated responsibilities around the world.

Advanced economies take the lead and reach net zero emissions by around 2045 in the IEA scenario. Germany is the only G20 country to have pledged such a target. The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada are all aiming to get to that level by 2050.

China should get to net zero by 2050, according to the agency, bringing its plans forward by ten years. Poorer developing economies get there “well after” 2050 in this scenario.

Thomas Hale, professor of global public policy at Oxford University, said it was important for the IEA to underline the equity implications of getting the world to net zero by 2050.

“The fundamental question of who goes fastest and who follows is a challenge at the heart of current global climate politics,” he added. “The report shows governments there is a really attractive and achievable pathway to get there.”

He expected the IEA recommendations to be considered by governments when they update their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement by 2025.

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So says the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its first ever comprehensive scenario to align energy development with a 1.5C limit on global heating, the strongest goal in the Paris Agreement.

The special report published on Tuesday states “beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required”. “Net zero means a huge decline in the use of fossil fuels,” the agency said.

The IEA described the pathway to building a net zero energy sector in the next 30 years as “viable” but “narrow and extremely challenging” and one that “requires an unprecedented transformation of how energy is produced, transported and used globally”.

Long criticised for underestimating renewable energy and overstating the role of fossil fuels, the agency’s net zero scenario has been welcomed by analysts and campaigners as a break from its previous modelling.

“This is a very significant moment. It’s the first time the IEA has released a scenario that is properly aligned with the Paris [Agreement] goals,” Greg Muttitt, senior policy advisor on energy supply at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, told Climate Home News.

“It’s a huge shift to have the IEA joining global calls for ending fossil fuel extraction,” Kelly Trout, senior research analyst at Oil Change International. “Oil companies have previously used IEA scenarios to justify ongoing fossil fuel expansion. The fossil fuel industry is losing one of its biggest sources of shelter,” she told Climate Home.

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To decarbonise the power sector by 2050, the IEA expects richer nations to reach carbon neutrality in their energy sector before developing countries.

By 2050, the IEA assumes global energy use will shrink by around 8% while serving an additional two billion people and a global economy it anticipates to be twice as big.

Under this scenario, sales of new internal combustion engine cars would end by 2035 and the global electricity sector would achieve net zero emissions by 2040.

Renewable sources, including wind, solar, bioenergy, geothermal and hydro energy, replace fossil fuels in the power system to provide two-thirds of total energy supply and almost 90% of electricity generation by 2050. Wind and solar panels alone account for around 70% of electricity generation by 2050.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel use falls from providing almost four-fifths of total energy supply today to slightly over one-fifth by 2050. Oil and gas continue to be used in the manufacturing of carbon-intensive goods such as plastics, cement and steel, in facilities fitted with carbon capture technology.

Unabated coal power generation ends in advanced economies by 2030 and everywhere else in 2040, when unabated oil plants are also be phased out.

By 2050, the IEA projects a drop in oil demand of 75% and gas of 55% from 2020 levels.

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Established in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis to ensure the security of oil supplies, the IEA has sought to make itself relevant to the energy transition while continuing to appeal to its oil-producing funders.

For Muttitt, this has created a conflicting identity at the core of the IEA’s mission. “You can’t protect the role of international oil companies at the same time as achieving the Paris goals,” he said.

“Now that the IEA is taking the Paris goals seriously, it is running into the [fact] that there is no room for oil, gas and coal. This is a fundamental break from what the IEA has said before.”

Under the IEA’s net zero scenario, oil and methane gas production becomes concentrated among a small number of low-cost producers, with “far-reaching” economic and social implications.

Oil and gas producing economies see their annual per capita income fall by about 75% by the 2030s. While new sources of revenue will be needed, “these are unlikely to compensate fully for the drop in and oil and gas income,” the report said.

Countries like Angola, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan are among the most vulnerable countries to declines in oil and gas revenues in coming decades, according to analysis by Carbon Tracker.  In Equatorial Guinea, 81% of government revenues come from oil and gas.

“Wealthy producers that are relatively less dependent on oil revenues should be moving first and fastest to help countries that will have a tougher time with this,” said Trout. “It’s imperative that countries like the UK, Norway, the US, Canada and Australia take this as a wake up call to think about their role in a global equitable phase out of fossil fuel production.”

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The IEA’s scenario includes a rapid deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in the 2030s that allows some oil and particularly gas to remain in the power system by 2050 –  continuing the world’s reliance on “polluting” energy sources, Trout said.

Pointing to the technology’s slow deployment, Trout said the pace of CCS roll out set out by the IEA “appears widely optimistic”.

Joeri Rogelj, a scientist at Imperial College and a lead author on the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 1.5C report, told Climate Home that if the IEA’s projected levels of carbon capture couldn’t be delivered, the amount of gas in the power system by 2050 would need to be lowered.

“Can technology infrastructure be scaled up rapidly and efficiently? That is the key to the discussion that we need to have,” he said.

The IEA has promised to make its net zero scenario an “integral part” of its flagship annual publication, the World Energy Outlook (WEO), which guides policymakers and investors.

“I hope that this marks a permanent shift at the IEA and that this is not just a one off,” said Muttitt.

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The agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) is regarded as a reference for governments, companies and investors on the state of the world’s energy prospects and explores possible futures for global energy trends.

In the report, published on Wednesday, the IEA extended its Sustainable Development Scenario to achieve the tougher Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C.

Under this scenario, the IEA sets out what would need to happen for the world to limit global temperature rise to “well below 2C”: oil demand peaks within the next few years, universal energy access is achieved by 2030 and energy-related CO2 emissions fall 3.8% per year to less than 10 gigatonnes in 2050 to put the world on track to achieve net zero emissions by 2070.

On this trajectory, the IEA found the world would have a two in three chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.8C without having to remove CO2 from the air by producing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (Beccs), for instance.

IEA develops pathway to ambitious 1.5C climate goal

Under the same scenario, the IEA gives a 50% change of meeting the 1.5C goal by using negative emissions technologies after 2070 to absorb around 300Gt of CO2 – making-up for overshooting the emissions limits that would keep temperatures below 1.5C.

The IEA acknowledged there are “uncertainties” about the scale, impacts and costs of negative emissions, which require large amounts of land, potentially conflicting with food production. But its scenario is only modelled to 2050 and does not assess whether the deployment of negative emissions at scale in the last part of the century is feasible or sustainable.

Instead, the IEA argues its scenario would use less negative emissions than the average level of CO2 that needs to be removed from the air in IPCC scenarios, which give a 50% chance or more of limiting warming to 1.5C.

Source: IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2019

For Joeri Rogelj, a scientist at Imperial College and a lead author on the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 1.5C report, the comparison with IPCC scenarios is “a smoke screen” masking the IEA scenario’s lack of consistency with long-term sustainable development.

“The amount of CO2 removal needed after 2070 to meet 1.5C would go well beyond the sustainable limits that the IPCC has identified,” he said, describing it as “really problematic”.

Instead, the scenario “ends in 2050 with a world warming beyond a level science considers compatible with sustainable development of poor and vulnerable populations,” he told CHN.

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The WEO report does include a short and undetailed pathway for the world to achieve the 1.5C goal without negative emissions. Under this pathway, developed countries achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and developing countries by 2050 – a goal that is not currently being considered by large emitters such as China and India.

Rogelj said the IEA’s “hesitant” attention to the 1.5C goal was “a positive step” but also a “missed opportunity” to fully align the WEO with international ambition.

In June, CHN reported that the IEA was exploring options to develop a scenario aligned with the 1.5C goal after the agency came under fire in a letter from scientists, business leaders and campaigners for not considering the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious target.

This opened a debate about the role of the IEA setting norms around global energy use. The agency’s business as usual scenario, which charts a world on track to at least 2.7C of warming, remains the WEO’s central reference for investors, rather than a scenario aligned to the Paris goals.

“It’s simply not enough to explore 1.5C in a couple of paragraphs if the bulk of the analysis remains focused on this default pathway that would put us on track for a catastrophic path of warming,” said Kelly Trout, senior research analyst at Oil Change International.

“By continuing to fall short on ambition, the IEA normalises disastrous levels of fossil fuel investment,” she added.

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Half a million solar panels were plugged in every day worldwide and two wind turbines an hour. More than half of new power capacity came from clean sources.

Still, the influential forecasters see installation rates flatlining to 2021 under prevailing policy and market conditions.

“There are a number of barriers that are still unsolved,” said IEA renewables lead Paolo Frankl in a press call. “If you don’t put in place the right strategies and the right policies, you risk to hit the wall.”

Grid infrastructure, policy stability and availability of finance will be needed to maintain momentum, he advised. Those are detailed in an “accelerated” scenario, which leads to 30% more growth over the period.

The clean power installation rate stalls under the IEA main case, represented by the black dashed line, but can keep rising with supportive policies (Source: IEA Medium-term renewable energy market report 2016)

The IEA’s main case is in line with the climate pledges countries submitted towards the Paris Agreement last year. Like those pledges collectively, this scenario does not go far enough to stay within the agreed 2C limit on global warming, let alone the 1.5C aspirational goal.

Its accelerated case would put the electricity sector on a path consistent with 2C, Frankl said. For the first time next year, the IEA will publish a dedicated report on what it would take to get to 1.5C.

China is the biggest driver of the renewables revolution, accounting for about 40% of growth. The US overtook the EU to second place in 2015, boosted by an extension of tax incentives as European markets suffered from policy uncertainty.

Report: Wind, solar costs undercut new coal plants in South Africa

India is one to watch, with the IEA expecting it to fall short of its 175GW by 2022 renewables target on current trends.

“India’s renewable energy target is ambitious and it implies a capacity growth rate of roughly 20% annually and more than a five-fold growth in just seven years,” said Frankl.

“While our forecast for onshore wind is in line with government targets, solar PV expansion needs to accelerate faster.”

Analysts pointed to concerns about the financial health of state-owned utilities, grid infrastructure, local governance and land acquisition.

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The IEA tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to clean energy growth, giving little weight to proposed policies that have yet to be implemented.

Since the 2015 version, analysts have revised expectations upwards by 13%, in response to strengthening of policies in the US, China, India and Mexico.

“I am pleased to see that last year was one of records for renewables and that our projections for growth over the next five years are more optimistic,” said IEA chief Fatih Birol.

“However, even these higher expectations remain modest compared with the huge untapped potential of renewables. The IEA will be working with governments around the world to maximize the deployment of renewables in coming years.”

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“We have never seen such a decline [in oil and gas investment]”, said Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), at the London launch of its first ever report into world energy investment.

“Our findings carry a very important message for climate change and for the Paris agreement. Anyone who does not understand what is going on – governments, companies, markets – is not in the right place.”

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies is seen as vital in the battle against climate change.

The IEA, which focuses on issues of energy security, says that overall investment in the global energy sector declined by 8% in 2015 to US$1.8 trillion.

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In part, the decline in investments in oil and gas was due to the lower costs of crude oil and other products of the fossil fuels industry.

Although investment in renewables has been more or less the same in each of the last four years, increased efficiencies and lower capital costs resulted in a third more electricity being produced from these technologies in 2015.

“A major shift in investment towards low carbon sources of power generation is under way,” the IEA report says. “Fossil fuels continue to dominate energy supply, but the composition of investment flows points to a reordering of the system.”

Lazlo Varro, an IEA renewables expert, says the sector needed less and less in government subsidies as costs come down. Over the last five years, the price of solar energy dropped by 80%, while wind power’s costs dropped by a third overall.

Varro says that offshore wind power – traditionally seen as expensive – was becoming more price-competitive as turbine sizes increase and more efficient construction methods are used. Low interest rates were also encouraging more investment in renewables.

Nuclear energy is seen by some as an important ingredient in tackling climate-changing carbon emissions.

Study: existing coal, oil and gas fields will blow carbon budget

The IEA says the drop in the price of renewables has not been reflected in the nuclear sector – rather, the reverse. And there are continuing worries about nuclear safety and the disposal of nuclear materials.

For those hoping for a bright new dawn of carbon-free energy, the IEA report has some sobering news: there are continuing large-scale investments in coal – the most polluting of fuels. More than US$60 billion was invested in coal projects last year, most of it in Asia and in Australia.

Many of the coal plants constructed are described as sub-critical – severely polluting, and using only basic technology.

The continued investment in coal was often due to the lack of the necessary infrastructure to support other, cleaner energy systems in countries such as India and Indonesia, and to the failure of governments to back renewables.

