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

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

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

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

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

Dubai deal: Ministers and observers react to the UAE consensus

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

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

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

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

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

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

The presidency has made a first pass at a landing ground for the global stocktake text – the main outcome of the summit. People hate it.

Small island states slammed it as “a death warrant”, their spokesperson getting teary. For the EU it contains elements that are “simply unacceptable”. Campaigners variably described it as “a scandal”, “divorced from reality” and “a dog’s dinner”.

“This obsequious draft reads as if Opec dictated it word for word,” Al Gore posted on social media.

US envoy John Kerry was more restrained. He posted on social media that “the mitigation section, including the issue of fossil fuels, needs to be substantially strengthened, and the finance section contains inaccuracies that must be fixed”.

The energy package is evoking the strongest emotions. Instead of an urgent action agenda, it has become an a-la-carte menu.

To reduce emission countries are offered eight options. These “could include” a reduction of “consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner” to achieve “net zero by before, or around 2050”. Note “phase-out” is gone.

If that is too hard to digest, pick a lighter dish: tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency, or, more controversially, using “low carbon fuels” (code for fossil gas) and “low emissions technologies” like carbon capture and storage.

European and small island states are vowing to stay as long as it takes to deliver an outcome in line with 1.5C. They say many Latin American and African countries are with them. US and China have a critical bridging role, observers said.

The latest headlines

• Why didn’t China and India sign Cop28 tripling renewables pledge?
• What is Alterra, the UAE’s $30 billion green investment fund?
• Adaptation playbook is the true test of Cop28 for world’s vulnerable – Mohamed Adow, Power Shift Africa

Adaptation chasm remains

After two years of unproductive talks, the Cop28 presidency has taken the global goal on adaptation (GGA) text into its own hands.  

But it seems not to have succeeded where countries failed. One developing country negotiator said last night “a majority of developing countries think it is worse than what we had already”. 

There is still no permanent agenda item on GGA at future Cops, risking it falling off the radar. While finance is mentioned in many places, it does not make it into the targets section. 

One problem is the text firmly “decides” to do things like plan and monitor. But only “urges” governments to do things like protect the food and water supply – the stuff that actually matters.   

The new text “commits to close the adaptation finance gap” although it doesn’t specify who should close this gap. 

This ambiguity is “unacceptable”, said Mokoena France, negotiator for the least developed countries bloc. “It subtly shifts the responsibility away from developed countries, contrary to the established principles of historical responsibility.” 

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that gap is $194-366 billion per year. That makes the doubling adaptation finance to $40bn or so look like pocket change. 

The timeline has changed from 2030 to “2030 and beyond”, which France said “dilutes the urgency and ambition needed”. 

Heads of delegations met with the presidency late last night, with activists outside the doors. We’ll find out today if they’ve got any closer to a landing ground. 

At the “people’s plenary” on Monday, there were speeches from youth and labour representatives. The most emotional moments came in response to the Palestinian co-chair Haneen Jarrar, who appealed for a ceasefire, saying “there is no climate justice without human rights” (Photo: Flickr/Cop28/Kiara Worth)

Opec vs Boga

Some 600km away in Doha, Qatar, Opec’s top Arab energy ministers gathered on Monday. The oil and gas cartel warned its members last week that pressure on a fossil fuel phase-out “may reach a tipping point”.

Ministers from Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria and Oman showed up to the meeting, as well as Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. Bin Salman has been vocal about his opposition to a fossil fuel phase out, but Opec ministers did not announce an official position.

In the Cop28 venue, a small but determined band of countries were keeping that pressure up.

Ahead of the release of the presidency text, ministers from Colombia, Denmark, France and thirteen other members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (Boga) signed a declaration. They “stand united” around a phase-out of all fossil fuels, while supporting oil-reliant developing countries.

“We must be realistic,” the declaration reads. “The fossil fuel sector will not unwind itself, nor can it, in isolation. We must plan for an orderly, just transition aligned with 1.5C, rather than risking the abrupt closure of uneconomic oil and gas production.”

In brief

Amazon oil – On Wednesday, Brazil will hold a mega-auction of 602 new oil and gas exploration areas, of which 21 are located within the Amazon and will affect at least 20 indigenous lands. NGOs sent an open letter calling for consistency with Cop28 positions.

Human rights concerns – During its Cop28 presidency, the UAE imposed 87 new terrorism charges on political prisoners, many of whom are recognised human rights defenders. Some of them were meant to be released this year after completing their sentence.

Coal sky-rocketing – India is planning to hike coal production to 1.5 billion tonnes by 2030, despite the Cop26 commitment to phase down new unabated coal. That’s up from 900 million tonnes in 2022-23.

Got beef – Campaigners have accused the FAO of lacking ambition in its roadmap for transforming food systems. The Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance criticised the plan’s target of reducing emissions intensity from livestock (instead of gross emissions reductions) and its silence on agroecology.

Dirty cooling – The Cop28 venue, ExpoCity Dubai, is being cooled with potent greenhouse gases and inefficient technology, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency. The refrigerants in four buildings alone would have a warming impact equivalent to 1,000 tonnes of CO2, the agency calculated.

Green debt swaps – Colombia, Kenya and France have commissioned an “expert review” on debt, nature and climate, which would provide international policy recommendations to help developing countries protect nature while addressing debt.

The post Cop28 bulletin: Presidency draft text draws angry response appeared first on Climate Home News.

Everything is still on the table.

On fossil fuels, there are four choices. All are anchored around a “phase out”, with reference, variously, to “the best available science”, 1.5C, the Paris Agreement, “unabated”, peak consumption, and net zero CO2 emissions.

None explicitly refers to justice, equity, or differentiated pathways for developed and developing countries, campaigners noted – which may be a sticking point for the latter group.

Like its previous iteration, every paragraph comes with a “no text” choice. It leaves the door open to binning the entire energy package, including the tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling of efficiency by 2030. That’s a possibility a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, China, India and Iraq, floated two days ago.

Countries’ positions are still far apart, it was clear in a plenary on Friday morning.

Samoa, on behalf of small island states, not only pushed for a phase out, but an end to new investment in fossil fuel infrastructure – a Cop first.

Bolivia, on behalf of “like-minded” developing countries, and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of the Arab Group, said any agreement should focus on limiting emissions and not their sources. In a fiery speech, the Bolivian negotiator said his group would not “compromise our right to development”.

The most practical way to build a bridge is with finance, observers told Climate Home. Developing countries want to know money will be available to support an ambitious outcome.

Ministers, assemble

As usual, the Cop presidency has tasked pairs of developed and developing country ministers to chat with their peers and resolve the thorniest issues.

After hurrying through a back door from the plenary yesterday afternoon, Sultan Al Jaber lined up in the unimaginatively named press conference room 1 with his chosen eight.

Despite rumours of changes to the line-up, they are the same eight who have been coordinating talks since September – much longer than they’re usually assigned for.

Leading on the global stocktake are South Africa’s Barbara Creecy and Denmark’s Dan Jorgensen. Egypt’s Yasmine Fouad and Canada’s Steven Guilbeault lead on means of implementation – money, to you and me.

Singapore’s Grace Fu and Norway’s Espen Barth Eide will lead on mitigation while Chile’s Maisa Rojas and Australia’s Jennifer McAllister lead on adaptation.

The group are mainly veterans, having taken similar roles at Cop26 and Cop27. It includes two IPCC authors (Fouad and Rojas), a former rabble-rousing campaigner (Guilbeault) who has been to every Cop and an accountant who flew high in the corporate world before going into politics (Fu).

On top of this, the presidency has asked a number of nations including Canada to help him gather ideas on the most high profile issue – fossil fuel phase-out.

Beside his fellow ministers at the press conference, Jorgensen offered some motivational words. “Words on a piece of paper will not in itself save the climate, he said, “but if we agree, if we decide, we can make these words carry weight, make them instigate real change, and make a real difference.”

Activists to call for Gaza ceasefire

In Gaza, the Israeli military has now killed 17,000 people, a more than tenfold retaliation for the 1,200 Hamas killed in its 7 October incursion.

Israeli officials estimate a third of the dead in Gaza were combatants, meaning the majority of victims were civilians by any count.

In Dubai, activists want an end to the violence. They accuse the UN climate body (UNFCCC) of repressing their gestures of solidarity, with keffiyehs confiscated and Palestinian flags banned.

The head of War on Want Asad Rehman told reporters on Friday campaigners will hold a banner saying “ceasefire now, end occupation” at a march at 3.30pm today.

“If we’re going to be prevented of course that will be a serious problem,” Climate Action Network head Tasneem Essop said, wearing a keffiyeh and one of the lanyards the Palestinian pavilion are giving out in their national colours.

Rehman and Essop claimed the UNFCCC banned the phrase “ceasefire now” in demonstrations at the venue. A UNFCCC spokesperson denied this.

Waving any flag is prohibited by order of the UN Office of Safety and Security in New York. It made that directive on 7 October, the day Hamas attacked Israel.

Essop said that protesters will use the symbol of the watermelon instead – a fruit of black, white, red and green which has long been a stand-in for the Palestinian flag.

In brief

Put a lid on it – The Canadian government has proposed a cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector, which accounted for 28% of national emissions in 2021. The draft regulation needs parliamentary approval. Campaigners celebrated the move, while calling for tighter targets.

Corporate watch – Less than 10% of corporate delegates at Cop28 represent companies with science-based emissions targets, according to Influence Map. Ikea, Iberdrola and Unilever are among the climate leaders, while Gazprom, Adnoc, ExxonMobil and Toyota are the most misaligned companies with a major presence.

Paris anniversary present? – The Cop28 presidency is keen to finish on 12 December: the scheduled end date and precisely eight years after the Paris Agreement was adopted. It started cleanly, with no agenda fight. Can it be the first to end punctually since Cops were in single digits?

The post Cop28 bulletin: Text grows with everything still to play for appeared first on Climate Home News.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that as Cops get bigger, the action is spread thinner.

It’s not just that the official negotiating agenda, since Paris, is increasingly dwarfed by the trade show.

On the sidelines too, there are only so many sectors you can announce new initiatives for. Only so many net zero targets. At this point, you get to the messy business of implementing them.

The global climate movement has come more single-minded than ever in its focus on a fast and fair fossil fuel phase-out. And it’s getting somewhere. A draft compromise text, for all its caveats, sticks with “phase out” not “phase down”.

But in the vast expanse of the Dubai Expo, that sense of purpose risks evaporating under the harsh desert sun. In a consensus-based process, petrostates could veto language that threatens their core business.