Energy spending

China continues to be the world’s biggest producer and consumer of coal, although the IEA says 60% of the country’s total energy spending last year was on renewables.

The IEA predicts that investment in fossil fuels is likely to continue to fall in the years ahead, particularly in the oil industry. But the energy sector − especially transport − will remain dependent on oil and gas.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) market will grow substantially, and countries in the Middle East and Russia will continue to expand their oil production.

The IEA welcomes the shift in investment to renewable forms of energy, but says new oil production needs to come on stream in order to meet international energy demand.

Production from oil fields around the world is declining, and Birol says: “Every second year we lose [the equivalent of] one Iraq due to the decline in oil field production. This is worrying from an IEA perspective.”

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

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Low oil prices choke investment, increasing reliance on Middle East suppliers (Flickr/Paul Lowry)

By Megan Darby

Governments should ban inefficient coal power plants, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol said on Tuesday.

They also need to boost support for renewables, regulate to improve energy efficiency and crack down on methane leaks from oil and gas production.

Those were Birol’s top four recommendations to close the gap between an international goal to limit global warming to 2C and inadequate voluntary national efforts.

“The IEA is ready to help the [UN climate body] and governments to transform hopefully an agreement from Paris into action to accelerate the transition to clean energy,” he said. It has also volunteered to monitor the progress of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

More than 150 countries have submitted climate plans towards a global deal to be finalised in Paris next month.

These collectively hold warming to 2.7C, the IEA found, independently confirming calculations by analysts at Climate Action Tracker.

As temperatures breach the 2C threshold, scientists warn the risk of severe and irreversible impacts increases.

“The difference between 2C and 2.7C is not something you just take your jacket off and adapt to,” said Birol. “It has major implications.”

He was launching the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook in London, which foresees fierce competition between cheap fossil fuels and developing low carbon technology to 2040.

Over the next 25 years, more than half of power generation capacity installed will come from renewable sources, it predicts. Coal’s share will shrink from 41% to 30% of the mix.

Governments are also set to roll out regulations to make cars, homes and appliances more efficient. In 2014, such rules covered 27% of final energy consumption worldwide.

“We see that energy efficiency and renewable energies are the two most important tools for the countries to address climate change problems and reach their targets,” said Birol.

Those trends must be accelerated to avoid catastrophic climate change, the report outlines, as energy accounts for two thirds of emissions.

Low fossil fuel prices threaten to hold them back, however.

The IEA expects oil prices to recover from their present doldrums to around US$80 a barrel in 2020. With these trends being notoriously difficult to predict, the agency also modelled a $50 scenario.

That could stimulate higher oil demand – as seen with a recent surge in SUV sales – and choke off some $800 billion of investment in energy efficiency, it found.

It also comes with geopolitical risks, increasing dependence on the volatile Middle East for its cheap oil. Producers in North America, Brazil and Russia would cut investment in more expensive sources.

The post IEA outlines climate challenge in cheap fossil fuel world appeared first on Climate Home News.

Manila (Pic: travel oriented/flickr)

By Thet Htoo Aung

Fossil fuel use in South East Asia could spike 80% by 2040 despite nascent plans to roll out wind, solar and hydro projects in the region, the International Energy Agency has warned.

Without more policies to encourage energy efficiency and renewables, coal use could triple between 2011 and 2035, accounting for around 30% of global growth.

Nearly a quarter of the region’s 600 million citizens still lack regular access to electricity, leading the IEA to predict “considerable further growth in demand” for power.

The share of renewables in the energy mix could also fall as people move to cities and start using grid electricity instead of biomass for cooking and heating.

Energy related CO2 emissions from the region, which includes Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia, could double, hitting 2.3 gigatonnes by 2035.

The headline figures – which paint a bleak picture for those working to slow greenhouse gas emissions and avoid dangerous levels of climate change – are based on existing policies.

An estimated 75% of economic potential of energy efficiency is likely to be untapped by 2035, says the study, while 50% of the regional coal power plant fleet is on course to be more polluting sub-critical types.

Lower demand and more efficient plants could reduce coal use 25%, while tougher industrial and car regulations would reduce coal and oil gas 10%.

“If the region’s coal-fired power plants were as efficient as those in Japan today, their fuel use would be one-fifth lower, alongside substantially reduced carbon emissions and local air pollution,” said the study.

Fossil fuel subsidies, which are likely to top US$50 billion in 2015, also need to be scaled back said the IEA, as they are “depriving energy companies of the revenues needed for new investment”.

Regional anger over cross-border fuel smuggling in small fishing vessels could encourage governments to boost these cuts, it added.

The Philippines government estimates it loses $1 billion in tax revenues a year due to illegal sales of foreign fuel inside its borders.

The post South East Asia coal use to triple – IEA appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Hang Jun Zeng/Flickr)

By Alex Pashley

Chinese coal consumption from 2000-13 could be 14% higher than previously reported, according to the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), significantly increasing the country’s historical greenhouse gas emissions.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revised upwards the primary energy consumption of its coal-guzzling economy this month as it updated its statistical yearbook.

Those figures reflect the energy content, but do not provide the physical tonnage of consumption and production, which the EIA analysed to make its conclusions, the agency said in a Wednesday report.

The tweaks reveal the Asian giant, which accounts for a quarter of current CO2 emissions, has burned billions more tonnes of the most carbon-intensive fuel than expected.

Chinese energy consumption and production is higher than previously reported following changed coal data (Credit: EIA)

And that deepens its contribution to climate change.

China has committed to peaking its emissions around 2030 as part of a UN climate deal, lowering its relying on coal the muscle that has fired its development.

Yet in August, new analysis said China’s emissions may have been overestimated by 14%, as fuel quality hadn’t been taken into account.

EIA analyst Ayaka Jones said the magnitude of the revision in coal usage was due to “widely reported issues associated with Chinese coal statistics.”

Report: Ditching China’s coal addiction will take decades, warns expert

Those included disagreements between national totals and the sum of provincial reports, and the difficulty of obtaining precise data in the world’s largest coal market.

The EIA independently assessed the average heat content of coal, relying on information from statistical agencies, academic papers and industry reports.

Energy-content-based coal consumption from 2000 to 2013 is up to 14% higher than previously reported, while coal production is up to 7% higher. (credit: EIA)

The findings revealed China’s coal consumption fell 2% in 2014 on a year earlier, not the 2.9% reduction as reported by NBS in preliminary data in February.

An economic slowdown has meant coal production fell 4.8% in the first eight months of the year, signalling a longer downward trend.

Report: China coal decline continues as economy flatlines

The 2014 reduction led global emissions to stay constant last year while the world economy grew, an event hailed by the International Energy Agency.

In May, the NBS issued new statistics countering that. Coal consumption rose 0.06% instead, pushing up total CO2 emissions.

The coal burned in 2014 was of higher quality, packing in more carbon emissions, following rules banning the sale and combustion of low-grade coal, Reuters reported.

The post Burnt data: China coal use since 2000 far higher than estimated appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: Bigstock)

By Megan Darby

There is good news and bad news in the International Energy Agency’s special report on climate change.

Good news: global energy-related emissions did not grow in 2014, for the first time outside an economic crisis in 40 years.

Bad news: national policies don’t go far enough to avert catastrophic climate change.

Good news: the IEA has some ideas to bridge the gap.

RTCC has leafed through the nearly 200 pages of in-depth analysis to dig out 9 graphs that show where we are, where we’re going and how we can go further.

References to emissions in this article refer to energy consumption only, not land use, forestry or emissions from cement and steel production.

1. It’s official: Emissions flatlined in 2014

Global energy-related CO2 emissions 1985-2014

Global emissions stalled in 2014. IEA chief economist Fatih Birol let slip as much in March. This report confirms it.

This is the first time in the past 40 years outside of an economic slump it has happened. The collapse of the Soviet Union and 2008 financial crisis prompted small dips.

By contrast, this time GDP grew 3%. It shows that economic growth is starting to be “decoupled” from fossil fuel use, as climate policies kick in.

Even China, which has surged on coal-intensive energy, trimmed emissions 1%, the IEA found.

Birol admitted unreliable data was “always a problem” with China and there was “a big question mark” around coal use figures. But this did not affect the big picture, he said.

2. We’re set to blow the carbon budget by 2040

Global energy-related CO2 emissions in the INDC scenario and remaining carbon budget for a >50% chance of keeping to 2C (IPCC and IEA data; IEA analysis)

Governments have agreed to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

To stand half a chance of meeting that goal, carbon dioxide emissions must be capped at 3,000 gigatonnes – the “carbon budget”.

Two thirds of that has already been used up and some must be allowed for farming, steel and cement production. That leaves an estimated 980Gt for energy.

According to the IEA, the climate plans submitted or signaled by countries to date blow the budget around 2040, just eight months later than if there were no plans.

It shows why more action is needed, said Birol: “Without solving the problem in the energy sector, we have no chance to solve the climate problem.”

3. Fossil fuel subsidies outweigh carbon pricing

Energy related CO2 emissions, carbon prices and fossil fuel subsidies by region, 2014

Consumer subsidies for petrol, cooking gas and electricity might be vote-winners, but they encourage wasteful consumption and benefit the middle classes more than the poor.

That is why the likes of the World Bank and IMF are arguing they must be phased out and a price attached to carbon dioxide emissions.

Report: Morocco bids to axe fossil fuel subsidies in climate pledge

Report: Fossil fuel subsidies to hit $5.3 trillion in 2015, says IMF

While there are movements in that direction, in 2014 some 13% of global emissions were from fossil fuels subsidised to the tune of US$115 a tonne of CO2.

That doesn’t count indirect support such as tax rebates for oil producers and export credits for coal power technology.

The average price of a pollution permit on the carbon markets that cover 11% of emissions was a relatively puny $7/t.

Europe had the most widespread carbon pricing, covering 60% of emissions, while in the Middle East 63% were subsidised.

4. China is set to overtake the EU on historic emissions

Cumulative energy-related CO2 emissions by region

This chart illustrates the tension behind one of the most heated debates in international climate talks: how the carbon budget should be shared out.

The current approach is to base a climate deal – due in December – on national contributions, which reflect what is considered possible.

That has not entirely averted discussion of what is “fair”. Poorer countries argue the rich must act first and fastest, while the developed world points to the increasing responsibility of emerging economies.

The US and Europe are behind the majority of historic emissions, generated as they grew wealthy on coal-fired industry.

Yet over the next 25 years, that picture shifts significantly as China’s cumulative emissions overtake the EU’s and India soars past Japan.

5. Most countries have mapped out emissions targets

Countries that have submitted or signaled their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) to a global climate deal

Countries responsible for two thirds of energy-related emissions have either submitted climate action plans to the UN or signaled their content.

The US is aiming to slash emissions 26-28% from 2005 levels by 2025 and the EU 40% from 1990 levels by 2030.

China is targeting peak emissions by 2030 and is set to reveal more details on Wednesday.

Paris tracker: Who has pledged what for 2015 UN climate pact?

Developing nations including Gabon, Ethiopia and Mexico have revealed their draft climate targets, with the rest due to follow by October.

Known as intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), these will form the basis of a global deal to be struck in Paris this December.

6. The IEA’s bridge takes us half way

Global energy-related CO2 emissions by scenario

In its special report on climate change, the IEA sets out three projections.

The INDC scenario projects the emissions associated with the climate policies countries have already declared in “intended nationally determined contributions” to a global deal.

The bridge scenario maps further action that is possible with proven technologies and policies, at zero net cost to economies.

But as this graph clearly shows, it only gets the world half way to the “450 scenario”. That is the one consistent with a 2C limit, expressed as 450 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere.

For that reason, the IEA stresses the need for a global deal to schedule 5-year review cycles to ramp up commitment.

7. Carbon footprints will still vary widely between countries

Energy-related CO2 emissions per person by region in the INDC scenario and global average in a 2C scenario, 2030

Developed countries are mostly curbing their carbon footprints while the world’s poor enjoy an increasing share of the emissions space.

But with the climate policies on the table so far, in 2030 a typical American will still be responsible for more than five times the climate pollution of an Indian.

To meet the 2C goal, each world citizen should be emitting no more than 3 tonnes a year – roughly where Mexico and Southeast Asia are headed. Russia is in line for four times that.

This chart underlines why equity remains a big part of climate discussions.

“It will be very difficult to come up with a binding agreement on anyone, because the differences between countries are so huge,” said IEA chief Maria van der Hoeven. “On the other hand, that does not mean we have to do nothing.”

8. Energy efficiency is the biggest part of the solution

Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions cut by policy measure in Bridge Scenario relative to the INDC Scenario

Wind turbines may be the emblem of choice for climate champions but investment in renewables makes up a relatively small chunk (17%) of the extra measures proposed by the IEA.

Energy efficiency delivers the lion’s share – 49% – of further emissions cuts. That means less wasteful cars, washing machines and buildings.

Stopping methane leaks from oil and gas extraction contributes 15% of IEA’s package, fossil fuel subsidy reform 10% and a ban on inefficient coal plants 9%.

In the longer run, it expects carbon capture and storage (CCS) to play a bigger role. After decades of development, there are a handful of CCS plants worldwide but it is not yet economically viable without significant government support.

The IEA expects fossil fuels to continue to make up 60% of the global energy mix in 2040, making the technology to neutralise its emissions “imperative”.

9. Energy access improves but not for everyone

Access to electricity and clean cooking in Bridge Scenario

The IEA estimates 1.3 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity and 2.6 billion have only smoky fuels to cook with.

This report being primarily about solving the climate challenge, the IEA did not assume everyone would get access to modern energy.

Instead, it made sure the outlook for the world’s poorest was no worse in the bridge scenario than set out in INDCs. Another 1.7 billion get powered up and 1.6 billion get clean cookstoves.

But previous research by the IEA has shown that universal energy access would add less than 1% to global emissions.

In some cases it has a positive impact, as solar lighting replaces kerosene lamps and LPG displaces wood for cooking.

“The threat to global warming from achieving greater energy access to energy for the under-privileged is negligible,” the report states.

The post Greening the world energy mix in 9 graphs appeared first on Climate Home News.

Renewable technologies are getting cheaper, but developers still need predictable returns, says IEA
(Pic: David Clarke)

By Megan Darby

Growth of the renewable energy sector is under threat from policy uncertainty, the International Energy Agency warned on Thursday.

Investment in clean sources of energy is a key plank of global efforts to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

Wind, solar and hydro and other renewables generated almost 22% of power worldwide in 2013, the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report said.

Yet expansion of the clean power market is set to slow after 2014, the authors found. It could fall short of delivering the generation needed to meet climate change objectives.

Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, said: “Renewables are a necessary part of energy security.

“However, just when they are becoming a cost-competitive option in an increasing number of cases, policy and regulatory uncertainty is rising in some key markets.”

Cost

The price of renewable technologies is falling in many cases, making generators less dependent on high subsidies.

However, developers bear most of the cost up-front, to be repaid over several years. To get finance, they need predictable returns, van der Hoeven explained.

“Many renewables no longer need high incentive levels. Rather, given their capital-intensive nature, renewables require a market context that assures a reasonable and predictable return for investors.

“This calls for a serious reflection on market design needed to achieve a more sustainable world energy mix.”

Barriers

The barriers to investment are different in developed and developing countries.

In Europe, the climate and energy policy framework to 2030 is still under negotiation. The existing strategy runs to 2020.

Draft proposals included a target to get 27% of energy from renewable sources by 2030. National leaders are set to sign off the package in October.

There is also uncertainty about plans to reinforce the European grid to accommodate renewables with variable output.

In non-OECD markets such as China, which account for 70% of renewables growth, there issues with availability of finance, grid capacity and non-economic barriers.

Investment

Decreasing costs are making renewables increasingly competitive against conventional power plants, the IEA found.

In Brazil, onshore wind has outbid gas-fired power stations in auctions while in northern Chile, an unsubsidised solar market is taking off.

Worldwide, the IEA forecasts US$230 billion of investment a year to 2020 – lower than the US$250 billion invested in 2013.

That reflects lower unit investment costs as well as declining global capacity growth.

The post Political uncertainty slows renewable energy growth – IEA appeared first on Climate Home News.

Pic: Chuck Coker/Flickr

By John McGarrity

Investment in low carbon sources of energy will fall well short of what is needed to stave off climate change unless a breakthrough is reached in stalled UN climate talks, the IEA said in a report on Tuesday.

In a major report highlighting trends in energy spending, the Paris-based agency said $53 trillion will need to be funnelled towards lower carbon energy and efficiency over the next two decades in order to limit a rise in global temperatures to below 2C.

A total of $1.6 trillion was spent on all types of energy extraction, generation and distribution last year, the IEA said, but just $250 billion (16%) of this was directed towards renewables and energy efficiency, around $50 billion less than in 2011 as investment stalled in some countries and the costs of solar technology declined.

“The investment path that we trace in this report falls well short of reaching climate stabilisation goals, as today’s policies and market signals are not strong enough to switch investment to low-carbon sources and energy efficiency at the necessary scale and speed,” the IEA report added.

The agency, which represents members of the OECD, said a clear steer from government and the imposition of high costs on extracting and burning fossil fuels would be essential so that low carbon energy can be made sufficiently attractive to investors.

Spending on renewables and energy efficiency will need to almost treble to $730 billion a year by 2030 for the world to make a decisive move away from fossil fuels.

If the world’s major emitters do manage to agree policies that can cap a temperature rise to 2c, then $300 billion of fossil fuel investments would be rendered as stranded assets, the report adds.

The report came as policymakers and energy companies digested the publication of proposals by the US Environmental Protection Agency to curb emissions from the country’s electricity sector, particularly from coal-fired power stations, while China on Tuesday said it would set an absolute cap on carbon emissions from 2016.

UN climate talks in Bonn this week – which are aimed at preparing the ground for a climate deal next year in Paris – will try and make progress on how the world can slow investment in fossil fuels and scale up spending on renewables.

But the IEA noted that governments are finding it increasingly difficult to agree clear policies that would prompt a major shift to low carbon technologies because of demands by energy consumers for lower energy prices and growing public concerns about subsidies for renewables.

Governments negotiating at Bonn this week still bear most of the responsibility for driving investment in low carbon technologies, rather than markets, the IEA said.

“In many countries, governments have direct influence over energy sector investment, for example, through retained ownership of more than 70% of global oil and gas reserves or control of nearly half of the world’s power generation capacity, via state-owned companies,” today’s report said.

But the IEA noted that governments are finding it increasingly difficult to agree clear policies that would prompt a major shift to low carbon technologies because of demand for low energy prices and concerns about the level of subsidy needed for renewables.

Signals

“Against this backdrop, there is a risk that policymakers fail to provide clear and consistent signals to investors, with particular impacts on low-carbon technologies that depend, for the moment, on policy support,” the report said.

The IEA’s report is more grist for the mill for investors who are pressing governments to back up carbon trading with ambitious targets.

“Where carbon isn’t priced, where the price is weak or where fossil fuels are subsidised, the incentive to make this switch is much reduced. A strong carbon price which boosts investment will also reduce the need for fossil fuel imports and strengthen regional energy security, said Stephanie Pfeifer, Chief Executive of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change.

The group represents 88 of Europe’s largest investors with assets worth €7.5 trillion.

The post Show us the money if countries are to curb climate change: IEA appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: Dong Energy

By Sophie Yeo 

Replacing fossil fuels with renewables as the world’s primary source of energy will not only save the planet from dangerous levels of warming – it will also save the global economy US$ 71trillion by 2050.

This is the finding of a report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2014, released today by the International Energy Agency, which looks at the direction of the energy sector over the next 40 years.

The changes needed to keep the world within 2C of warming— a widely agreed target in efforts to tackle climate change – will benefit the global economy, confirms the report, although a “coordinated policy approach” will be required to unlock these savings.

“The USD 44 trillion additional investment needed to decarbonise the energy system in line with the 2DS [2C scenario] by 2050 is more than offset by over USD 115 trillion in fuel savings – resulting in net savings of USD 71 trillion,” its says.

The findings support those who say that it is possible to decouple economic growth from emissions—something the EU has strongly advocated as it has increased its wealth while at the same time remaining on track to reduce its emissions by 20% by 2020. In China, meanwhile, emissions have rocketed in order to sustain economic growth of around 10% a year.

Energy

The future of the energy system will depend upon the price of renewables, energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and new climate policies, the report forecasts.

In a 2C scenario, it predicts that renewable energy will provide around 65% of electricity by 2050, compared to 20% in 2011. At the same time, it warns that the continuing rise in the use of coal threatens to undermine progress made in renewables, with growth in coal-fired generation since 2010 amounting to more than that of all non-fossil fuel sources combined.

If climate goals are to be achieved, progress in the development of CCS must be achieved quickly, although its future currently remains uncertain due to a lack of political and financial achievement.

CCS will soon have to be applied to natural gas, adds the report, which is set to lose its status as a low-carbon alternative by 2025, as the increasing volume of renewables on the grid will mean that the energy supplied by gas becomes higher than the shifted average carbon intensity.

But in the short term the report forecasts that gas will continue to play a key role in increasing the integration of renewables and displacing dirtier coal-fired generation. It adds that the outcome of the competition between coal and gas is likely to be determined by economics rather than technology: “If coal and CO2 prices are low, unabated coal plants are sufficiently flexible and will remain profitable,” it says.

Meanwhile, the report forecasts that it is improvements in energy efficiency that will account for the greatest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Carbon price

A price on carbon continues to show “strong potential” as a means for governments to stimulate the low carbon investment needed to transform the energy sector, the report says, but it is far from being the only solution.

“In the absence of carbon markets, innovation in technology deployment, policy action and investments can enable progress,” it says.

Overall, the report concludes that policy and technology will become driving forces in transforming the energy sector over the next 40 years, and have the potential to avert a future of increasing energy insecurity and a volatile fuel supply.

“Recent technology developments, markets and energy-related events have asserted their capacity to influence global energy systems. They have also reinforced the central role of policy in the increasingly urgent need to meet growing energy demand while addressing related concerns for energy security, costs and energy-related environmental impacts.

“Radical action is needed to actively transform energy supply and end use.”

The post IEA: Decarbonising the economy will save $71 trillion by 2050 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: Flickr/FMJ Shooter

By Sophie Yeo

New environmental laws in China are slowing the growth of the coal industry worldwide, though use of the fuel is unlikely to peak any time soon, according to the International Energy Agency.

China is responsible for 60% of global demand, but growing anger at heavy pollution linked to coal burning is forcing the government to consider investing in cleaner forms of energy.

The IEA says this is likely to see international demand for coal dip slightly, but over the next five years China is still expected to consume and produce as much coal as the rest of the world combined.

It dominated the surge in coal demand in 2012, generating 165 megatonnes of the 170Mt growth that was added to the global supply. This year significant hydro-power output and slowing economic output saw demand for coal in the power sector diminish.

The IEA’s annual Medium-Term Coal Market report projects that coal will continue to grow at an average rate of 2.3% up to 2018. This is 0.3% slower than last year’s predictions, largely due to efforts by the Chinese government to encourage energy efficiency and diversify its energy mix.

While a combination of low gas prices, environmental regulation and uncertainty over future carbon policy meaning coal consumption in the US will remain far below its peak in 2005-07, IEA director Maria van der Hoeven, said that, as gas prices recover, coal will start to grow there again.

“2013 saw the renewed acceleration of energy demand and investment in China. As a result, our projections show coal demand to pick up in both countries,” she added at the launch of the report in Paris today.

“Like it or not, coal is here to stay for a long time to come.”

Chinese dominance

The new Chinese government faces the twin problems of an expanding urban middle class with growing energy demands and public anger over the thick layer of air pollution that hangs over its major cities.

While environmental concerns are hastening the phase out of the most polluting power plants and accelerating the adoption of cleaner technologies, it remains unclear whether the country will be able to sustain its curtailed coal demand alongside high levels of financial growth.

“Given China’s absolute dominance over coal markets, our projections are strongly subject to Chinese uncertainties,” it says in the report.

Despite efforts from the Chinese, van der Hoeven said that radical action to tackle the CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants remains “disappointingly absent”, with current plans still putting the world on track to hit 4C of warming. This is twice the 2C limit set by governments on acceptable global warming, and would lead to catastrophic impacts across the globe.

“When it comes to a sustainable energy profile, we are simply off-track – and coal in its current form is the prime culprit,” she said.

“Yet with coal set to remain an integral part of our energy mix for decades to come, the challenge is to make it cleaner.”

The post Tougher Chinese policies turn screw on global coal demand appeared first on Climate Home News.