It might not matter if the deals being done on the sidelines were shifting the trillions of dollars needed into renewables and resilience. And maybe they are – not every transaction is press released.

It hardly looks that way from the UAE’s official – and therefore generous – estimate of funds mobilised though: $83 billion.

For context, that’s just over half of the $150bn Adnoc is forecast to invest in oil and gas production this decade, according to Global Witness. Adnoc disputed the analysis, but has never denied it is increasing production. And it’s just one of many oil majors.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is promoting oil-guzzling vehicles across Africa, to prop up future demand.

To make phase-out stick, money needs to flow in the right direction. As ministers arrive to narrow down some 90 options in the global stocktake text, that is fundamental.

The latest headlines

• As fossil fuel phase-out gathers steam, resistance builds
• Don’t be fooled: CCS is no solution to oil and gas emissions – Laurence Tubiana and Emmanuel Guerin, European Climate Foundation
• Vietnam charts uncertain coal path as finance falls short

In brief

Another petrostate Cop? – Armenia said today that it would support Azerbaijan’s bid to host Cop29, as part of peace talks between the two enemies. That removes the major block to Azerbaijan’s candidacy. Azerbaijan gets two-thirds of its revenue from oil and gas, has a bad human rights record and has used expensive PR firms to weaponise environmental issues in its conflict with Armenia.

Putin in parallel – Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the UAE to talk trade and oil with Mohamed bin Zayed. His motorcade and cavalry escort stayed well clear of Cop28. The International Criminal Court has an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes but the UAE does not recognise its jurisdiction.

You raise me up – Ten multilateral development banks announced they will work together to support country platforms. These coordinate private and public finance around nationally-led investment programmes, for example coal-to-clean plans. This ODI blog explains.

Joined-up diplomacy – The German government has adopted its first strategy on climate foreign policy, aiming to bring trade and economic diplomacy in line with a 1.5C global warming pathway. It will expand a network of core climate embassies and hold regular coordinating meetings between ministers.

Mind the policy gap – UK is set to cut emissions 59% by 2030 from 1990 levels, according to policy analysis by Friends of the Earth, falling short of its 68% target. The gap between target and delivery has widened under the current government, they found.

Oil before zero – Uganda unveiled a net-zero by 2065 plan, advised by the International Energy Agency. The plan also foresees the expansion of oil production, which is set to begin in 2025. The country wants to end energy poverty by 2030.

The post Cop28 bulletin: Ministers arrive to narrow down 90 options appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a live event with former UN special envoy Mary Robinson in November, Al Jaber momentarily forgot his PR-approved lines and reverted to industry talking points.

“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” he said.

He dismissed Robinson’s call for a phase-out as “alarmist” and said it would “take the world back into caves”.

Leading scientists Jean-Pascal van Ypersele and Michael Mann wrote Al Jaber an open letter in response.

Speaking for the climate system, “the most difficult party… which has only red lines and no flexibility,” they said, “humanity needs to phase out fossil fuels by 2050”.

Carbon capture and storage can only mitigate “a very small fraction” of fossil fuel emissions, the letter said.

That last point is critical, as the oil and gas sector cites scenarios that show some residual fossil fuel use with CCS to justify production on a much larger scale.

Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, unpacks the CCS myth together with Emmanuel Guerin in an article for Climate Home News.

“People in the oil and gas industry know there is zero probability of [a] high-CCS scenario coming true,” they write. “The reality is they are just fooling us one more time, to buy time we can’t afford to waste in dealing with the climate crisis.”

Al Jaber’s slip of the tongue shows why precision matters in negotiations. Phase down can mean something very different to phase out, and “unabated” fossil fuels need further defining.

The latest headlines

• Don’t be fooled: CCS is no solution to oil and gas emissions – Laurence Tubiana and Emmanuel Guerin, European Climate Foundation
• Vietnam charts uncertain coal path as finance falls short
• US tees up Congress battle with $3bn Green Climate Fund pledge

Health at the table

In a Cop first, health ministers took over plenary discussions on Sunday. Over 120 countries have signed a health declaration coordinated by the Cop28 presidency.

The declaration, and most ministerial statements, focused on strengthening healthcare systems as a means of climate adaptation.

It does not mention fossil fuels, or how burning coal, oil and gas releases harmful air pollutants besides greenhouse gases.

Sweden was one country to join the dots. “A decision here at Cop28 to phase out fossil fuels will contribute to [health] outcomes. The health of people and the planet cannot be separated,” said Mattias Frumerie, Swedish head of delegation.

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of climate and health at the World Health Organization, took the same view in a press conference.

“Talking about action on climate change without talking about fossil fuels is like talking about lung cancer without mentioning tobacco,” he said.

The ministerial plenary is an “important and delayed step”, but health discussions need to start mentioning fossil fuels, said Dr Arvind Kumar, founder of the Lung Care Foundation. Otherwise “the problem will not get solved”.

“Little cosmetic changes here and there are not going to make much of a difference,” he said.

In brief

Bad excuse? – Brazilian president Lula da Silva said in a meeting with NGOs that he is joining OPEC to “convince oil producing countries that they need to prepare for the end of fossil fuels”. Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro argued oil producers already know they have to move past oil.

Big polluters – Electricity generation in China and India, and oil and gas production in the US caused the biggest emissions rises since 2015, analysis published by Climate Trace shows. The figures are based on a database of 352 million emissions sources. Since the signing of the Paris Agreement emissions grew 8.6%.

Slow entrance – Crowds have eased at Cop28 since world leaders left town, yet long queues at the entrance still held up negotiations, Earth News Bulletin reports. More than 100,000 delegates are registered for Cop28, according to UN Climate Change.

The post Cop28 bulletin: Al Jaber goes off script, denies science appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a classic case of American exceptionalism, the US has put a Treasury official forward to co-chair the Green Climate Fund board, apparently unabashed at its meagre contribution to the pot.

The world’s biggest economy and biggest historic polluter delivered $1 billion to the GCF, more than five years ago. A further $2bn Obama-era pledge – loose change in the federal budget – remains unpaid.

The $11.4bn of annual climate finance Joe Biden says he will provide by some means or other is equivalent to six days of US military spending. And yet it has not reached developing countries.

It is convenient for the Democratic White House to blame Republican lawmakers. The midterm election results didn’t make it any easier to deliver international climate finance. But the issue is not exactly high on any US politician’s priority list. When did you last hear Biden make the case for it to Congress?

The kindest interpretation is that US officials want to make sure the GCF has fixed its workplace cultural problems before committing more money. That would not explain why the Biden administration has been so slow to direct aid through other channels.

Of course, the African officials on the GCF board are not empowered to be blunt. They can only cite a passively phrased governing instrument – the “Fund shall receive financial inputs from developed countries” – and make thinly veiled jabs at the stingiest rich kid in the room.

This week’s stories

• Azerbaijan weaponises conservation law in conflict with Armenia
• Africa objects to US chairing UN climate fund, citing unpaid $2bn
• Despite killer floods, Nigerian presidential frontrunners dismiss climate change
• Portugal agrees to swap Cape Verde’s debt for environmental investment
• WoodMac wins: The consultancy giving cover to fossil fuel projects

The post No pay, no say – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

The days of treating climate as a niche environmental issue are long past. It merits the attention of economic big hitters and seasoned diplomats.

If your biggest economic sector happens to be oil and gas, though, the conflict of interest is writ large. So the campaigner outcry at UAE’s appointment of Sultan Al Jaber, head of the national oil company, to preside over Cop28 was predictably swift.

As oil chiefs go, Al Jaber treads a moderate line. He has long experience with the UN climate process. Under his guidance, the UAE has done more to diversify its economy and back renewables than its Gulf neighbours.

But is he at Cop28 to get the best deal for the climate or to secure long-term business for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company? You have to be optimistic to the point of delusion about the prospects for carbon capture and storage to believe he can do both.

“Progress with pragmatism” is Al Jaber’s watchword. So Climate Home has a modest request: show us your emissions. The UAE last published a greenhouse gas inventory in 2014. Update it and then we can have a serious discussion about what transition looks like for a petrostate.

This week’s stories

• UAE puts oil company boss in charge of Cop28 climate talks
• Sinking town exposes perils of Himalayan hydropower
• Brazil bids to bring Cop30 climate talks to Amazon’s Belem
• Eskom poisoning raises fears for South Africa’s energy transition
• Hurricanes and floods bring $120bn in insurance losses in 2022
• Donors pledge over $8bn to rebuild Pakistan after floods – official

The post A pragmatic request – Climate weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

As we see in 2023, then, UK news is dominated by a rogue royal oversharing about his early sexual encounters. Our prime minister Rishi Sunak missing climate action off his five priorities has been overshadowed by discourse on whether making 17-year-olds study maths will crush their creativity. (My unpopular opinion: numeracy is good, actually, if you have the maths teachers to instill it, which we don’t.)

Indeed, the dominant climate stories over the Christmas break had a feelgood flavour. Whose heart could fail to be warmed by Greta Thunberg’s public takedown of misogynist influencer, supercar enthusiast and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate? What’s not to love about Glass Onion, Netflix’s camp whodunnit that skewers billionaire hubris and hinges on a – physically implausible, politically salient – hydrogen-derived fuel?

But it’s my solemn duty to inform you that global heating is still a problem. 2022 was the warmest year on record for the UK, again, and in the top 10 globally. And so we get back to work.

Happy new year, readers.

This week’s stories

• Thirteen critical questions for international climate action in 2023
• World Bank moots stronger strategic focus on climate action
• German CO2 cuts stall as coal, oil use cancel out renewable gains
• Lula revives $1 billion Amazon Fund and environmental protections
• Russia’s invasion & Pakistan’s floods defined 2022 in climate

The post Deceptively mild – Climate weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

A couple of Arabic speakers I asked proposed various translations, but no directly comparable idiom. (If you know better, tell me.)

Is that why the UAE apparently sees no contradiction between its climate leadership aspirations and plans to expand oil and gas production? The host of next year’s UN climate summit has set bolder emissions targets than its neighbours – without providing basic details like how many tonnes of CO2 it is taking as a baseline.

The Gulf state is expected to square the circle with carbon capture and storage, the technological fix that perpetually underdelivers. Look out for its net zero plans in 2023.

A more credible approach would be to get serious about economic diversification. Dubai has established itself as a tourist destination and financial services hub. Yet the Emirates rely on hydrocarbons for half their revenue and intend to stay in the game as long as they can, gambling on climate failure.

One thing you can’t fault the Emirates for is taking the role of host seriously. It sent more than a thousand delegates to Sharm el-Sheikh, many of them to take notes on the logistics of accommodating 40,000 people.

Expect dazzling hospitality, strictly policed expression and a heavy dose of cakeism from Cop28.

This week’s stories

• AIIB finds gas plant in Bangladesh compatible with Paris goals
• Germany considers €1 billion in support for 10 fossil fuel projects overseas
• UK coal mine approval sparks global fury and hypocrisy claims
• Which countries are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to climate change?
• EU agrees law to crack down on deforestation in supply chains
• UAE plans to have it both ways as Cop28 climate summit host
• EU chief flags concerns about Biden’s ‘buy American’ climate plans
• Brazil’s incoming government set to scrap gas pipelines and power plants

Walk the talk challenge

Of course the UAE is far from the only country to try and have things both ways. The UK and Germany are vying for hypocrite of the week.

Berlin is considering export credit guarantees worth €1bn for up to 10 fossil fuel projects in Brazil, Iraq, Uzbekistan, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. That doesn’t affect its commitment to ending international fossil fuel subsidies, the government insisted, citing exemptions for gas as a “transition fuel”.

Meanwhile the nation that made “coal, cars, cash and trees” its priorities for Cop26 gave the green light to its first coal mine in 30 years. International climate watchers were not impressed. Nor were the UK government’s official climate advisors.

Both countries are broadly moving in the right direction on cutting emissions and scaling up clean energy. But any support for fossil fuels at this point, whatever the employment or energy security rationale, undermines their rhetoric on keeping 1.5C alive.

It also gives cover to development banks like the AIIB, which is fast-tracking a proposal to fund gas power generation in Bangladesh. If approved, campaigners worry it could set a precedent for claiming such fossil investments are “Paris-aligned”.

The post Baking the cakeist Cop – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

The vice president of the European Commission was one of the highest profile and best resourced leaders still standing after two nights of overtime at Cop27. US envoy John Kerry was in Covid isolation. Smaller delegations had gone home.

Journalists – also sleep-deprived – wanted to know the significance of the insertion of “low-emission” to a line in support of renewable energy. It was one of very few alterations to the cover text since a clean draft published the previous afternoon. It had to mean something, right?

Decisions are made by consensus in the UN climate process. In theory, that means everyone has a voice. In practice, if you drag proceedings out long enough the exhausted participants will grudgingly accept whatever is on the table. And this latest round of talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt sure did drag.

The summit delivered one breakthrough: agreement to set up a loss and damage fund for the victims of climate disaster. All it took was for rich countries to stop saying “no”.

This week’s stories

• Late-night fossil fuel fight leaves bitter taste after Cop27
• Energy Charter Treaty exodus shows a global power shift
• Scientists warn data gaps must not block loss and damage
• UN nature pact nears its ‘Copenhagen or Paris’ moment
• In low-energy finish, oil and gas escape censure at Cop27
• What was decided at Cop27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh?
• EU-developing countries’ Cop27 deal offers hope to climate victims

The fossil fuel fight

On addressing the causes of the climate crisis, there was no such clarity. It took Joe Lo and Chloé Farand a lot of phone calls to unpack the last-hour wrangling, which – like most of the real talk at Cop27 – was closed to media.

And it’s a bit more complicated than the climate champions vs petropowers spin Europeans, with the most proactive comms, were putting on it. If developed countries are so keen on phasing out fossil fuels, why wait until India proposed it to say so? Why did the US approve more oil and gas expansion in 2022 than any Gulf state? Why have only four European countries joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance? Where is the finance for developing countries to leapfrog to clean energy?

If you read climate science, it’s a no-brainer to stop burning coal, oil and gas. But money talks. At today’s prices, Big Oil is coining it, while many governments are cash-strapped.

We’re all tired. Tired of obstruction, delay and greenwashing. Tired of being shut out of decisions that affect us. Tired of the bullshit.

It’s time to get a good night’s sleep and try again.

The post ‘I’m too tired’ – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Procedurally, no big decisions were due to land at Cop27. But the convergence of multiple crises in 2022 – Russia’s war, global inflation, Covid’s long tail and of course climate disasters – raised the stakes of every increment.

The biggest breakthrough came on support for climate victims. Developing countries got the loss and damage fund they fought for – on the proviso that the burden of paying into it does not all fall on rich governments. Who pays and who benefits is a battle for Cop28.

There was little to stop polluters causing more damage, though. A proposal to phase out all fossil fuels, not just the coal power targeted at last year’s summit, went nowhere. The Egyptian presidency openly struck gas deals on the sidelines.

Here’s where the key issues landed.

Fossil fuels

At last year’s Cop26 in Glasgow, the presidency made a push to “keep 1.5 alive”, referring to the most ambitious temperature limit in the Paris Agreement. And it named coal as a problem for the first time, with countries agreeing to phase down its use.

In Sharm el-Sheikh, coal-reliant India sought to turn the heat onto other fossil fuels. This was seized on by a broad coalition of more than 80 developed and vulnerable countries – but not by the Egyptian presidency.

Egypt never included fossil fuel phaseout language in the draft text. Indeed, it promoted fossil gas and struck deals on the sidelines. Behind closed doors, countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia made the argument that oil doesn’t cause climate change, emissions do.

The text does promote renewables but also “low-emission” energy. This could be interpreted as gas, a fossil fuel which is less polluting when burned than coal, or fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage.

It holds the Glasgow Pact line on 1.5C and coal, but doesn’t go beyond it. There is recognition that the 1.5C target “requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions reducing global net greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 relative to the 2019 level”.

Loss and damage finance

Three decades ago, small island states and poorer countries started calling for compensation for the damage climate change inflicts on their communities. While “compensation” became taboo, they finally got finance for “loss and damage” on the formal agenda at Cop27.

Wealthy nations, reluctant to put their hands in their pockets, offered up a “mosaic of solutions” like insurance and early warning systems. Developing countries were determined to get a dedicated new fund.

The EU blinked first. They announced they would support a fund if the donor base was broadened, if it was targeted at the most vulnerable developing countries and if Cop27 also agreed strong action to reduce emissions.

These conditions were partly met and developing nations accepted the offer. The US and other rich countries got on board and they all agreed “to establish a fund for responding to loss and damage”. 

A transitional committee will look into what funding is needed and where the money should come from. It will tackle the thorny issues of whether to expand the donor base to countries like China or Qatar and report to Cop28.

Some of the money is to come through “existing funding arrangements”, like development banks or debt relief. Some from “innovative sources”, which could mean taxes on fossil fuels, aviation or shipping.

The EU specified that support should only go to “vulnerable” countries – a term for the transitional committee to define.

UN Climate Change has been tasked with holding two workshops on the issue before Cop28 and reporting back. 

Countries agreed on how to set up an organisation called the Santiago Network which will provide technical assistance in averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage.

Aneefa Bibi holds her 5-year-old daughter, Hood, who is experiencing fever and chest pains, in Sindh, Pakistan, November 2022 (Pic: © UNICEF/UN0730453/Bashir)

Mitigation work programme

At Cop26 in Glasgow, countries noted that emissions were projected to be 14% above 2010 levels in 2030. To limit global warming to 1.5C, emissions need to fall 45%.

To fix that, they agreed to set up a “work programme to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation in this critical decade”. 

In Sharm el-Sheikh, nations debated how to structure this work programme.

Developed and vulnerable countries wanted the talks to be long, strong and specific. Emerging economies wanted them to be short, weak and broad.

The latter’s fingerprints are on text saying the process should be “non-prescriptive, non-punitive, facilitative, respectful of national sovereignty and national circumstances” and “not result in new targets or goals”.

They former group wanted talks to continue until 2030, the latter until only 2023 or 2024. They compromised on 2026.

Traffic (Pic: Chris Yarzab/Flickr)

The Bridgetown agenda

A serious conversation about shifting trillions of dollars into green and climate-resilient investments has been gathering traction over the past year.  

Barbados’ Mia Mottley set the ball rolling in Glasgow. Since then, her “Bridgetown agenda“ has gathered momentum.

The proposed reforms to the international financial system are happening outside UN Climate Change. But unlocking much-needed climate finance is relevant to the process.

The International Energy Agency estimates that $4 trillion need to be invested in renewable energy every year by 2030 to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Developing countries alone need an estimated $5.6 trillion to meet their 2030 goals. Increasing debt levels is making matters worse.

Countries agreed that delivering such funding will require “a transformation of the financial system and its structures”.

They called on multilateral development banks (MDBs) and international financial institutions to scale up and simplify access to climate finance and ensure their activities contribute to “significantly increasing climate ambition”. This echoes recommendations made by a G20 expert group on the issue

However, Mottley’s flagship proposal to use IMF relief, known as special drawing rights (SDRs), to fund carbon-cutting projects doesn’t feature in the text. Discussions will continue at the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados (Photo: Timothy Sullivan/UNCTAD/Flickr)

Carbon trading rules

Negotiators outlined the broad framework for a new global carbon trading scheme in Glasgow. In Sharm el-Sheikh, they filled in some details.

The text creates a two-tier carbon market, applying different rules depending on who buys the credits and for what purpose.

The Glasgow Pact banned double counting: if one country buys an emission credit from another to use towards its target, the host country needs to make an accounting adjustment. This also applies to international compliance markets such as aviation’s trading scheme Corsia. 

In the new second-tier market, carbon credits are called “mitigation contributions”. A company can buy a credit from another country and the host does not need to tweak its emissions inventory.

While the name suggests the buyer should not use these credits to offset their own emissions, there is nothing to stop them. Campaigners warn this opens the door to double claiming and corporate greenwashing of net zero pledges.

A technical body made recommendations on how to define “removals” – sucking carbon dioxide out of the air – for trading purposes. Many of the options involve untested or controversial processes and negotiators sent the recommendations back for further work.

Regarding bilateral carbon trades between countries, the text allows governments to designate any information about the exchange as confidential.

Experts have raised concerns this could allow shady deals to go unchecked and make accountability toothless.

Just energy transition

The energy crisis has been the stark background for Cop27. A number of countries have ramped up their coal, oil and gas production to deal with the short-term supply crunch.  

In Sharm el-Sheikh, countries “recognised” that the crisis underlines the need to “rapidly transform energy systems,” including by accelerating renewable energy roll out.  

Deals between rich and emerging economies to accelerate the shift away from coal, known as just energy transition partnerships, got a special mention as a way to speed up emission cuts.