Wind in China is overtaking the rest of the world.

By Nilima Choudhury

Electricity generated from wind could soar from 2.6% today to 18% of the world’s electricity by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

Its latest Wind Power Technology Roadmap says the industry will need $150 billion per year to achieve this. Current investment is hovering around the $80 billion mark.

Wind power deployment under this vision would save up to 4.8 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions per year by 2050, equivalent to more than the current European Union annual emissions.

China, which has doubled investment in renewable energy between 2004 and 2012, would provide the largest reductions.

Since 2008, wind power deployment has more than doubled, approaching 300 gigawatts (GW) cumulative installed capacities led by China (75GW), the United States (60GW) and Germany (31GW).

Wind power now provides 2.5% of global electricity demand – and up to 30% in Denmark, 20% in Portugal, 18% in Spain.

“While world leaders pay lip service to combating climate change, what they are actually doing is subsidizing CO2 emissions to the tune of US$110/tonne. Fossil fuel energy subsidy reform could take us a long way towards protecting the climate,” Steve Sawyer, secretary general for the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) told RTCC.

Parity

The cost of land-based wind power is close to competitive with other sources of electricity. Offshore wind is currently expensive and technically challenging, but has an important long-term potential, according to the IEA.

In Australia and Brazil, wind energy is already cheaper than conventional energy sources.

Some European countries already draw 15-30% of their electricity from wind power, thanks to improvements in forecasting, increased interconnections, demand-side response and storage.

Turbines are getting higher, stronger and lighter, while masts and blades are growing even faster than rated capacity, allowing them to capture lower-speed winds and produce more regular output.

The GWEC believes wind could provide 1,000GW by 2020, provided the necessary financial support and policy stability is provided.

The post Wind could generate 18% of global electricity by 2050 appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: ojbyrne)

By Nilima Choudhury

Energy related CO2 emissions are projected to rise by 20% to 2035, leaving the world on track for a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6°C.

The IEA’s assessment took into account carbon abatement schemes that are already in place despite which the world is still on a trajectory to miss the internationally agreed 2°C limit of warming.

Non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries account for a rising share of emissions. The report warns that the 2°C carbon budget is being spent much too quickly.

Carbon budget for 2C. (Graph: IEA)

Executive director of the IEA Maria van der Hoeven said at the launch of the report that countries that can anticipate global energy developments successfully will have an economic advantage over their peers.

“Major changes are emerging in the energy world in response to shifts in economic growth, efforts at decarbonisation and technological breakthroughs. We have the tools to deal with such profound market change,” van der Hoeven said.

Cumulative energy use related to CO2. (Graph: IEA)

In its report, the IEA calls for urgent action to break down barriers to implementing successful CO2 reduction measures.

In June, the watchdog identified four measures to halt the increase in emissions by 2020 without harming economic growth.

These included improving efficiency, limiting the construction and use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants, minimising methane emissions in upstream oil and gas, and reforming fossil-fuel subsidies

Now in November, the IEA remains strong on these points.

Van der Hoeven said: “There are pragmatic strategies that governments and industry can pursue to reduce energy use and emissions that are either GDP-neutral or positive for economic growth.”

The report said two-thirds of the economic potential for energy efficiency is set to remain untapped in 2035. The main market barrier is fossil fuel subsidies.

Today’s share of fossil fuels in the global mix, at 82%, is the same as it was 25 years ago; the strong rise of renewables only reduces this to around 75% in 2035.

Last year fossil fuel subsidies totalled $544 billion while investment in renewables was $101 billion of which hydro power will be the most popular in non-OECD countries.

Growth in renewable electricity generation for 2011-2035. (Graph: IEA)

Renewables will account for nearly half of the increase in global power generation to 2035, from various sources with wind and solar photovoltaics making up 45% of the expansion in renewables.

The increase in generation from renewables takes its share in the global power mix above 30%, drawing ahead of natural gas in the next few years and all but reaching coal as the leading fuel for power generation in 2035.

China sees the biggest absolute increase in generation from renewable sources, more than the increase in the European Union, the United States and Japan combined.

Emissions reduction policies in China also include capping its share of coal in total energy use. The currently currently uses as much coal as the rest of the world combined.

The IEA’s report said global coal demand increases by 17% to 2035, with two-thirds of the increase occurring by 2020, but coal use experiences a decline in OECD countries.

Energy

Rising energy prices are adding pressure on policy makers to stop investing in renewables which they believe to be too costly.

In the UK last month, Prime Minister David Cameron told members of Parliament that green levies were responsible for putting up bills.

The report said increases in the cost of energy are a result of high oil prices, differences in gas and electricity prices between regions and rising energy import bills in many countries.

Oil prices have averaged over $110/barrel since 2011. Such a sustained period of high oil prices is without parallel.

“The key to adapting to higher energy prices over the longer term,” said van de Hoeven, “will be efficiency – what we have called the hidden fuel and, more recently, the first fuel.”

The report predicts that two-thirds of the economic potential for energy efficiency is set to remain untapped in 2035.

Notable policies introduced over the past year include measures targeting efficiency improvements in buildings in Europe and Japan, in motor vehicles in North America and in air conditioners in parts of the Middle East, and energy pricing reforms in China and India.

But WWF believes the IEA report is too optimistic about the future energy mix.

Dr Stephan Singer, director of global energy policy at WWF, said: “WWF strongly supports the IEA view that changing the energy sector – which is responsible for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions – is the most important action to take. But we can’t have our cake and eat it and the IEA is being too positive about new energy sources like shale gas.

“As the IEA themselves recognise, we need to leave more than two thirds of all existing fossil fuels underground to have a decent chance to avoid overstepping the threshold to dangerous levels of climate change. We need vision and leadership from world leaders on this issue – starting now in Warsaw.”

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(Pic: The Daring Librarian)

Energy efficiency should be treated as the world’s first fuel according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Global energy efficiency investments hit the $300 billion mark in 2011, on par with renewables and traditional forms of energy, highlighting its importance the Paris-based agency says.

It adds that without new efficiency measures consumers in 11 IEA member countries would now be using two-thirds more energy than current levels, saving $420 billion from 2005-2010.

“Energy efficiency has been called a ‘hidden fuel’, yet it is hiding in plain sight,” IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven said as she presented the report at the World Energy Congress in Korea.

“Indeed, the degree of global investment in energy efficiency and the resulting energy savings are so massive that they beg the following question: is energy efficiency not just a hidden fuel but rather the world’s first fuel?”

New policies and the high price of energy have driven growth in the energy efficiency market, according to the IEA.

And it praised the USA for taking steps to become one of the most energy efficient members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) by 2020.

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The government is investing $7.9bn to improve India’s electricity grid. (Pic: Lucia Sanchez)

By Nilima Choudhury 

India has set aside US$7.9 billion to create a ‘green energy corridor’ to facilitate the flow of renewable energy into its grid electricity.

The corridor would be built across seven states over the next five to six years, Ratan Watal, secretary at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said in New Delhi last Wednesday.

“The project will be implemented with the assistance of Germany which has promised to provide developmental and technical assistance of €1 billion as soft credit,” Watal said at the “National Consultation of Stakeholders regarding Development of Offshore Wind Energy in India”.

The grid will also receive support from the World Bank, said government officials, the Asian Development Bank and India’s National Electricity Fund.

As part of the government’s 12th five-year plan, it aims to connect the southern grid to the national grid by 2014 to create the single largest transmission grid in the world.

Rising demand

Wind and solar capacity has more than doubled in the last five years, part of a wider strategy to avoid blackouts like those in July 2012, which hit 20 of the country’s 28 states, and left 700 million without power.

Without a reliable grid infrastructure capacity means little if the electricity cannot get to where it is needed, and India’s limitations are becoming increasingly clear as its renewable sector expands.

“Tamil Nadu has the highest installed capacity of wind, but due to lack of sufficient evacuation infrastructure, a significant part of the power generated during the peak wind season goes to waste,” Madhavan Nampoothiri, founder and director of Indian energy consultants RESolve told RTCC.

As of February 2013, India had 19,564MW of wind, of which Tamil Nadu accounted for 7,195MW. Solar, the second largest source of renewable energy in the country had 1,208MW of installed capacity.

Last month a joint study from Greenpeace and market analysts Bridge to India said Delhi could break the 2GW solar power barrier by 2020 due to plummeting costs, extensive roof space and the rising demand for electricity.

Electricity is the lifeblood of any economy supporting healthcare, education and businesses, but India has a history of power cuts and an unreliable grid. Heavily polluting and expensive diesel generators are currently being used to supply electricity when the grid fails.

Off-grid access

Where the government has deemed access to the grid not feasible due to the remoteness of some rural locations, it has launched the Remote Village Electrification Programme.

According to the World Bank, 400 million people in India do not have access to electricity.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recommends that regardless of climate change concerns, the necessary path to universal energy access in un-electrified, rural areas is through scaling-up decentralized, off-grid clean energy models.

Official figures boast that 94% of villages have electricity, but according to The Economist the government counts the electrification of an entire village if just a few homes have electricity.

India’s fast growing mobile phone sector will also have to invest in new infrastructure.The government has ordered them to switch half of their rural towers, and a fifth of those in cities, to green energy by 2015, affecting around 150,000 masts.

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The IEA recommends cities make it more expensive for people to own cars in cites, and offer better forms of public transport (Pic: Oran Virijincy)

Drawing on research in 30 cities, the report suggests that investing in efficient transport schemes could save $70 trillion in spending on vehicles, fuel and infrastructure up to 2050.

Specifically it calls on governments to adopt what it calls an ‘avoid, shift and improve’ philosophy, reducing unnecessary travel in cars, lubricating movement across cities and investing in better trains and buses.

“As the share of the world’s population living in cities grows to nearly 70% by 2050 and energy consumption for transport in cities is expected to double, the need for efficient, affordable, safe and high-capacity transport solutions will become more acute,” said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven in a statement.

“Urgent steps to improve the efficiency of urban transport systems are needed not only for energy security reasons, but also to mitigate the numerous negative climate, noise, air pollution, congestion and economic impacts of rising urban transport volumes.”

Global transport energy use has increased 30% during the past decade – the equivalent of doubling 2000 transport energy consumption levels in the United States.

Transport emissions alone grew by nearly two billion annual tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) since 2000.

The IEA expects annual global urban transport emissions to more than double to nearly one billion annual tonnes of CO2e by 2025.

Energy consumption for transport in cities is expected to double by 2050. More people are predicted to move to urban areas as the global population swells to above 10 billion by 2100.

As they do, so the dangers of pollution and poor air quality are likely to be exacerbated. Around 4,300 early deaths a year are attributable to airborne pollution, according to studies by the Mayor of London.

Private motor vehicles are the main target of this report, and policies that discourage vehicle ownership such as London’s congestion charge are encouraged.

Investment in cycle lanes and technology allowing individuals to plan their journeys from home are offered as effective incentives to ditch cars.

Increasing the density of urban areas is one recommendation that may surprise readers. The IEA admits this requires ‘years of planning’ but argues it means fewer car journeys.

“This transition will require more than advances in vehicle technologies: fuel efficiency improvements alone cannot mitigate the consequences of a world in which nearly 70% of all movements will be made by motorised roadway travel in more than 3 billion vehicles in 2050,” the report says.

“Instead, 21st century travel efficiency will require shifts in how we perceive, design, operate and manage the world’s transport systems.”

The post It’s time for cities to ditch the car – IEA report appeared first on Climate Home News.

The world is currently heading for between 3.6°C and 5.3°C of warming, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

The watchdog has issued four energy policy guidelines that could keep the world within the 2°C limit of warming recommended by climate scientists and agreed upon by politicians at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

Speaking at the launch of the IEA’s new report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map, executive director Maria van der Hoeven said politicians had the tools needed to stay within the limit they themselves signed up to.

“Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away – quite the opposite,” she said.

The IEA predicts four energy policy changes could cut emissions by 3 giga tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2020 (Source: Flickr/he-sk)

“This report shows that the path we are currently on is more likely to result in a temperature increase of between 3.6 °C and 5.3 °C but also finds that much more can be done to tackle energy-sector emissions without jeopardising economic growth, an important concern for many governments.”

The report claims its recommendations for energy policy changes could cut emissions from the sector by 3.1 gigatonnes by 2020.

It calls for investment in energy efficiency for buildings, industry and transport at a rate over and above the value of the energy savings.