Two days before the start of the summit, South Africa published details of a $84bn investment plan to transition from coal clean energy. It outlined long-awaited details of a $8.5bn deal with wealthy countries

On the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, rich countries announced a similar $20bn deal with Indonesia. The funds include both public and private finance contributions. Vietnam is next in line, with an agreement mooted before the end of the year.

At Cop27, countries agreed that “just and equitable energy transition” must be based on national development priorities and include social protection and solidarity measures, such as providing retraining programmes and support for coal workers affected by the transition.  

Cop27 decided to establish a work programme on “just transition” and convene an annual ministerial roundtable as part of this process.

Adaptation

A year ago, Egypt billed Cop27 as a “resilience” Cop. That buzzword was later dropped for “implementation”. 

Adapting to the impacts of a changing climate never stopped being important to those on the front lines. 

But measuring progress on adaptation is harder than counting tonnes of carbon. Work to define the Global Goal on Adaptation inched forward.

Countries agreed to develop a framework to guide delivery of the goal and track progress. This will take into account countries’ vulnerability and capacity to cope, consider a range of themes include water, food and agriculture and poverty, and science-based indicators, metrics and targets. 

A proposal to commission a special report on adaptation from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change went nowhere. 

Frustrated negotiators from both developed and developing countries told Climate Home the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) hogged the mic with unproductive interventions. 

Mariam Allam, lead AGN negotiator on the issue, rebutted the accusation. On the contrary, she said the AGN’s “willingness” to engage with the substance “was unmatched” by other groups. 

Richard Klein, an adaptation expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told Climate Home: “There was an opportunity to show what ambitious and transformative adaptation could look like. But it didn’t happen.” 

It doesn’t help that this agenda is poorly funded. 

Countries “noted with serious concern” the gap between current levels of adaptation finance and what is needed to responded to climate impacts. They “urged” countries to “urgently and significantly scale up their provision of climate finance”. The only mention of a pledge by rich countries to double adaptation funding to $40bn by 2025 was about preparing a report.

Women in Zimbabwe attending a climate adaptation workshop (Photo: Swathi Sridharan/ICRISAT/Flickr)

Climate finance

Rich countries are late to deliver the $100 billion they promised by 2020 to help developing countries cut emissions and cope with climate impacts. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise that talks on a new collective climate finance goal for 2025 got off to a slow start. A decision is not due until 2024 and the Cop27 text is mostly procedural.

One developing country negotiator likened the process to growing grapes. Harvesting fruits too early doesn’t make good wine, he said.

The text agreed in Sharm says the new goal will “take into account the needs and priorities of developing countries”.

It is not just about quantity but quality. Contributors prefer to lend money for carbon-cutting projects, “mobilising” private finance where possible. Recipients want public grants, particularly for unprofitable, but essential, adaptation projects. Much of the debate will centre on sub-targets and accounting standards.

Developed countries are pushing to expand the donor base when it comes to loss and damage funding. It’s only a matter of time before that flares up in the broader finance talks.

Africa’s ‘special needs and circumstances’

African nations had hoped that the “Africa Cop” would recognise its special needs and circumstances to tackle climate action. The status unlocks priority access to international support and is enjoyed by the least developed countries (LDC), which includes 33 African nations, and small island developing states (SIDS). 

But a proposal by the African Group of Negotiators was once again rejected.  

A group of Latin American and Caribbean nations (Ailac) has repeatedly argued that expanding the special needs status to all African countries should allow them to claim it too. 

Chile, on behalf of a group of Latin American and Caribbean nations (Ailac), proposed to open a space for different groups and regions to discuss their needs. There was no consensus on the proposal. 

The “Africa Cop” did not deliver on one of the continent’s longstanding asks (Pic: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis)

The post What was decided at Cop27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh? appeared first on Climate Home News.

It was an anticlimactic end to a summit that secured a breakthrough on support for climate victims, yet did nothing to stop oil and gas expansion fueling further climate chaos.

Throughout the two-week Cop27 summit, the Egyptian presidency largely kept political confrontations out of public view. There were none of the plenary fights or intense huddles of negotiators that typically characterise the last hours of these conferences.

US special envoy John Kerry missed the finish, as he was confined to his hotel room with Covid. His deputies left the room before the formalities had concluded. Looking exhausted after two sleepless nights of overtime, they declined to comment on the outcome.

“What we have in front of us is not enough of a step forward for our planet,” said the EU’s Frans Timmermans in the plenary – but he did not carry out a threat to walk out. He “reluctantly” accepted the deal as it would be a “huge mistake” to kill the loss and damage fund developing countries had fought for.

Analysis: What was decided at Cop27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh?

There was a burst of optimism on Saturday afternoon as the EU and G77 bloc of developing countries agreed terms for a loss and damage fund. Campaigners hailed it as offering hope for those on the front lines of climate impacts, after years of being ignored.

“A mission thirty years in the making has been accomplished,” said Antigua and Barbuda’s environment minister Molwyn Joseph, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis).

It tees up a big fight for next year’s Cop28 over who pays into and who benefits from the fund. Rich countries are pushing for China to chip in and finance to be targeted at “vulnerable” countries.

Pakistan’s climate Sherry Rehman, on behalf of G77 and China, told the plenary: “The establishment of a fund is not about dispensing charity, it is a down payment on the longer investment in our joint future.”

That was followed by protracted – but unproductive – wrangling behind closed doors over plans to halt global warming. The final text barely changed from the previous draft, except to back “low-emissions” energy as well as renewables – potentially a loophole for gas.

Cop27: EU-developing countries’ deal offers hope to climate victims

India had proposed earlier in the week to extend to other fossil fuels Cop26’s groundbreaking agreement to phase down coal. A broad coalition of more than 80 countries took up the call, but the Egyptian presidency refused to include it in the cover statement.

Indeed, Egypt had endorsed fossil gas as “the perfect solution” to the energy crisis and encouraged deals on the sidelines. Saudi Arabia and Russia strongly opposed any reference to oil and gas, sources in closed meetings reported.

“It is more than frustrating to see overdue steps on mitigation and the phase-out of fossile energies being stonewalled by a number of large emitters and oil producers,” said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. “The world is losing valuable time to move towards 1.5 degrees.”

Despite a lack of consensus on the issue, UN climate chief Simon Stiell used his closing speech to say coal, oil and gas were on the way out. “[The text] gives the key political signals that indicate a phase down of all fossil fuels is happening,” he claimed.

Cop27 president Sameh Shoukry told the plenary that negotiations had “not [been] easy”. “We worked around the clock,” he said, with talks being “strained and sometimes tense”. But “we rose to the occasion,” he said.

The post In low-energy finish, oil and gas escape censure at Cop27 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Vulnerable countries are closer than ever to achieving what many thought would never happen – a dedicated facility for loss and damage finance.

The EU opened the door to it, putting the onus on holdout the US to broker a deal with China. The two countries’ climate envoys spent hours in a room together on Thursday night and unfortunately, one of them caught Covid.

At the methane ministerial on Thursday, John Kerry said he had a cold but had tested negative for Covid. Whitney Smith, his spokeswoman at the US State Department, said he tested positive on Friday morning. Smith said his symptoms were “mild” and he had worked all day from his hotel.

That’s a blow. Cop deals are still done in person, often on the floor of the plenary hall.

At last year’s closing plenary, Kerry strode from group to group making promises, reassurances and threats to close the deal.

US negotiators will still do this. But having to dial in the bed-ridden boss risks slowing things down.

Latest stories

• Greenwash alert as Cop27 draft allows double claiming of carbon credits
• China’s surprise visit to US-EU event hints at cooperation on methane
• Cop27 tees up speed dating for climate investment deals

The trillion-dollar question: who pays?

The key to unlocking the talks is finding a way forward for who pays for climate damages in vulnerable countries.

“If you can get agreement on the loss and damage funding piece, I think everything else falls into place,” said Alden Meyer of E3G.

That’s easier said than done. The EU has opened the door to establishing a loss and damage fund this year, with conditions: China and other nations who have the capacity to do so should pay and only the most vulnerable countries can receive money. But there is no list for who falls into each camp.

The EU says that should go hand in hand with steeper emissions cuts to prevent worsening impacts. “This is our final offer,” EU’s climate chief Frans Timmermans said.

Where the US stands on this will be critical. A proposal came out yesterday to agree “funding arrangements” that would include a dedicated fund, with the hope of bringing Washington on side.

Money would come from public and private sources. Insurance, debt relief and global taxes on oil and gas could be part of the mix. The details would have to be worked out with a view to operationalise it 2024. That would be a huge move from the US but will it fly?

Despite a lack of enthusiasm from the Egyptian presidency, some are still trying to get fossil fuels in the cover text. Colombia is taking on the baton from India and has drafted text with the UK calling for a phase out of all fossil fuels.

“If we don’t have mitigation commitments, there can be a fund for loss and damage but no fund will cover the catastrophic consequences of climate change,” said Colombia’s environment minister Susana Muhamad.

We’ll find out soon if they succeeded, with another draft expected on Saturday morning.

In brief…

China shouldn’t pay – All the talk of expanding the donor base for climate finance is aimed at China. But an ODI analysis found China still too poor and low-emitting per person to pay. Qatar, Singapore and Israel are more logical targets, it found.

Chaos in Brussels – Luxembourg became the latest to announce it would quit the Energy Charter Treaty on Friday. The European Council failed to agree a joint position on whether to ratify reforms at Tuesday’s conference. Reform would allow countries to stop protecting fossil fuel investments.

Elsewhere in Egypt – While leaders were speaking at Cop27 last Tuesday, Alaa Abd el-Fattah attempted to kill himself in his prison cell, his family said. On Friday, the same day US president Joe Biden and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi traded jokes, he collapsed and was fed intravenously.

Brazilian propaganda – The outgoing Brazilian government is exhibiting a slick virtual reality film at its pavilion at Cop27. The video claims the government is making efforts to bring renewable energy to the Amazon and to promote development while protecting nature. It does not mention deforestation.

Adaptation shortfall – The Adaptation Fund has received $230m in new pledges and contributions in 2022. Germany was the biggest donor with near $60m, followed by the US with $50m. Other European nations and Japan contributed. The fund says it still has a pipeline of unfunded projects worth $380m.

The post Cop27 bulletin: John Kerry has Covid appeared first on Climate Home News.

The EU’s offer on loss and damage went down well with vulnerable countries and most other rich nations. China and Gulf states pushed back, while the US kept quiet.