It suggests limiting the construction of coal power stations to only the most efficient, halving the volume of methane release into the atmosphere by the oil and gas industry and a partial phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies that make them cheaper for consumers.

Global action

Rising energy related emissions played their part in atmospheric CO2 passing the 400 parts per million mark earlier this year.

China’s contribution continues to grow with another 300 million tonnes of CO2 added in 2012 from the energy sector.

The USA’s switch from coal to cleaner gas powered generation saw a fall in energy emissions of 200 million tonnes.

UN talks in Bonn towards a new global emissions reduction treaty by 2015 have been pushing through a stalemate this month as governments look to deliver on the 2°C goal. Despite calls for the target to be ditched, it is considered unlikely, at least until the new treat is agreed.

“The IEA report comes at a crucial moment for the UN Climate Change negotiations and for global efforts to address climate change at all levels,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN climate change agency the UNFCCC.

“Once again we are reminded that there is a gap between current efforts and the engagement necessary to keep the world below a 2°C temperature rise. Once again we are reminded that the gap can be closed this decade, using proven technologies and known policies, and without harming economic growth in any region of the world,” she added.

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), which represents €7.5 trillion of investments said the economic consequences of missing the 2°C target were dire.

“This scenario threatens to have severe physical impacts and puts the investments and savings of millions of people at risk,” said Stephanie Pfeifer, chief executive of the IIGCC.

“Investors support strong and concerted climate action now to bring emissions down. The measures in this report could save trillions in future adaptation costs, but they will not be achieved without tough policy decisions including putting a high price on carbon, phasing out billions in fossil fuel subsidies and introducing frameworks which stimulate investment in low-carbon energy,” said Pfeifer.

World leaders will meet next week for the G8 summit in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland with climate change back on the agenda have initially being blocked by an advisor to UK Prime Minister, and G8 host, David Cameron.

Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund said the IEA report should be “required reading” for those attending the summit.

“We are already seeing the early-warning signs of climate change in extreme weather events around the world. This report, coming from the world’s leading experts on energy, sends a very clear message: We have the tools we need to make the turn toward climate safety. What is needed is the political will to act,” said Krupp.

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Developing countries’ demand for oil has overtaken rich nations’ for the first time, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has revealed.

Data for the last quarter shows that members of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperation and Development (OECD), fell behind non-OECD countries for the first time.

The IEA Medium-Term Oil Market Report found that the demand for oil products, liquid fuels, transport fuels and petrochemicals, will jump from 49% to 54% from 2012 to 2018.

“The idea that non-OECD economies would overtake the OECD nations is nothing new, but now it is happening, and it is happening fast,” said Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA at the launch of the report on Tuesday.

“It is happening faster than expected. There is a growing perception that the peak in OECD oil demand, including the US, is behind us,” she added.

“The non-OECD growth has been led by China but Africa is also becoming increasingly important.”

IEA Executive director Maria van der Hoeven says the shift in oil demand is no surprise (Source: IEA)

As emerging economies develop and the middle class grows, key indicators like car ownership increase. The World Bank estimates that the number of motor vehicles per 1000 people in China has increased from 37 in 2008 to 58 in 2010.

The growth in oil demand isn’t exclusively from transport. The consumption of plastic is increasing too. In India it has grown from around 5kg per person today to 20kg to 2020, according to industry data from inside the country.

Developing nations are in the unique position of being able to leapfrog oil-based technologies with the right technical, logistical and financial support.

A number of options to supersede oil-based products already exist or are in development.

Here are some of the options alternatives that could curb the growth of oil demand in developing nations and set them further down the path of low carbon development:

Nanocellulose

Nature’s wonderstuff consists of long molecules that make up tree trunks, cotton and cardboard and has a variety of applications. Scientists at the University of Texas have found a way to use bacteria to boost the nanocellulose production rates of algae. This can then in turn be used to produce more sustainable biofuels to cut down on liquid fossil fuel use.

Nanocellulose can also be used to produce alternatives to plastic or to reinforce traditional plastics, cutting down the amount of oil needed.

Solar

Those living rurally in developing countries are often unable to connect to the electricity grid. Diesel generators and kerosene lighting often fill the void. A number of organisations are looking to supply small scale solar power to bring electricity to communities that are located off the main electricity grid.

Azuri Technologies offers pay-as-you-go solar power in rural Africa. Users pay a small up-front cost with the rest of the payment for the panel, cabling and lights funded out of the payments.

Off grid solar is one of many solutions that can help cut the demand for oil in developing countries. (Source: Eight19)

E.coli diesel

There are other biofuel production options under development that sidestep the need to use crops like corn and sugar cane that could alternatively be used for food.

Shell-funded research at the University of Exeter is experimenting with a modified version of the E.coli bug, more commonly associated with food poisoning, to produce biodiesel. E.coli cells convert sugars into oils and the modified E.coli produces molecules almost identical to regular diesel.

The virus can be fed agricultural and food waste and could potentially be run on human and animal waste too.

Coffee fired engines

The UK’s Cooperative Group sponsored the conversion of a Ford pick-up truck to run on waste material from coffee crops. The Bean Machine holds the not-so-hotly contested title of the fastest coffee-powered vehicle in the world. It can also run on wood pellets and the concept could be extended to use other agricultural waste.

Gas powered transport

The iconic tuk-tuk transport common in many parts of Asia usually run on inefficient 2-stroke petrol or diesel. The Philippines has experimented with converting some of its auto rickshaws to electricity. Bangladesh has switched its fleet to Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), still a fossil fuel but unpegged at least from global oil prices with lower pollutant levels and less impact on the climate.

The post Five reasons why an oil-free future is possible appeared first on Climate Home News.

Governments must throw their weight behind carbon capture and storage technology or risk missing climate change targets.

That’s stark warning from Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) who said today the current pace of overall investment in low carbon technologies is far too slow.

With global fossil fuel use growing unabated, the IEA says technology to trap and store CO2 emissions is now essential.

“The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” van der Hoeven told the 4th annual Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) meeting in Delhi.

“Despite much talk by world leaders, and despite a boom in renewable energy over the last decade, the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago,” she added.

“We cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness. We need a rapid expansion in low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic warming of the planet but we must also accelerate the shift away from dirtier fossil fuels.”

Maria van der Hoeven warned the clean energy revolution appeared to have stalled (©IEA)

“The CEM governments represent 4.1 billion people and three-quarters of global GDP. Together, they have the power to set the clean energy transition in motion, and now it is time for them to use it.”

This week Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) revealed that clean energy investment in the first quarter of 2013 was at its lowest level since 2009. It was down 22% to $40.6bn compared to the year before.

Electricity production accounts for more than a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions placing the sector at the centre of efforts to tackle climate change.

As many developing economies continue to grow, their emissions from energy production are soaring. China and India represented 57% of global coal demand in 2011. Sustainable energy is set to be one of the pillars of the new Sustainable Development Goals that will begin in 2015.

Must do better

The IEA acknowledges that solar and wind power grew by 42% and 19% in respectively between 2011 and 2012. With fossil fuel use continuing to grow, particularly coal, it says more effort is needed to get Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies up and running so CO2 emissions can be intercepted before they enter the atmosphere.

Coal powered electricity generation grew by 45% between 2000-2010 and 6% between 2010-2012. The IEA says three to six times more investment is required in research and development for CCS to take the edge off these emissions.

The Tracking Clean Energy Progress report 2013 also notes the disparity between fossil fuel subsidies ($523bn) and renewable energy subsidies ($88bn) in 2011.

The IEA says the nations attending the CEM meeting, which include the USA, India, China, Russia and Brazil, account for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and can themselves make a significant contribution to tackling climate change, by shifting the focus of their policies.

The IEA, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the G8 nations and the World Bank have all called for an end to fossil fuel subsidies in recent years.

The IMF encourages cuts to harmful subsidies as a condition of some of its loans. The G8 promotes a voluntary assessment of members’ policies. The World Bank has been criticised for providing $6.6bn of finance for fossil fuel projects.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim recently said: “To date, I believe our efforts to combat climate change have been too narrowly focused, small scale and uncoordinated. We can do better.”

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The UN climate negotiations agreed to find $100bnof climate finance a year from 2020 onwards with a meeting in Washington DC this week exploring ways to source this from the private sector.

The ODI’s At Cross Purposes report warns that far greater action will be required from politicians to address what it calls skewed policies that support high emitting fossil fuels in large numbers while struggling to help nations to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“There is a real risk that the international community is throwing green money after brown by pursuing project based approaches to a problem that requires a far more catalytic effort,” said the report’s author Shelagh Whitley.

“There is an enormous challenge to be met and the current approach risks being as effective as sticking a plaster on a broken leg,” she added.

Calls to end fossil fuel subsidies were highly visible at the Rio+20 Sustainable Development conference (Source: Flickr/Avaazorg)

“$5bn is not a small amount of money and it can make a real difference but we need to assess how it is spent. At the moment there are too many people supporting a piece-by-piece project based approach to a problem that is far greater than the sum of its parts.”

The report also found that five countries, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Mexico, appear in the list of top 12 recipients of climate finance and the top 12 list of providers of fossil fuel subsidies to consumers.

“Fossil fuel subsidies are just the beginning of a long list of subsidies that Governments provide which can be seen to skew the field against green investment,” said Whitley.

“We need to ask ourselves what it is that can persuade policymakers in London, Beijing and Delhi of the need for long-term solutions that overcome the short-term political temptations of subsidies.”

Support for fossil fuels can also come in the form of tax breaks to producers rather than direct reductions in cost for consumers.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for the scrapping of $1.9trn of fossil fuel subsidies last week.

The IMF has made addressing subsidies a condition of some of its loans. Cuts in Jordan triggered by an IMF loan arrangement led to protests.

Many nations in the Middle East are using subsidies to soften public feeling, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) deputy executive director Richard H Jones. He says many are looking for alternative ways to lower cost such as promoting energy efficiency.

The G20 pledged to address the issue but has so far only discussed a voluntary review among members.

The subject was prominent at the Rio+20 Sustainable Development summit last summer but similarly loose language left plenty of room for manoeuvre.

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Business leaders are worryingly unfazed by the potential of 4°C of warming, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) chief economist Fatih Birol has said.

Speaking at an event in London last night, Birol said the danger of sleepwalking into 4°C was worthy of great concern.

Temperature increases above 2°C are likely to trigger dangerous warming according to climate scientists.

“4°C is better than 6°C but it is still horrible. The implications of that are a drastic increase in extreme weather events, sea level rise and temperature increases and acidification of the oceans,” said Birol.

“Many people to my surprise, during the climate change discussions in Davos, people who are very much engaged in the climate science debate from the energy and business sector, don’t seem uncomfortable with the 4°C trajectory. This is very bad,” he said.

Fatih Birol says he is concerned by how comfortable some people are with the potential of 4°C of warming. (Source: Flickr/FriendsOfEurope)

Birol chaired a session at the WEF meeting in Davos on global energy with Majid Jafar, the managing director of Dana Gas in the UAE, Sam Laidlaw, CEO of the UK’s Centrica utility and Robert D. Hormats, US Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs.

“It is a very worrying trend that people are thinking ‘we can’t expect to limit it to 2°C, but at least four is not as bad as six, we can live with that’,” added Birol.

Warnings of temperature rises have become increasingly severe in recent months.

The World Bank released a report on the dangers of a 4°C world prior to the UN climate change negotiations in Doha last year while consultancy firm PwC predicted the planet is on track for a 6°C rise.

Going nuclear

Asked for his thoughts on nuclear energy in the wake of setbacks for new nuclear power stations in the UK, Birol said there was no getting away from a role for nuclear power.

“If we look at the 2°C trajectory it will never happen with only gas replacing coal and energy efficiency. We need zero carbon technologies for electricity generation, renewables, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear, which I believe will have a key role,” he said.

Birol added the IEA has no sympathy toward any one technology based on anything other than cost and benefit.

“You may or may not love nuclear, we are not exactly in love with it but it will have to play a role in addressing climate change.”

He also had strong words on fossil fuel subsidies calling them “public enemy number one” for a sustainable energy transition.

“In Europe, as a disincentive to use carbon there is a price per ton of less than $10. In many countries, where the bulk of these subsidies come from, Middle East, Asia, some parts of Latin America, these subsidies translate to a $110 incentive to consume a ton of carbon. You can’t compete with that,” he said.

The IEA will publish a new report on June 10 this year titled “Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map”.