Frans Timmermans set it out: the EU would support a new fund if it had a “broad donor base” and looked into innovative sources of finance like levies on aviation, shipping and fossil fuels.

Pakistan’s ambassador Nabeel Munir said it was “good news”.

The Maldives environment minister Shauna Aminath said she was “heartened by the good will in the room” and Barbados’ representative acknowledged the EU’s “movement”.

Resistance came from those Timmermans wants to put their hands in their pockets through his “broad donor base”.

China’s representative said “this is the time that we should implement the Paris Agreement and not the time to rewrite the convention”.

That’s a reference to the UNFCCC’s classification of developed and developing countries based on how rich they were in 1992.

Under the UN’s rules, the former are supposed to pay climate finance while the latter receive it.

But China has changed a lot since 1992. The average Chinese person is four times more polluting and 34 times richer.

Based on current and historic emissions and level of development, Gulf nations would be on the hook too.

On behalf of the Arab Group, the Saudi representative echoed China’s line on the convention, adding it was important to avoid “unfamiliar technologies and classifications and references and scopes”.

On the developed side, the EU was backed up by the Brits, Aussies, Norwegians and Swiss.

The US has been resolutely opposed to a loss and damage fund. Can it bend if China pays?

Latest stories

• China’s surprise visit to US-EU event hints at cooperation on methane
• Cop27 tees up speed dating for climate investment deals
• Republican gains quash hopes of US delivering on climate finance

Movement on mitigation

A new draft text on the “mitigation work programme” has been released which contains seven areas of disagreement in its five pages.

These are talks on how to structure talks on how to reduce emissions this decade and close the gap to 1.5C. It’s process-y, but it matters.

Developed and vulnerable countries want the talks to be long, strong and specific. India, China and others want the opposite.

Up for debate is whether to rule out the talks setting new targets or goals or calling for new NDC climate plans. And whether talks go on until 2024 or 2030.

India, China and co appear to have got their way in arguing that the list of sectors discussed should be a broad one – energy, industrial processes… – rather than narrowing it down to buildings, transport etc.

Saudi Arabia’s representative said in the plenary that talks should be a “focused exchange of views” and “the outcomes will be non-prescriptive, non-punitive, facilitative, respectful of national sovereignty and national circumstances and… will not result in new goals beyond those of the Paris Agreement”.

As always, the Climate Vulnerable Forum has the most to lose from a breakdown in talks. On their behalf, Ghana called last night for the text to be finalised. If it’s not, at least one of the eight years left this decade will be written off.

In brief…

Filibuster – Negotiators have told Climate Home the African Group of Negotiators repeatedly stalled discussions on a global goal on adaptation. This included a 45-minute discussion on whether to work from a PDF or Word document. Cop27 president Sameh Shoukry said the adaptation agenda was “still being held back on procedural matters”.

Spotted  – John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua were pictured going into a bilateral meeting on Thursday evening. On Monday, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping empowered the two men to resume talks. Xie paid a surprise visit to a US-EU ministerial on methane on Thursday. Watch out for any joint communique.

Cop host, who’s next – The UAE will host Cop28 from 30 November to 12 December next year, according to a draft decision for approval in Sharm el-Sheikh. Eastern Europe is next in line. Lula’s opening for Brazil comes in 2025. Australia could follow.

Crunch time – With four days until a critical Energy Charter Treaty conference, the EU does not have a joint position on whether to ratify reforms, which allow members to end investment protections for fossil fuels. The European Commission negotiated the reforms and needs Council approval – but several member states plan to quit the treaty.

Sing for justice – Vanuatu is campaigning to get the International Court of Justice to produce a climate litigation toolkit. There’s a song. It is set to publish a draft resolution to the UN today, ahead of a general assembly vote on 14 December. It needs 97 nations, a simple majority, to pass.

Offset billionaire – Indian company Eki Energy’s shares shot up 10,000% in a year, taking the company’s valuation from $10m to $1bn. Eki’s success is tied to the offset market, mostly linked to solar and wind schemes, but its business model is built on dubious green claims, according to a Bloomberg investigation.

Africa emissions cuts – Implementing 37 measures across Africa, ranging from increasing EVs to reducing food waste and capturing methane from oil and gas, could cut the continent’s emissions by 55% by 2063, compared to 2019 levels, and prevent 800,000 premature deaths per year, according a report by the UN Environment Programme and the Climate & Clean Air Coalition.

Relatable – A press conference for parliamentarians from across Africa was delayed by 20 minutes after the speakers got lost on their way to the Cairo tent. Delegates have complained about confusing maps around the venue and there are security concerns about the official app.

Snooping worries – The UK delegation is using burner phones and avoiding charging by USB sockets as they are concerned about the Egyptian government spying on them, the Times of London reports.

Unleashing plagues – Melting glaciers could unleash more than a hundred thousand tonnes of microbes over the next 80 years, according to a study by Aberystwyth University. Based on “moderate warming” of 2-3C by 2100, a tide of microbes, including pathogens, could be released into downstream ecosystems.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Tensions finally surface appeared first on Climate Home News.

This is not a text that has been discussed by countries but elements reflecting what Egypt has gathered from consultations with countries. Formal negotiations on the text are yet to start.

A proposal by India, which has been gathering steam among vulnerable countries and the EU, to phase down all fossil fuels didn’t make it in.

Instead, the document repeats what was agreed last year in Glasgow and reaffirmed by G20 leaders in Bali on Wednesday on coal power.

Under the heading “urgency of action to keep 1.5C within reach”, the document repeats the language of the Paris Agreement to “pursue efforts” to limit temperature rise to 1.5C.

Elsewhere, the text “notes” that climate impacts will be much lower at 1.5C, “requests” all countries to revisit and strengthen their 2030 climate plans in line with 1.5C, and “emphasizes the need for immediate, deep, rapid” emission cuts.

Borrowing from a recent statement of the Basic emerging economies, it proposes to “express deep regret that developed countries who have the most capabilities financially and technologically to lead in reducing their emissions continue to fall short in doing so”.

It adds: “Developed countries should attain net-negative carbon emissions by 2030.”

Indian power minister Raj Kumar Singh has previously called on rich countries to go beyond net zero emissions to net negative by sucking more carbon out of the atmosphere than they emit.

If Egypt wants to secure a successful outcome, it urgently needs to bring the discussion into negotiating rooms.

Latest stories

• EU opens the door to a loss and damage facility – if China pays
• Lula charms UN climate summit, bringing hope for rainforests
• Rich nations, banks pledge $20bn for Indonesia’s coal-to-clean switch

Rich countries test G77 unity

With very limited appetite to allocate new funds for loss and damage, rich countries see the best prospects of support for climate victims outside the UN climate process.

Reform of multilateral development banks and the International Monetary Fund could free up significant cash for the vulnerable. But that won’t happen in Sharm el-Sheikh, where the developing world wants to see more commitment.

So the developed country tactic here is divide and conquer: drive a wedge between the poorest and smallest nations, and big emerging economies.

Island leader Gaston Browne last week expressed support for broadening the donor pool: “We all know that India and China… are major polluters and the polluters must pay.” Then G77 solidarity reasserted itself and he clarified that historic emissions had to be factored into the assessment.

The EU has sent its strongest signal yet that it would consider setting up a new fund, as the G77 asks, with strings attached.

“We are open for this facility, but under certain conditions,” EU’s climate chief Frans Timmermans told reporters squashed in a huddle outside the EU pavilion on Wednesday afternoon.

“China is one of the biggest economies on the planet with a lot of financial strength. Why should they not be made co-responsible for funding loss and damage?” said Timmermans.

And he wants to keep other options on the table, with a decision to be made next year.

China already contributes some voluntary climate finance to developing countries. It doesn’t want its generosity to turn into an obligation.

There are still big gaps to bridge.

Brazil’s president-elect Lula da Silva got a hero’s welcome at Cop27, bringing hope for the Amazon rainforest with him. Crowds chanted his name and Facetimed relatives during his first speech. (Photo: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC)

Kenya joins keep-it-in-the-ground camp

For all the talk about phasing out oil and gas, only a handful of countries are committing to ban or wind down production. They’re generally not ones that were drilling much (or at all) to start with.

On Wednesday, Portugal and Washington state joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (Boga). That brings the core membership to six national and four subnational governments (double counting Greenland as part of Denmark).

But founding member Costa Rica has distanced itself from the initiative and Sweden’s backing is uncertain after a lurch to the right.

Still, a Boga event on Wednesday was well attended, with campaigners cheering it on.

Perhaps the most significant political signal came from Kenya becoming a “friend” of Boga – the first African nation to do so. “We have proven [oil] deposits,” said presidential climate advisor Ali Mohammed, “but the Kenyan government has taken a deliberate choice [not to exploit them].”

Kenya’s enthusiasm for renewables sets it apart from the likes of Senegal, Nigeria and Mozambique, which see gas as critical to their economic development.

With money provided by the Sequoia foundation, Boga has launched a €10m seed fund to help developing countries initiate their just transition beyond oil and gas production.

After journalists asked where Costa Rica was and why no big oil and gas producers are joining, the Danish moderator said “this is not a press conference” and turned to civil society.

A Stop Eacop activist didn’t softball it, though, putting France on the spot over Total’s controversial Uganda-Tanzania oil pipeline. Ambassador Stephane Crouzat promised France would not provide export subsidies to the project.

In brief…

Climate the culprit – Climate change made this year’s flooding in Nigeria and neighbouring countries 80 times more likely, according to the World Weather Attribution group. The floods killed more than 600 people and displaced 1.3 million between June and October.

Data drought – The same group of scientists were unable to estimate the influence of climate change on last year’s drought in central Sahel, which caused a food crisis this year, because of a lack of reliable data.

Trump is running – Donald Trump has announced that he will run to be US president again. To win the Republican nomination, he’s likely to compete with Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Forest sign-ups – Vietnam and Fiji have joined the global forest and climate leadership partnership, a spokesperson for the UK government told Climate Home. They join around 30 countries representing a third of the world’s forests in the US and Ghana-led partnership.

Gender equality stalls – Just a third of negotiators are female at Cop27, BBC analysis finds. Carbon Brief got a similar figure. Their analysis finds the percentage has trended upward for decades but has plateaued in the last few years.

Fox in hen house – The head of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, Mohamed Hamel, has addressed the main conference hall at Cop27. He said Africa’s “sovereign right to develop these natural gas resources shall be preserved” and that “gas is the energy for sustainable development”.

Methane ministerial – The US and EU have invited the 100+ countries who signed last year’s global methane pledge to a ministerial meeting tomorrow in the Amon room at Cop27. Ministers will unveil national methane action plans, “showcase progress” on energy and launch programmes to cut methane from farming and waste.

The post Cop27 bulletin: ‘Elements’ leave much to negotiate appeared first on Climate Home News.

The leaders of 20 major economies are meeting on the Indonesian island amid increased geopolitical tensions. The climate outcome of the meeting will shape what happens next at Cop27.

At the heart of the discussions is whether the G20 will recognise limiting temperature rise to 1.5C. Ministerial talks collapsed in September when China and India pushed back against the 1.5C goal.

On Tuesday, language on the 1.5C goal remained in the draft text. It echoed the wording agreed at the G20 summit in Rome in 2021 when leaders “recognise[d] that the impacts of climate change at 1.5C are much lower than at 2C” and that keeping 1.5C within reach requires stepped up action.

Whether that language survives political wrangling today is critical to the political signal leaders in Bali send Cop27. In Egypt, the 1.5C goal is under discussion in the context of a cover decision to the climate summit.

“It’s a worrying day,” Zambia’s green economy minister Collins Nzovu told reporters at Cop27. The absence of the 1.5C target “will be a failure of Cop27. It’s very clear that our action must align with 1.5C. We want to urge the G20 to come to the table and do the right [thing],” he said.

Latest stories

• Rich nations, banks pledge $20bn for Indonesia’s coal-to-clean switch
• ‘Complete contradiction’: Egypt burns dirtier fuel to sell more gas to Europe
• Comment: Gas casts a long shadow over green development in Africa

India’s negotiation ploy gets serious

India’s call to phase down all fossil fuels in the Cop27 cover decision may have been a gambit to deflect from its coal reliance. But it is getting serious traction.

Coal still accounts for half of India’s installed generation capacity. Glasgow’s groundbreaking call to phase down unabated coal power put India on the spot. Now Delhi is putting the heat on oil and gas producers.

A growing number of delegations are backing the proposal.

Despite some African nations chasing gas deals, Zambia’s Nzovu told Climate Home the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) supported India’s proposal.

The group is demanding “stronger language than Cop26. We’re inviting the developed world to come to Africa. The land of renewable energy,” he said.

Among rich countries, the EU is on board. “We are in support of any calls of phasing down all fossil fuels,” climate chief Frans Timmermans told a press conference Tuesday. But this “should not divert our attention and out effort to phase down coal as we have agreed in Glasgow”.

It’s unclear whether Egypt will introduce the proposal in the first draft cover decision, which is expected any moment now. It wasn’t part of “elements” for a cover text published by the Egyptians on Monday.

If it does, expect some fireworks with the world’s largest oil and gas producers, not least the Arab Group.

Delhi sets out path to net zero

India’s gambit comes as Delhi is working through its roadmap to decarbonisation.

In Glasgow, Narendra Modi took the world – and even Indian analysts – by surprise when he announced a 2070 net zero goal. Modi didn’t make the trip to Sharm el-Sheikh but on Tuesday officials launched a 121-page document on how India could deliver.

It sets out the broad framework for how India plans to decarbonise across six sectors – energy, transport, buildings and cities, industry, carbon removal technologies and forests – and the finance needed.

On energy, India is planning a rapid expansion of renewables, a significantly greater role for nuclear energy, a “rational” use of fossil fuel resources and the closing of inefficient coal power plants.

“It’s a messy process of stirring the soup until it crystalizes. This is an important first step in the crystallization process,” Navroz Dubash, of the Centre for Policy Research, which was consulted in the drafting process, told Climate Home.

The document doesn’t set sectoral targets and only goes as far as 2050, but Indian analysts at Cop27 were upbeat about progress.

“India is definitely coming from a position of strength,” said Vaibhav Chaturvedi of the Delhi-based Council on Energy Environment and Water (CEEW).

The Cop27 host Egypt has increased its use of mazut, a heavy fuel oil, in power stations to free up gas for export to Europe. The move goes “in complete contradiction with the climate conference,” a whistleblower inside the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity told Climate Home.

Ministers reunited

To lead talks on key issues, the Cop27 team have largely chosen the same ministers in the same roles as at Cop26.

Norway’s Espen Barth Eide and Singapore’s Grace Fu take on Article 6 (carbon markets) and Spain’s Teresa Ribera and the Maldives Aminath Shauna adaptation.

On the mitigation work programme, they’ve chosen Denmark’s Dan Jorgensen – the main man behind the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

At Cop26, he led emissions cutting talks with Grenada’s Simon Stiell. Now Stiell is in charge of the UNFCCC so he’s been replaced by South Africa’s Barbara Creecy.

There are some new faces. India’s Bhupender Yadav and Australia’s Chris Bowen team up on finance, particularly on setting a new post-2025 goal to replace the failed $100bn by 2020 target.

Perhaps the toughest job, loss and damage, remains in the hands of Germany’s Jennifer Morgan and Chile’s Maisa Rojas.

Rojas is a climate scientist while Morgan is a former rabble-rousing Greenpeace head who risked getting kicked out of the last Cop for protesting a side event.

What’s in a colour?

There was a lot of buzz around green hydrogen on Tuesday. But some want you to see past colour.

The Saudis are pushing to cut the word “green” from a reference to “green hydrogen” in a Cop27 text on emissions reductions.

Three sources in the room said Saudi negotiators used the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn’t talk about “green hydrogen” but “low-emission hydrogen”.

Chukwumerije Okereke, who was involved in the drafting of the relevant IPCC report, told Climate Home in Cop27 corridors that was the Saudis’ doing too.

The Saudi government had “prepared extensively” for the meeting and pressured the scientists into not using the term “green hydrogen”, Okereke said. “They made us say it.”

Green hydrogen is made with renewables and the Saudis argued that it was “not proven at scale,” Okereke said. They are in the more established, and more polluting, business of making hydrogen from methane gas. That’s known as grey or, if (hypothetically) coupled with carbon capture and storage, blue hydrogen.

The latest draft of the mitigation work programme text had “green” in square brackets, meaning it is up for debate. So the Saudis’ long game may pay off.

In brief

An apology – Some have suggested that our Monday newsletter “Visionless summit flails into week two” was unfair on the Egyptian hosts. We accept that “rivers of sewage” was an exaggeration. There was one sewage leak in week one that was swiftly fixed. Sorry.

Ambition upped – Turkiye has pledged to reduce its emissions, compared to a business-as-usual scenario, by 41% by 2030. Its previous target was 21%. It will aim to peak emissions by 2038. That leaves a steep drop to its net zero by 2053 goal.

Fit for 57 – The European Union has increased its emissions reduction target from 55% to 57% by 2030. That’s compared to 1990 levels. Can Europe says 65% is the bloc’s equitable share to stay under 1.5C.

Polluters plot – The key blocs of gas exporters and oil exporters, GECF and Opec, held a joint meeting at Cop27 on Monday to discuss the negotiations. With climate watchers counting at least nine gas deals announced on the sidelines, it looks like they’re winning.

Alaa eats – Alaa Abd el-Fattah has broken his hunger strike, according to a message sent to his mother and shared by his sister Sanaa Seif. He asks them to bring cake for a visit on his birthday on Thursday. “I’m OK,” he writes.

Media backs polluter levy – More than 30 media outlets from over 20 countries around the world have called for a global windfall tax on fossil fuels. Small islands have called for such a tax to fund loss and damage.

Coal threatens 1.5C – Phasing out coal is the most pressing challenge to keep 1.5C alive, says a new International Energy Agency report. The industry’s emissions alone could tip the world over the Paris Agreement goal, said IEA director Faith Birol.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Waiting for a sign from Bali appeared first on Climate Home News.

There was no joint statement. But both governments’ summaries said the two largest emitters will “work together”. The US said on climate change, China said on Cop27.

That doesn’t automatically mean the US-China working group is back on but it does mean climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua can talk formally here in Sharm el-Sheikh – with agendas, notes and decisions. US secretary of state Anthony Blinken will visit China to pick up where Biden and Xi left off.

Indonesia’s coal-to-clean package

Today in Bali, Indonesia is expected announce a “just energy transition partnership”, which the US and Japan led on. A source with knowledge of the negotiations told Climate Home that the deal was likely to be between $18 billion and $20 billion. Another said that includes private sector finance.

This follows the South African model of a package to create green jobs and economic regeneration for coal-dependent areas on the journey to clean energy. Indonesia has been keen to consult on its plans and negotiate favourable terms before agreeing on the size of the package.

The Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR) think tank, which is advising the government on the deal, estimates there are 5GW of coal plant capacity which are highly polluting and could be closed at a cost of $4.5 billion. That’s the low-hanging fruit.

In total, IESR estimates that replacing all of Indonesia’s coal capacity with renewables will cost about 60 times what’s on offer here – $1.2 trillion.

A key question is how much will be delivered in grants vs loans. And will coal plant owners be compensated for early closures? While the emissions wins could be considerable, that feels icky.

Political clashes deferred

Ministers have arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh this week to take the baton from negotiators, but the Egyptian presidency is not ready for that.

Foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told a plenary on Monday technical discussions will continue until this evening and ministerial consultations on key outstanding issues will only start Wednesday. Traditionally, representatives from developed and developing countries are paired up to find landing zones on the thorniest issues.

That compresses the timeline to thrash out political differences. Meanwhile ministers are stuck politely reiterating their positions in roundtable events.

There is no consensus on how to ramp up national emissions targets. The battle lines on loss and damage finance have not budged: the options are to establish a new facility, or work with a “mosaic” of funding arrangements. Check out Carbon Brief’s tracker for where each issue is at.

Egypt is banking on progress in technical discussions to move the needle by tonight.

“It’s going to be a brutally hard second week for climate negotiators at Cop27,” dean of the Fletcher School Rachel Kyte tweeted.

In private, both developed and developing country negotiators told Climate Home that ministers could be brought in earlier to start working towards a political resolution. One Cop veteran defended the timetable as not particularly unusual.

Whither, cover text?

These summits usually produce a “cover text”, which puts a unifying narrative on the various technical outcomes. A draft is taking longer to emerge than normal.

Wael Aboulmagd, Egypt’s Cop27 special representative, set out the challenge: “There are two extremes and everything in between. The idea is to get everyone’s views in there.”