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Data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that developed countries have been gradually reducing support for producers from a peak of $20bn in 2006 to around $17bn in 2011.

Canada (see below) gave around CAD$2.2bn in 2006/07 to support new exploration efforts. In contrast, Iran gives $82bn of subsidies a year to consumers and end users, Saudi Arabia $61bn and Russia $40bn.

Support to consumers and end users has risen by $20bn in the past two years.

Cutting subsidies has been identified as one potential source of climate change finance, receiving backing from the G20. Total subsidies in richer nations were in the range of $85bn. The global total was $523bn in 2011, up 30% from the previous year.

From top to bottom, the three shades represent support for end users, consumers and producers.

While many feel fossil fuel subsidies line the pockets of an already highly lucrative industry, it appears now that that trend is on the wane and support for consumers and big energy users, are driving all this growth.

Some subsides are used to make fuels accessible to some the world’s poorest people. Removing these is incredibly sensitive with one such cut in support in Nigeria triggering riots in 2012.

Efforts to keep prices low in oil-rich nations is often highly political.

Last year IEA Deputy Executive Director Richard Jones told RTCC that some Gulf nations were turning to energy efficiency measures so they could cut consumption without having to increase prices and risk the kind of backash seen during the Arab Spring.

“They want to continue to keep the price of energy low but they don’t want to forego the revenues that they receive by exporting it. So they’re trying to find ways to get their people to use as little of it as possible,” he said.

Fossil fuel subsidies in the OECD

Germany

European solar and wind energy leader Germany has been recently been increasing its use of coal for electricity production following its decision to shut down its nuclear energy plants. Despite this, support for coal producers has more than halved from €5bn in 1999 to €2bn in 2011.

Support for consumers has remained largely stable but the aviation industry has seen its tax exemption almost doubled from €397m in 2005 to €680m in 2011. Relief for “energy intensive processes” has increased from €27m in 2006 to €152 in 2011.

Canada

Despite its reputation as a “pariah” at the international climate change talks and the criticism it receives for exploiting the carbon intensive tar sands oil deposits, support for producers is falling here too.

From a peak in 2006/2007 support at a provincial and national level has fallen. There was a blip in 2009/2010 however as a CAD$2.2bn stimulus package was agreed for the industry.

A CAD$2bn-plus tax exemption for energy products ran out in 2008.

USA

The outlook in the US is more complicated but most of the movement has been in the gas sector where there has been a big push to support the “shale gas revolution”.

Texas offered the most assistance at $1.1bn down from $1.2bn the previous year.

Support for consumers has increased slightly on a state by state and federal level. A scheme for heating bills in ion low income homes has ballooned from $672mn in 2005 to $1.7bn in 2011. This is not typically the kind of scheme environmentalists campaign against.

 

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Existing bodies overseeing the global energy sector are inadequate and have failed to adapt to widespread changes in energy supply and demand, says a new report.

A shake-up of global energy institutions is urgently needed – and nothing short of a technology revolution is called for in order to tackle the twin challenges of rising energy demand and climate change mitigation.

The report, The Reform of Global Energy Governance, by Neil Hirst at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London and Antony Froggatt of the London-based think tank, Chatham House, outlines how the energy market has changed in recent years.

The most developed OECD countries traditionally made up the bulk of world energy demand but now account for less than 45% – a share which is continuing to decline. The developing nations are the new big players on the block.

Governing bodies are having to adapt to a world where traditional world powers are being replaced by countries like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia

China is now the world’s largest energy consumer and also its largest CO2 emitter.

World oil demand, largely driven by the so-called Bric countries, increased by 24% between 1990 and 2009 and is set to go up by a further 12% by 2025.

These profound and far-reaching changes in the global energy scene are having a big impact not only on the way economies develop but on the climate.

Yet the institutions which oversee an energy trade that is worth about $2.3 trillion per year – or 16% of all international trade –  belong to another era.

Different priorities

The main player in global energy governance, the International Energy Agency (IEA), does not even have the Bric countries as members, with institutional rules and structures standing in the way of any change. This, says the report,  is  “a serious problem.”

Profound differences persist between the OPEC countries, who are committed to production quotas, and the IEA countries, who value open energy markets above all else.

The energy scene is increasingly dominated by national oil companies who scramble round the world investing their dollars in energy resources. The oil market has become highly volatile and unstable.

Governments juggle with questions of security and cost of supply, the national and global environment,  economic growth and development, jobs, poverty eradication, import dependency, resource income, technological leadership and diplomatic relations.

“The collective outcome of these decisions determines, to a large extent, the rate and limits of global warming…” says the report.

Meanwhile “the shale gas revolution” that has taken place in the US has already had a significant effect on world energy markets. A “golden age of gas” is already under way.

The report’s authors point out that while gas can contribute positively to climate mitigation where it replaces coal, it’s by no means all good news on the climate front.

“For instance, although the substitution of gas for coal in the US has reduced American carbon emissions, it may also be contributing to increased US coal exports and lower international coal prices.”

Avoiding disaster

Both energy provision and climate change are issues that can be addressed only at a global level, says the report.  A revolution not only in the way the energy market is run but in energy technology is needed. Low carbon development strategies have to be found.

“Only through a revolution in energy technology can we meet the increasing demand for energy services without a disastrous increase in energy-related CO2 emissions,” it reads.

“The world has changed, and global energy governance will also need to change to meet the energy policy challenges of today.”

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

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Does your house really sleep at night?

You may turn off the TV, switch off the lights and settle down for some much needed kip, but I’d bet your home is still alive with tiny devices sucking away at your energy bills.

Smart appliances, tablet devices and televisions on ‘standby’ are still placing huge pressure on existing energy infrastructure, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns.

In 2010 it says 160 million set-top boxes in the US consumed the equivalent of the output of the largest nuclear power station in the USA, costing their owners a combined total of $2 billion.

Information communication technology (ICT) currently accounts for 5% of global energy consumption, a figure the IEA says could triple by 2030.

Analysts predict Amazon will shift 10.5 million Kindle Fires in 2013, while Apple are expected to sell 83 million iPads

This Christmas saw sales of tablet computers like the Kindle Fire and iPad Mini soar.

A spokesman for UK computer retailer Dixons, which also runs Curry’s and PC World, told me they had ordered a million tablets for the festive season – five times more than in 2011.

Analysts Deloitte predict that by 2016, annual sales will hit 250 million, with many people owning multiple devices.

It’s good news for manufacturers and retailers, but despite the multitude of apps that allow you to monitor your carbon footprint, it could be very bad news for the environment.

While many devices have low-power options, those connected to the internet are frequently working all day, every day.

Like vampires they suck on energy systems at the dead of night, even after we have pressed what seems like an ‘off’ button.

The IEA also says appliances on standby are currently responsible for 240 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year (or 1 % of global CO2 emissions).

Constant drain

Some appear to be designed not to be switched off.

Amazon recommend their Kindle devices are placed on standby, as it takes more power to ‘reboot’ them from off.

My HTC Smartphone’s alarm only works if it is on standby, so I leave it on all night. Every night.

O2 have told me my internet router should be left on 24 hours a day, as it could receive new instructions at any time. Which is just ridiculous.

Far from these devices sleeping, they’re actually chattering away at high speed, updating the time, news and emails.

The mobile signal and wifi continually drain power, even while the phone is sleeping (see blue line at bottom)

16% of my phone’s power is used just being on standby, wifi takes 8% while the Guardian App sucks up 4% (you might have thought it would be greener). Angry Birds is probably finding angrier birds and pigs for my next game.

The IEA says networked devices often use electricity full tilt even when not delivering services, pointing out that an average US house has four such devices.

“As more and different appliances are networked, current low-consumption machines will revert to high standby consumption,” its report reads.

It describes this as “one of the most challenging areas in energy efficiency”, due to the number of manufacturers involved and the speed of development.

John Field from analysts TEAM energy tells me smaller devices like tablets are getting more efficient, but this is being balanced out by ever more powerful processors which demand more energy.

And chattering machines have a knock-on effect.

Consumption by data centres and server farms is also soaring. The IEA says they used 1.5% of global electricity in 2010, a figure that will only rise given annual growth rates of 12%.

Facebook and Google have both made efforts to re-engineer software and cooling systems. Just over a year ago Facebook announced it would ‘unfriend’ coal and run its centres on renewable sources.

Greenpeace is currently badgering Apple to follow suit – but the message seems clear.

If you value the pennies in your pocket and the environment, ignore the manufacturers and turn everything off at night.

I’m off to buy an old fashioned wind-up alarm clock.

The post IEA warning over vampire appliances secretly siphoning off energy appeared first on Climate Home News.

Coal is set to be the world’s largest single source of energy by 2020, according to a new report, with no sign of demand waning.

Even under scenarios of slowing economic development, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that China and India will drive coal consumption upwards, with the fuel reaching parity with oil globally by 2017.

Coal emits more greenhouse gases and other pollutants than other fossil fuels, which will make it difficult to expand coal use and meet climate change targets without intervention.

“Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are not taking off as once expected, which means CO2 emissions will keep growing substantially,” said Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA.

“Without progress in CCS, and if other countries cannot replicate the US experience and reduce coal demand [by swapping for gas], coal faces the risk of a potential climate policy backlash,” she said.

Demand for coal in Europe may be fleeting due to high gas prices, but in China and India it is here to stay. (Source: Flickr/Bert Kaufmann)

The IEA predicts that in order to keep carbon dioxide levels below the 450ppm recommended by climate scientists, coal use will have to peak before 2020 and then fall by more than a quarter during the next decade.

Commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, expected through the UN negotiations process in 2020, could put a cost on emissions that makes coal less attractive.

The low carbon price at present would not be sufficient to do this leaving a switch to gas, increased renewables and CCS as the only alternative to meet energy demands without incurring the full impact of coal on the climate.

The IEA calls India’s combination of energy poverty, huge population and large domestic supplies “the perfect cocktail to boost coal consumption”.

Enabling the country to develop while also keeping the world within the 2°C limit of warming, as recommended by climate scientists could require the transfer of CCS technology to India.

Technology transfer proved a thorny issue in Doha with developed nations unwilling to open discussion on Intellectual Property Rights.

Unconventional gas sources, which have helped the US become the only nation with falling coal consumption, offer another route to reducing the environmental impact of coal.

Critics say however, that investment would be better made in renewables than “locking in” the carbon output of new gas infrastructure for the next 40 years.

Worrying finding by @iea that coal will be 1st energy source by 2017- int’l efforts must address this but switching to gas is not enough

— Nick Molho (@NickMolho) December 18, 2012

Commenting on the UK’s own recent energy reshuffle, Nick Molho, head of energy policy at WWF-UK warned against a dash to gas.

“Not only is investing in renewable forms of energy a good way to manage costs, it will also create jobs, boost the economy and, most importantly, play a major role in tackling climate change,” he said adding that in Britain’s case, gas should only be a transitional fuel.

“Whilst gas plants emit less carbon than coal plants, gas is still a carbon-intensive fossil fuel.”

The post Surging demand for coal threatens climate targets appeared first on Climate Home News.

South Korea’s drive for green growth and a low-carbon future has been applauded by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“Korea has taken great steps to enhance energy security and to foster the development of new and renewable energy alongside the expansion of it energy-related R&D programme, which is one of the largest in the IEA,” said the IEA’s Executive Director, Maria van der Hoeven.

Since 2008 the country has been working towards a target to reduce greenhouse gases emissions by 30% on business-as-usual projections by 2020. This year the South Korean government announced details of an emissions trading scheme to help reach this target this target.

Their latest country review – focused on South Korea – comes as countries head to Doha for the latest round of climate talks, where how to raise the ambition of carbon cuts will be a central theme.

South Korea has become a critical player in the international environmental negotiations. This year the country became the host of both the Green Climate Fund and the 2014 UN biodiversity summit.

While praising the ambition of the country, the IEA has also urged caution over some of South Korea’s existing energy strategies.

With a strong emphasis on nuclear, the IEA warn that recent incidents in the country and globally must act as a reminder of the importance of an enhanced nuclear regulatory authority.

The IEA has also warned that a clear, long term vision must be developed for Korea’s electricity and natural gas markets that allow effective competition.

The post South Korea praised for pushing climate ambition ahead of Doha appeared first on Climate Home News.

Australia is making great strides towards the decarbonisation of its energy system but must continue to invest in new technologies in order to make further progress, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

The country has established a carbon price at home for its top emitters and recently announced that it would participate in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to make binding emissions reductions through the UN.

While many policies are in place more technology, like the White Cliffs solar farm, is required in Australia, according to the IEA. (Flickr/Snot Robinski)

In a review of Australia’s energy policies the IEA warns that keeping pace with the progress it has already made to reduce emissions and secure its energy supply will require significant investment.

“Australia has taken many positive steps since the last in-depth review in 2006,” said Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director, IEA adding that the range of policies it had embraced we well “balanced”.

“The IEA views carbon pricing as a critical component of climate policy, and we hope its introduction in Australia will put an end to much uncertainty in the energy sector,” she said.

“But even with a carbon price, Australia will need supplementary policies, like energy-efficiency policies to unlock low‐cost abatement and technology policies to help lower the long-term cost of new technologies, including renewable energy and carbon capture and storage.”

Australia is the world’s ninth‐largest energy producer with large coal and natural gas resources. Along with Canada and Norway, it is one of only three net energy exporters in the OECD.

The country did come in for criticism at the end of last week after it announced a subsidy programme for small scale solar projects was to be ended six months early.

The post IEA praises Australia’s low-carbon revolution appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP18 President Al-Attiyah is a former President of OPEC

The President of the forthcoming UN Climate Change Summit in Qatar says shale gas is “good news” and will ensure global energy security for the next 300 years.

In comments which raise serious questions over Qatar’s ambitions for the COP18 negotiations, which start in Doha on November 26, His Excellency Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, deputy Prime Minister of the Gulf state, said the exploitation of unconventional sources of fossil fuels would be good for consumers.

“It’s good news because it gives the world trust and confidence in gas,” he told a TV reporter at the 2012 Oil and Money Conference.

“A few years ago there was uncertainty about enough supply to the world – today the gas will give the world 300 years of security. I believe this is good news and it will give the consumer more trust in gas.”

Al-Attiyah, who is a former President of OPEC and won the Petroleum Executive of the Year Award in 2008, was speaking a day after the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that “no more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to avoid warming by 2°C, unless carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology can be deployed”.

Earlier this year the IEA’s chief economist Fatih Birol said the world was on course to warm by 6°C, unless urgent action was taken to avoid carbon lock-in before 2017.

Qatari leadership

As President of the UN climate talks Al-Attiyah is expected to play a key role in ensuring negotiations run smoothly and that the stated ambition of all parties to avoid warming beyond 2°C is kept on course.

Despite the state’s activity in international diplomacy, there have been increasing concerns in recent weeks over Qatar’s ability to cope with this round of climate talks, which will be complex given the number of negotiating streams.

The UNFCCC says it is happy with preparations, but these comments will add to the view that the Emirate, which boasts the highest per-capita emissions in the world, is firmly committed to a high-carbon future.

Reacting to these comments, WWF-UK’s International Climate Change Policy Advisor Kat Watts said it was vital all Parties heading to Doha realised the world needed to move away from oil and gas as a source of energy.

“All governments need to realize that the future cannot be not fossil fuelled. There are massive greenhouse gas emissions in both production and consumption of coal, oil, gas, and the only way to minimize the climate crisis is to keep them in the groun,” she said.

“The IEA’s report is an important wake-up call – but even their scenario only has about a 50% chance of keeping below a global 2ºC temperature increase.”

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President George W. Bush said the US had a fossil fuel addiction. Now it seems the country has effectively become its own dealer with a surge not only in gas production but oil too.

There are so many new developments they are hard to keep track of. Oil sands in Utah, shale gas right across the states, deep sea wells off the coast of California, Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Who knew North Dakota is now producing 600,000 barrels of oil a day. That’s about the same as Egypt.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that in 2015 the US will overtake Russia as the world’s largest gas producer. In 2017 it will overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest oil producer.

Looking at those statistics, Mitt Romney’s election promise to have the US energy independent by 2020 seems almost unambitious. However, demand in the US is high, and independence, despite these massive resources, is more likely closer to 2035.

The Romney/Ryan campaign pledged energy independence for the US but IEA data suggests it is more or less headed there anyway. (Source:Flickr/Monkeyz Uncle)

“We don’t believe any country can be independent but you can be self-sufficient,” says the IEA’s Deputy Executive Director Richard H. Jones.

“We have seen, very dramatically, that even though the US is self-sufficient on gas and US prices are moving in a different direction [to the rest of the world], there’s still dependency.”

Gas prices in Asia are now eight times those of the US and European rates are around five times the level off the US.

So how does this US dash for gas feed back into the climate?

While the US is enjoying its gas boom, it has stopped burning rather a lot of its own coal. Given that gas is a cleaner fuel than coal, the result was a drop in electricity-related CO2 emissions of 2.4%.

On the face of it, this is great news for the climate. But the displaced coal found a new home.

“Gas has out-competed coal in the electricity generation market, so US emissions are dropping because of that but the US coal isn’t staying in the ground. It is still being mined, but it’s being exported to Europe. It is cheaper than gas on the other side of the Atlantic. So all of a sudden you’re getting more coal fired generation in Europe,” says Jones.

In the same month that the US announced its cut of electricity related emissions, Germany was announcing an increase of 2-6%, even though demand fell 9% courtesy of a mild winter.

Germany’s decision to walk away from Nuclear power means it is increasingly relying on coal, and it is not the only one.

So in effect, the savings in US emissions were loaded onto the back of a boat and exported onto Europe’s tab.

The story doesn’t end there however.

Two evils

Russia, a major gas supplier to Europe has recognised the threat from cheap coal and has begun lowering its prices. This is making gas more competitive and dislodging coal’s grip.

Coal enjoyed it biggest share of the world market for 50 years in 2011. In Europe at least, the IEA sees this remaining the case until at least 2020. Perhaps then, gas will dislodge coal in Western Europe. If history repeats itself however and that displaced coal is sent east to meet the growing demands of China and India, the net result for the climate will be zero.

The race towards energy self-sufficiency cannot be attributed entirely to these new resources however and it is this second major factor towards the US’s energy independence that holds the real benefits for the climate too.

Birol claims that around 55% of the country’s surge towards this status has been as a result of the new found domestic energy riches but 45% is as a result of the energy efficiency standards introduced by the first Obama administration.

This is a huge endorsement for energy efficiency, another theme running throughout the World Energy Outlook.

Energy efficiency as a fuel

With emissions rising outside the US in the short term due to coal’s resurgence, those with existing emissions targets, such as the EU, must do what they can to cut emissions elsewhere. There is a compelling case for reducing demand.

“Energy efficiency is like a fuel, it is the ‘hidden fuel’ and it is not a big project for governments, it is millions of small projects. It’s money from individuals, companies and governments and we believe these are the type of measures that can be carried out without waiting for an international deal on climate change at the UN.”

Talks on a global deal to create a system for all countries to make binding emissions reductions will continue in Doha at the end of this month. The current timetable is to agree the rules by 2015 and for commitments to begin from 2020.

“We’re trying to think of a strategy for the interim and this is a good one,” says Jones. “Governments can help without spending any money. They can mandate [sustainability] reporting, mandate [energy efficiency] labelling and relax building codes.”

Jones gives the example of a German apartment block owner who was permitted to add an additional floor to his building in return for investing in energy efficiency in all his tenant’s flats. His rental income grew by 20% and the residents bills fell by 87%.

At present, around one third of the potential energy savings from efficiency measures are being exploited.

The lesson from the US is a surprising one. Following the mantra “drill, baby drill” is not enough by itself to achieve energy self-sufficiency and it does little for the climate.

With an increasingly complex outlook for international gas trade flows, the imposition of a global cap on carbon emissions and a shift in the centre of gravity of the world’s energy suppliers, the case for energy efficiency just keeps getting stronger.

“It’s good for the economy, good for the climate and good for energy security, energy efficiency scores highly on all three,” says Jones.

The post ‘Hidden fuel’ of energy efficiency vital for climate change efforts appeared first on Climate Home News.

Global fossil fuel subsidies grew by 30% last despite calls to reduce them, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Speaking at the launch of the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2012, Fatih Birol, chief economist with the IEA said the surge in support for oil and gas energy sources was disappointing.

“Fossil fuel subsidies last year reached $523bn,” said Birol. “This would suggest that the appetite for reform is waning.”

Birol said the bulk of this growth was in the Middle East and North Africa following the Arab Spring.

Many governments sought not to create further turmoil in the region which was in part triggered by rising food prices.

Renewable energy subsidies during the same period totalled $88bn.

Fossil fuel subsidies have increased by 30% despite numerous calls for them to be cut. (Source: Flickr/XC biker)

Reassigning some of this money has been suggested as one source of climate finance for the Green Climate Fund, which has a target to raise $100bn a year by 2020.

The forthcoming UNFCCC climate change talks in Doha will discuss long-term finance plans with the removal of fossil fuel subsidies making it onto the agenda, which describes even a partial redirection as being capable of yielding “substantial amounts of resources per year”.

Countries agreed at the Rio+20 summit to address the issue of “harmful and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and undermine sustainable development“. However, finding a way to ensure governments do this is far from easy, however the news is not all bad.

“Some of those governments are gaining an interest in energy efficiency for exactly that reason,” IEA Deputy Executive Director Richard H Jones told RTCC. “They want to continue to keep the price of energy low but they don’t want to forego the revenues that they receive by exporting it. So they’re trying to find ways to get their people to use as little of it as possible.

“If they can’t increase price to [reduce consumption] then they need to encourage efficiency. They can’t do them both but we’re all better off that they’re doing one. They waste a lot of electricity in that part of world,” said Jones who includes stints as the US Ambassador to Israel, Kuwait and Lebanon on his CV before joining the IEA.

The report also calls for an increased focus on energy efficiency around the world, describing energy efficiency as “the hidden fuel”.

Energy efficiency can keep the door to limiting warming to 2°C open for an additional five years according to the report. At present rates, this threshold of warming, beyond which scientists classify the changes as “dangerous”, will be reached in 2017, but efficiency could push this back to 2022.

Without an international political deal to reduce emissions agreed through the UN, this would only be an exercise in delaying the inevitable.

They said an international deal on emissions was necessary to send the right signals to the energy sector for longer-term, transformational changes to the sector.

“Adequate investment in low-carbon energy technologies is dependent on greater certainty about long-term climate policies – the outcome of the Durban climate talks cannot be said to provide these conditions,” the report states.

It estimates that globally, only around one third of potential energy efficiency measures have been put in place with industry leading the way and building efficiency lagging.

The post IEA: Fossil fuel subsidies increased 30% in 2011 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Doubling global hydropower production could save as much as 3 billion tonnes of CO2, according to a new report by energy watchdog the IEA and the Brazilian Government.

The study claims that developing countries in particular have massive potential to develop new large hydropower plants.

Half of the global potential is in Asia. Africa has the most under-developed market so far with 92% of feasible sites unexploited.

“Hydroelectricity is a very cost-effective technology already,” said Richard H. Jones, deputy executive director, IEA.

“However, new developments face tough financial challenges. Governments must create a favourable climate for industry investment when designing electricity markets,” warned Jones.

The Hoover Dam has contributed to water shortage issues in downstream US States as well as across the border in Mexico. (Source: Creative Commons/Wili Hybrid)

Hydropower is already the largest renewable energy source globally with four times more capacity than wind power, according to figures from the REN21 industry group.

“Large and small hydropower projects can improve access to modern energy services, alleviate poverty and foster social and economic development, especially for local communities” said Albert Geber de Melo, general-director of the Brazilian Electric Energy Research Centre (CEPEL).

Hydropower accounts for approximately 90% of Brazil’s electricity, so its support for more investment in this form of electricity generation is no surprise.

The government is currently investing in the multi-billion dollar Belo Monte dam project in the Amazon, despite heavy criticism from environmentalists and groups representing indigenous tribes.

This is not a problem unique to Brazil – campaign groups are active around the world in opposition to big hydropower projects in the basis of the forests, land and people that they displace.

“If the IEA wants to tackle climate change and poverty, it needs to stop fixating on large-scale projects that only benefit big investors, and instead re-read its own 2010 World Energy Outlook which calls for decentralised renewable energy that can be owned by communities,” said Pascoe Sabido, sustainable energy advisor with Friends of the Earth.

“The IEA is predicting big emissions reductions from doubling hydroelectricity, but all the recent science shows that’s not the case,” Sabido told RTCC.