Some countries, including Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, want to keep the text to a minimum. Others, including Europeans, see it as an opportunity to set a political direction. The UK wants references to reform of multilateral development banks and just energy transition partnerships – elements of progress outside the formal negotiating agenda.

The dynamics suggest Egypt could settle for a shorter document than the 8-page Glasgow Pact.

Cop decision texts don’t have to turn into major political declarations every year. On the other hand, this is the place where Egypt can address expectations that Cop27 will deliver for vulnerable countries.

One big question is whether the text will include language on keeping the 1.5C goal within reach. That’s backed by least developed countries, small island states, the EU and the US.

Emerging countries including China want to stick to the language of the Paris Agreement to hold the temperature increase “well below 2C” and “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5C.

It’s a row set to dominate the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, which starts today. Ministers were unable to agree on a joint communique in September after pushback by China and India on emphasising 1.5C as the world’s climate goal.

As with US-China cooperation, the parameters of a Sharm deal may be set from hundreds of miles away.

Fact check

At Cop27 on Friday, Joe Biden announced “alongside the European Union and Germany, a $500 million package to finance and facilitate Egypt’s transition to clean energy”.

What the US is contributing to this is not clear. Germany is giving €250m. That’s €100m in loans on better than normal terms, €100m in debt forgiveness and €50m in grants.

Asked what the US is bringing, a spokesperson for the German development ministry (BMZ) said to ask the Americans. The US state department has not responded to repeated requests.

Other European countries are delivering $300m through the European Bank on Reconstruction and Development.

Together, all this European cash adds up to around 550m dollars or euros. More than the $500m Biden announced.

So what exactly is the US bringing? The joint US-German-Egyptian statement says the US and Germany will provide “expected support of €85m equivalent in grants”.

If you take off Germany’s €50m in grants, does that mean the US’s sole contribution is an “expected” grant of €35m and some help mobilising private finance?

It would explain why they’re not replying to our messages.

In brief…

Moral support? – Germany’s insurance-based “Global Shield” initiative for climate victims officially launched on Monday. Germany is contributing €170m, France €20m, Ireland €10m and Canada €7m. President Joe Biden claimed the US was “supporting” the initiative, but it was not on the list of initial funders. “Further contributions by donors are expected to materialise soon,” said the German development ministry.

Big brother – Germany has complained to Egyptian authorities of unwanted monitoring and filming of its events at Cop27 by security officials. The UN confirmed Egyptian national security officers are at the venue and is investigating the complaints, Deutsche Welle reports. Germany has been vocal on human rights and held an event with imprisoned activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s sister.

‘Ludicrous’ – Cop27 special representative Wael Aboulmagd told a press conference that the media reports of the complaints were “vague” and “mostly inaccurate”. “On the face of it, it seems ludicrous. It was an open event. Everyone could walk in. Why would anyone put surveillance?”

LNG export club – Mozambique’s first cargoes of LNG shipped out of the country on Monday. The Gas Exporting Countries Forum hailed the news. Its secretary general Mohamed Hamel congratulated Mozambique commissioner Jerónimo Chivavi in the plenary room at Cop27.

NDC watch – Bahamas, Vietnam, Andorra, Timor-Leste have submitted updated national climate plans since the start of Cop27. The biggest economy among them, Vietnam, strengthened its 2030 emission targets to 15.8% from BAU unconditionally and 43.5% with international support.

Alaa lives – The Egyptian authorities have provided proof that British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah is alive, his sister Sanaa Seif reports. A note in el-Fattah’s handwriting, dated 12 November, says he is drinking water again.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Xi, Biden thaw climate relations appeared first on Climate Home News.

A loss and damage finance facility would be a huge Egyptian gift to the developing world. But, as John Kerry said on Saturday, “that’s just not happening” because the US and others still fear being sued for their historic pollution.

Instead, the rich world is offering a hodge-podge of initiatives like insurance and early warning systems. Some vulnerable countries are working with them on this.

But the sums of money involved pale in comparison to the toll of disasters like Pakistan’s floods. And all these worthy initiatives don’t need a Cop to go ahead.

To the extent that Egypt has outlined a goal, it is to promote “implementation”.

So it’s the coalitions and the side deals in the trade fair bit of Cop that matter to the presidency.

Well, the trade fair is heavy on oil and gas greenwashing. A flagship initiative to finance African renewables folded due to a bad choice of partner.

In the negotiating rooms, there’s no consensus on how to strengthen national emissions cuts and trade carbon. A draft political statement for the summit – the “cover text” – has yet to appear.

If there’s any vision behind this Cop, the Sharm Pact is the place to show it. Otherwise, it will be remembered for jailed activists, gas deals and rivers of sewage.

Biden meets Xi as Dems keep US Senate

The other place to look for political direction is the Indonesian island of Bali.

If presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping manage to find some good vibes ahead of a G20 summit, it could unlock a US-China climate statement.

It helps Biden’s authority somewhat that Democrats are set to keep control of the Senate, regardless of the Georgia runoff result. The House of Representatives is still too close to call, with 20 seats left to declare.

A thawing of relations could mean resumed technical cooperation on things like curbing methane emissions. Based on climate envoys’ statements last week, don’t expect it to magic up finance for loss and damage.

UN enforces sexual harassment rules

The UN has suspended two people registered in Colombia’s delegation at Cop27 over sexual harassment complaints, the country’s government said in a statement on Sunday.

The Colombian minister of the interior, Alfonso Prada, emphasised the accused were not government officials. One of the named people had never traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, he said, suggesting their credentials had been used illegally.

The Colombian delegation at Cop27 told Climate Home News that there is an open investigation and declined to comment further.

The country’s delegation at the climate talks is composed of 201 people, among them government officials, private sector and civil society representatives.

“Our government strongly rejects any conduct that disrespects or harms women and violates their rights and freedoms anywhere in the world,” the minister said.

In brief…

Dirty deal takes hit – The German government agreed to leave the Energy Charter Treaty, which has been the most important tool for fossil fuel companies to sue governments for loss of profits after climate policy changes. Germany is now the biggest economy to leave the deal. Spain, France and the Netherlands have all also left the treaty for its protection of fossil fuels.

Russian oligarchs at Cop – Aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska and former fertilizer boss at EuroChem Andrey Melichenko are among dozens of Russian lobbyists under international sanctions registered at COP27, The Guardian reports. Oil and gas giants Gazprom and Lukeoil, also under international sanctions, sent entire delegations to the UN climate talks.

Drones overhead – A pair of powered paragliders flew over the Cop27 venue on Saturday morning with advertising banners for ADES, an oil and gas drilling services company. Perhaps they were trying to catch the eye of one of the 636 registered fossil fuel lobbyists.

Dash for gas – Turkish Petroleum and Algeria’s Sonatrach agreed to establish a joint oil and gas exploration company that will operate in the region and “especially in Algeria”, said Turkish energy minister Fatih Donmez. In recent months, Algeria sealed deals with Italy and Spain to increase gas supplies to Europe.

Stranding risk – Building gas infrastructure to meet short term needs is a bad bet, warns Carbon Tracker. By 2030 it projects it will be cheaper, across Africa, to generate electricity with new solar than run existing gas plants. That spells financial instability for gas producers like Nigeria, Algeria and Egypt.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Visionless summit flails into week two appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Cop27 visit is a stopover to bigger business next week when Biden meets China’s Xi Jinping in Bali ahead of the G20 summit.

Beijing suspended climate talks with Washington after house speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August. Relations between the two superpowers could make or break the outcome of Cop27.

In Egypt, Biden came to show off his $370bn climate package – for the US – and promise deeper methane cuts in the oil and gas sector.

But there was little for the rest of world. On what matters for the “implementation Cop” – cash – Biden had his hands tied.

Without congressional agreement, Biden cannot put more money on the table. But he gave some details on how his administration will parcel out its existing budget – including to boost Egypt’s clean energy plans.

Senior US officials briefed in advance that Biden would press el-Sisi on human rights issues. Critically, the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah, the Egyptian-British activist on hunger strike, who stopped drinking water six days ago.

Egyptian authorities told his mother el-Fattah had undergone “medical intervention”. That could mean he is being force-fed but the family has no proof he is still alive.

The #FreeAlaa campaign has dominated the summit. El-Fattah’s fate could overshadow any climate legacy.

His family urged Biden not to leave the country without evidence el-Fattah lives. As the wheels of Airforce One left the tarmac, there was no word.

Young activists holding a banner briefly interrupt @POTUS speech at #COP27. Unlike in past climate meetings, protests have been severely curtailed, with no large marches around #Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh pic.twitter.com/UluJ5csNFv

— Laura Millan (@LauraMillanL) November 11, 2022

Latest stories

• German, US cash aims to cut Egypt’s gas use and boost exports
• Latin America closes ranks at Cop27 around climate finance
• UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role

Crumbs of support

Biden had to come to Cop27 with something to say about how the US will support developing countries to cope with worsening climate impacts. But political headwinds limit his options.

He has requested Congress approve $11bn in climate funding for the 2023 budget. That would make good on his annual $11.4bn climate finance pledge. But the results of the midterm elections could decide otherwise.

If Republicans win control of the House of Representatives, which is looking likely, they could gut the pledge. If the conservatives come out on top, Democrats have until the end of 2022 to pass the budget or see the commitments quashed.

Instead, Biden set out how he will spend leftover funding already appropriated by Congress. It includes a doubling of the US contribution to the Adaptation Fund from $50m to $100m and details for how it will spend $150m to help Africa prepare for climate impacts.

The dribs and drabs of funding announced today are a far cry from what developing countries have been calling for. Biden remained silent on loss and damage finance.

“President Biden is pulling nearly every lever available to him to deliver bold climate action at home. The inconvenient truth is that the United States is grossly underperforming on its international climate finance commitments,” said Ani Dasgupta, CEO of the World Resources Institute.

“Biden is throwing crumbs into lots of different pots. That might sound impressive but it’s not the help that is needed,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa.

Fact check of the day

Asked by the Guardian today if she felt personally responsible for climate disasters like flooding in Pakistan, the CEO of US oil company Occidental Vicki Hollub accepted that climate disasters are “a problem” but said she was no more responsible than people who fly in planes, have iPhones or wear nice clothes.

She added: “We are being much more aggressive around emissions. We have to be… We are doing this direct air capture quicker than anyone else because we know we need to address it quickly.”

It’s true that Occidental is doing direct air capture – sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – quicker than anyone else. Funded by United Airlines, they are building the world’s biggest direct air capture facility.

When it opens in 2024, it will remove 0.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year. It aims to scale up the operation and capture 25Mt a year by 2032.