“Large dams are far from a carbon neutral source of electricity when you take into account the flooded forests that were previously sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. As they decompose, they release large quantities of methane which recent reports show could be up to 50 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide.”

Dams also affect the downstream water supply creating diplomatic tensions with countries further down river.

Egypt depends almost entirely on the Nile for its water supplies and is currently in a dispute with Ethiopia over its proposal for a 6GW hydropower plant on the Nile.

Related articles:

Renewable energy has “come of age” says IEA report

Rio+20: Investing in Hydropower in Mozambique

California’s climate change fight could increase drought risk

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Road vehicle fuel efficiency could be doubled by 2050 if the right policies and technologies are put in place, according to two new reports by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

It says opportunities for cuts in fuel use could boost energy security by cutting demand for oil. Transport represents 20% of global energy consumption.

Better policy implementation and improvements in technology could double the fuel efficiency of land transport, according to the IEA. (Source:Flickr/joiseyshowaa)

“There is massive potential for fuel efficiency improvements to reduce demand for transport fuel, and the two reports show how the world could stabilise demand for oil even if the number of road vehicles – passenger cars, two-wheelers and freight trucks – doubled by 2050,” said Richard Jones, IEA Deputy Executive Director.

“Conventional combustion engine vehicles are set to be around for a long time and without the right policy mixes, like the ones described in these publications, the demand for energy from road vehicles will be unsustainable,” said Jones.

The two reports focusing on policy and technology respectively, suggest that many of the actions required are already possible.

Straightforward policy ideas such as highly visible fuel economy data for car buyers and taxation options offer one route.

On the technology side, the rollout of existing engine advances alone could make petrol vehicles 15% more efficient by 2020. Further improvements in this and other sectors will provide more cuts in emissions.

The IEA’s chief economist Fatih Birol recently said that the world was on target for a 6°C of warming and that major “investment changes” would be required to achieve the 2°C of warming limit that scientists recommend to limit dangerous climate change.

The EU issued a statement yesterday calling for more research to cut its dependence on fossil fuels for transport. The bloc’s combined oil import bill in 2010 was €210bn.

Related Articles:

Fatih Birol: Door to 2 degrees could be closed by 2017

Don’t stop moving: How to cut transport’s contribution to climate change

US and UK drivers cutting back on mileage

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Limiting global temperatures to a 2°C rise is still possible despite the world’s current trajectory, according to the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Speaking during a recent visit to Canada, Maria van der Hoeven said the goal of limiting the increase of global temperatures (to 2°C on pre-industrial levels) could be achieved despite current energy policies putting the world on a pathway to CO2 emissions rising by a third by 2020 and doubling by 2050.

“Let’s not get discouraged,” she said. “While ambitious, a clean energy transition is still possible. But action in all sectors is necessary to reach our climate targets.”

IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven says the 2 degree limit agreed at Copenhagen is still possible (Source: foto43/Flickr)

Van der Hoeven cited the IEA’s Energy and Technology Perspectives 2012 publication, which stresses that while mature technologies – hydro, biomass, onshore, wind and solar PV – are on track, others are not, notably nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Last year the chief economist of the IEA Fatih Birol warned that major policy changes would be needed by 2017 to ensure the 2°C target is met, and van der Hoeven set out four key recommendations toward moving to a sustainable energy future:

– Energy prices need to reflect the true cost of energy which requires a price for carbon and abolition of fossil fuel subsidies.

– Governments must unlock the potential for energy efficiency. The IEA estimates that over 65% of the reduction in emissions in developing countries over the next twenty years could be driven by continued improvements in energy efficiency

– Energy innovation and public support for research & development must be accelerated to encourage private sector investment.

– ‘Golden Rules’ must be implemented where natural gas is used as a bridge to low carbon technologies. These rules include full transparency, measuring and monitoring of environmental impacts, engagement with local communities and assessment and monitoring of water use.

UN climate talks

Van der Hoeven’s speech comes as the Parties under the UNFCCC prepare to meet in Bangkok next week for an informal round of talks ahead of the COP18 conference in Doha at the end of the year.

The meeting is set to focus on a number of key issues including the future of the The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

The spectre of 2C could also feature – given US lead negotiator Todd Stern’s recent call for the target to be reconsidered.

The 2°C target was adopted under the Copenhagen Accord and at the time was seen as a major victory for developing countries at the 2009 conference, although little has been agreed since on how emissions could be contained.

Since Copenhagen many nations – most notably the Small Island States – have called for the target to be strengthened to 1.5°C.

The post IEA say limiting global temperatures to 2°C rise still possible appeared first on Climate Home News.

US CO2 emissions from the energy sector have fallen to levels more common in 1995, with new domestic gas resources taking the credit.

The US gas boom has provided ample domestic shale gas resources to displace dirtier coal-fired power. Meanwhile, Germany is undergoing a different energy switch as it replaces nuclear power with fossil fuels. Unsurprisingly, its emissions are on the rise.

Swapping oil and coal plants for gas is the basis of many developed countries energy roadmaps, but beyond the headline statistics, gas is not necessarily the win-win solution that it looks like on paper.

Critics say gas is not the right solution to a fossil fuel addiction and fear investment in gas pushes back the timetable to complete rehabilitation for several reasons.

Shale gas rigs in British Columbia, Canada. North America is in the midst of a gas boom. (Source: Flickr/Nexen)

What about renewables?

Gas powered generation will be required for those windless, cloudy days when renewable energy grinds to a halt.

But there is a danger that by relying too heavily on gas investment is diverted away from renewables. Renewable energy means low carbon energy independent of the international energy market and the creation of jobs.

Investment in renewable technologies in the US is criticised by those both for and against. Critics are still unhappy about the collapse of government backed companies with the Solyndra hangover seemingly impossible to shake-off.

Proponents point to the uncertainty over the future of the Production Tax Credit, the main subsidy for the industry, which with just four months left to run, is still awaiting a decision on its possible extension.

The US has long exploited wind in its rural interior and is pursuing solar aggressively (it currently enjoys a trade surplus with China in the solar sector). But has been slow to develop an offshore wind sector leaving it lagging behind Europe.

Locked-in syndrome

New gas-fired power plants, storage facilities, pipelines and other transport infrastructure costs money. Once built, they last the best part of 40 years, locking countries into that technology and the associated emissions.

If energy efficiency improves, economies decarbonise and renewables develop, you willnd up with more fossil fuel plants than necessary.

Italy is in the ridiculous situation of subsidising oil power plants that only operate a few days a year all year round. They were built as a buffer against fluctuating gas prices. One recession and a renewables boom later, the state utility has had to go cap in hand to the government while at the same time cutting support for a blossoming clean energy industry.

Volatile prices

Prices play a big part in the gas debate too. Supply is dominated globally by a handful of big suppliers. The international gas market is fairly volatile. Disputes over pipelines, shipping or external political matters all play a part. The immediate on/off nature of its supply has already seen it used as a political tool.

Wholesale prices directly impact consumers and even the US with its vast domestic resources is not immune to fickle international price pressures.

The recent stats show that emissions-wise gas is better than coal, so yes, in the short term, cranking up the output from existing gas plants makes sense. But while statistics never lie, they rarely tell the whole truth.

The most recent data in the US also shows quite clearly that while CO2 from energy use is down overall, there is still a worrying energy consumption pattern.

Transport, residential and commercial consumption in the US all rose between 1990 and 2007 and have flat-lined more or less since the recession. Air conditioning use from a brutally hot summer will likely push 2012’s consumption up a little higher.

Only the industrial sector has fallen steadily in the past 20 years.

The reduction from swapping gas for coal masks this pattern and dilutes the appetite for energy efficiency.

All of this is before you consider the environmental impact of new unconventional gas sources, the scale of which remains up for debate.

What ever happened to 2°C?

The effect of sustained gas use on climate change has been assessed by the IEA in its report of a best case scenario for the future us of gas resources.

“On its own, a higher gas model, with our golden rules scenario, emissions are cut by 1.3% but we’re still looking at a rise in CO2 levels of 650ppm which is about 3.5°C,” said Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA.

The IPCC has recommended that warming should not exceed 2°C, advice that world leaders signed up to at the Copenhagen climate change summit – although lead US climate negotiator Todd Stern has recently questioned this policy.

The choice for politicians now is the relief of a quick victory via gas, or the realisation that on any other time scale and by any other measure, the appeal of gas is highly inflated.

Is CCS the answer?

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology plays a key role in the EU’s 2050 Energy Roadmap. CCS involves trapping the CO2 after combustion and diverting it to long-term stores in rock formations.

“Gas will be important too but it is bound up with our CO2 targets. It can only fit with our scenarios if it is fitted with CCS,” Gunther Oettinger, EU energy Commissioner said last December.

Europe is still in the funding stage for demonstration plants of the technology with commercial applications even further away, certainly too late to make any significant contribution to Europe’s target to cut emissions 20% by 2020.

Question marks also remain over the total cost of CCS projects with the oil companies recently stating they won’t press ahead without public money.

In the short-term, it makes sense to use the gas plants we have. Seeking to expand the use of gas based on best guesses of future gas prices and overly-optimistic (but hugely convenient) outlook on the future of CCS is a folly.

In the US, the lure of its domestic resources proved too great. In Europe, spectacular estimates of its own shale gas resources have been written off by some as a ploy to help in negotiations with Russia over gas prices.

The US situation is not analogous to gas-light Europe, but if either wants to get clean, renewable energy must not be pushed off the agenda by the siren call of cheap, plentiful and secure supplies of CCS-neutered gas.

Related stories:

UK report clears way for controversial ‘fracking’ gas extraction

Gas and climate change: Can we drill our way out of four degrees?

Emission intensity rise points to “dirty” global recovery

The post Comment: Recent CO2 emission cuts mask dangers of relying on gas appeared first on Climate Home News.

Renewable energy has come of age and will undergo a period of accelerated growth during the next five years, according to a report released today by the IEA energy think tank.

The Tehri dam on the Ganges River. Hydropower will be responsible for most of the growth in renewable energy generation, with India one of the largest markets. (Source: Flickr/Lingaraj GJ)

The amount of power generated from renewable sources will increase by 40% between now and 2017 as opportunities for deployment expand, according to the report.

While hydropower continues to represent the largest total share of renewable energy growth, other technologies will grow faster, reaching double digits annually in some case.

Onshore wind, bioenergy and solar PV will be the three biggest sectors for expansion after hydropower.

However, speaking at the launch of the report, they also predicted that the end of tax subsidies for renewable energy in the US would lead to a “crash” with the rate of deployment levelling-off.

So far there is no news on a replacement system to support the development of renewable sources in the US.

Despite this, the IEA predicts significant deployments in the States as well India, China, Germany and Brazil.

Related stories on RTCC.org:

ENERGY: Suzlon- Wind power soon to be cheaper than fossil fuels

POLICY: The anatomy of US energy subsidies

WATER: California’s climate change fight could increase drought risk

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Global investment in clean energy falls short of that needed to meet climate change targets, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.

While 2011 saw global investment in renewables hit a record of $257 billion, the IEA warns that $23.9 trillion will be needed in investments by 2020, and around £140 trillion by 2050 to keep temperature rises below 2°C.

While good progress is being made in onshore wind, offshore wind still lags behind warns report (© Jkavo/Creative Commons)

That means nations will have to spend $36 trillion more than what is currently predicted by 2050 – with China having spent the most.

The report says a host of new technologies are ready to transform energy systems, drastically cut emissions and enhance energy security, as well as offering a huge investment return.

But the IEA warn that the clean energy transformation is not on track to make its require contribution to fighting climate change.

“While our efforts to bring about a clean energy transformation are falling further behind, I want to stress the golden opportunity before us: If significant policy action is taken, we can still achieve the huge potential for these technologies to reduce CO₂ emissions and boost energy security,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven.

“Now that we have identified the solution and the host of related benefits, and with the window of opportunity closing fast, when will governments wake up to the dangers of complacency and adopt the bold policies that radically transform our energy system? To do anything less is to deny our societies the welfare they deserve,” she said.

Hydro-power, biomass, onshore wind and solar photovoltaic technologies are all making progress, according to the report.

But technologies the IEA say have the largest potential, such as carbon capture and storage, offshore wind power and concentrated solar power, are showing the least progress and the report warns they are lagging behind what is needed to prevent a rise above 2°C.

Slow take up of energy efficiency measures will also need to be stepped up, says the report.

The report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2012, builds on the IEA’s Tracking Clean Energy Progress report issues in April.

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