That should cover Occidental’s emissions from its operations, which were 25Mt in 2020.

But it’s nowhere near enough to cover the emissions from customers burning its oil, of around 200Mt a year – equivalent to Bangladesh and its 166 million inhabitants.

To offset those emissions, Occidental would need to build hundreds of direct air capture plants. Removing a tonne of CO2 this way costs around $250 to $600. While casts are expected to come down, wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave that oil in the ground?

In brief…

‘Hands full with gas’ – BP Egypt has its “hands full with gas” and “won’t be a vehicle” for the green energy transition in the region, British ambassador to Egypt Gareth Bayley wrote in internal emails to colleagues, obtained from the UK Foreign Office under the Freedom of Information Act by Culture Unstained.

Green hydrogen hub – Africa could capture as much as 10% of green hydrogen market, helping to create 3.7m jobs and adding $120bn to the continent’s GDP, according to a report by Masdar, the UAE’s biggest clean energy firm.

Carbon wonk beef – Leading climate modeller Joeri Rogelj has accused the Global Carbon Project of inflating the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C in its latest analysis. This presents “a more lenient and forgiving picture”, he tweeted.

Every little counts – The EU can nudge its climate goal of cutting emissions by at least 55% to 57% by 2030 after reaching an agreement on forestry and land use regulations. The deal sets a target to increase the carbon sink from land use and forestry by 15%.

Trade and slavery – The US has blocked more than 1,000 shipments of solar energy components from China over concerns about the use of forced labour, Reuters reports. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson denied claims of abuse in Xinjiang province and said the blockade would hinder the global response to climate change.

Shell backs Bitcoin – Shell will launch a bitcoin mining initiative at the bitcoin conference In Miami in May, according to Bitcoin magazine, the event organiser. At the event, Shell will claim that it is using immersion cooling fluid to make Bitcoin greener and cut mining’s carbon footprint by up to 48%.

Come together – The UK delegation’s meeting rooms are named after Beatles’ songs. So far Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine and Blackbird have been spotted.

Smart farming? – The UAE-US-led Aim for Climate initiative has announced a doubling of investment for climate smart agriculture and innovating food systems to more than $8bn. An investigation by De Smog previously revealed the initiative has close ties with climate-denying meat industry groups.

Taiwan’s cover – It hurts China’s feelings when Taiwan asserts its sovereignty, so the democracy has to get creative to take part in multilateral forums. At the Cop27 venue, try the St Kitts and Nevis pavilion for information on Taiwan’s climate plans.

Green, Saudi-style – If you want to learn how to save the planet, the Saudi Green Initiative has you covered. Bloomberg journalist Akshat Rathi took its quiz, which includes questions on how you brush your teeth and deal with excess food. Why nothing on air travel or meat eating? Too radical, apparently.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Biden brings crumbs of support appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the Senate, Democrats won a contested Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Seats in Arizona and Nevada are too close to call. If the Democrats win them both, they keep control of the Senate. If they win neither, then Republicans win control.

As it did  two years ago, the outcome could come down to a runoff in Georgia, where the victor needs an outright majority, on 6 December.

In the House, there’s a lot more still up for grabs.

Whoever ends up on top, Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act is going to be hard to undo.

But Biden has so far failed to get US climate finance up to scratch. Control of Congress would give him some chance of delivering.

Despite the nail-biting back home, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was in Sharm el-Sheikh today and said that Biden had asked for the release of more climate funds. “We have a responsibility, we made a commitment.”

But, she said, “it is a challenge, and we haven’t succeeded yet, to get the global funding that we need to be good neighbours on this planet”.

Pelosi said it was hard to speak in the midterms on this subject because of “disagreements” between Democrats and Republicans. Some conservative still call climate change “a hoax”.

She brought two planes of US lawmakers with her and not one Republican came. “We have to get over that. I place my confidence in their children to teach them,” she said.

Speaking alongside Pelosi, Kathy Castor warned that the house select committee on the climate crisis – which she chairs – would be scrapped if Republicans win the house.

Latest stories

• Vulnerable nations publish climate spending wish-lists
• John Kerry’s offsets plan sets early test for UN net zero standards
• Vulnerable nations: Tax fossil fuels to rebuild after climate destruction

Investors on the rebound from Russian gas are jeopardising climate targets with a planned 235% increase in LNG capacity by 2030, Climate Action Tracker calculates. If all the proposed terminals are built, the oversupply of gas could emit 1.9Gt CO2e above the International Energy Agency’s net zero scenario. It undermines a handful of improvements in ambition since Glasgow. CAT’s global warming projection remains at 2.7C based on policies and action.

UN drops partnership with fraudster

The UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) has canceled Team Energy Africa, after Climate Home revealed that one of its coalition partners was led by a convicted fraudster and alleged money launderer.

The initiative aimed to mobilise $500 billion of private sector investment into 250GW of “clean” energy across Africa by 2030. But the involvement of NJ Ayuk, the oil and gas lobbyist in charge of African Energy Chamber, threatened its credibility.

Uneca will review the best way to partner with the private sector to roll out renewables across Africa, it said in a brief statement.

Separately, executive secretary Antonio Pedro clarified Uneca’s position on development. For some developing countries with existing resource and infrastructure, gas “will play a major role in their transition to a net zero future,” he said.

“For all others, developing new fossil fuel infrastructure would result in billions of stranded assets and debt for future generations.”

Climate impacts cost a pandemic a year

Losses and damages caused by climate change are costing Colombia the equivalent to one Covid-19 pandemic each year, shows a government report presented during COP27.

The country is the first in Latin America to quantify the impacts of extreme weather on climate victims and has estimated the costs at around $800 billion each year (4 trillion Colombian pesos), a figure similar to the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

Most of the impacts are associated with wildfires, the report highlights, particularly due to loss of crops and ecosystem services.

Colombia’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad, said future governments from now on will have to face crises year after year and compared the situation to “a dog biting its own tail”, where money is being spent on restoring ecosystems that are being impacted by climate change.

“We need an immediate capacity to react. We cannot wait for the long conversations, committees and definitions (at climate talks), or keep getting indebted,” Muhamad said during the report launch.

 The country is backing a proposal by the group of vulnerable countries to obtain a percentage of debt relief to attend the costs of climate change.

Putting numbers to these impacts is the first step to enter that conversation, which makes Colombia’s report “emblematic” for the region, said Esperanza González, climate change specialist at the Interamerican Development Bank.

As more finance is directed to climate adaptation, the specialist said analyses such as Colombia’s are important to make the case for more loss and damage funds. González said the IDB is supporting similar cost analysis in Peru and Panama.

In brief…

Fossil fuel delegation – 636 oil and gas lobbyists have been registered to attend Cop27, analysis of the provisional list of attendees by NGOs shows. That’s 100 more than attended at Cop26 last year. If they were to form of delegation, it would be larger than any African one. Cop28 host UAE brought 70 delegates with fossil fuel interests – more than any other country.

No peak yet – Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are set to increase 1% in 2022, rebounding slightly after a pandemic-driven drop, the Global Carbon Project predicts. This driven by India (up 6%), the US (1.5%) and international aviation.

Funds for the Amazon – Colombia’s vice-president, Francia Márquez, said she will discuss the creation of a new binational fund to protect the Amazon rainforest in a meeting with Brazil’s likely new environment minister, Marina Silva, at Cop27. “Lula’s win allows the two countries to lead” on a climate and racial justice agenda, Márquez said.

Get your vegan burger – Food outlets at the Lamborghini conference center have cut the price food in half and made water and soft drinks free. Delegates had grumbled at paying $11 for a sandwich.

Congo threat – The pace of deforestation in the Congo basin increased by 5% in 2021, according to Climate Focus. The Congo rainforest is the second-biggest in the world after the Amazon. On Monday, Germany committed to double its cash for forest conservation to €2bn ($2bn) in the period to 2025. Some of the funding is earmarked for the Congo Basin.

Bang for buck – To reduce emissions cost-effectively, philanthropists should focus on areas like clean electricity, electrifying light vehicles, saving peatland, shifting away from meat and cutting methane emissions, Ikea Foundation research says. Public transport, carbon capture and micro-grids offer less bang for buck.

Oil delayed – Equinor has shelved a planned Arctic oil field citing rising costs and supply industry constraints. The Norwegian state oil company is postponing the final investment decision for four years.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Everybody needs good neighbours appeared first on Climate Home News.

China’s Xie Zhenhua told a press briefing Kerry had not asked him directly during their informal meetings. (Relations are still frosty since US house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan “hurt China’s peoples’ feelings”.)

Warning against reopening the Paris Agreement, Xie said China made voluntary contributions through south-south cooperation and was under no obligation to do more.

“We hope…. that we can set up this new mechanism and then we can discuss how to resolve it in a more in depth way,” said Xie.

Meanwhile a few millions of dollars trickling in from the likes of New Zealand and Scotland won’t go far.

This stalemate has vulnerable nations looking for so-called “innovative finance”. That could mean anything from air passenger taxes to debt cancellation.

Barbados’ prime minister Mia Mottley is pushing a levy on fossil fuels – including during a phone call to John Kerry.

“It’s time for the private sector to stand up and we need to hold them accountable”, said Michai Robertson, the small island (Aosis) negotiator on loss and damage, on Wednesday.

Developed nations seem more open to this idea than to another demand on their public finances. Asked about it in a Cop27 press conference, after pausing for a plane to pass overhead, the EU’s Jacob Werksman said “we’re all looking for innovative finance”.

But it’s not going to be easy. Robertson said it was only in the “exploratory phase”. Getting buy-in from petrostates is an obvious obstacle.

Kerry’s offset plan is ‘raw cookie dough’

UN special climate envoy John Kerry came to Cop27 determined to have something to say about how to fund the transition from coal to clean energy.

Perhaps he recognises that the US’ $1 billion in loans for South Africa’s just energy transition deal didn’t cut the mustard. As he prepared for Cop27 the midterms were not looking promising for a climate-friendly majority to pass more support through Congress.

On Wednesday, Kerry sketched out a plan to use carbon credits to finance coal retirement and deploy solar, wind and geothermal energy in developing countries.

Philanthropic groups Rockefeller Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund are interested in the idea and have partnered with the US State Department to put flesh on the bones. It’s being called the Energy Transition Accelerator.

Kerry’s team “worked on this like crazy for a while,” he said. We first reported the idea at the start of November.

Yet the result “is not so much half-baked as it is raw cookie dough,” said Leo Roberts, of E3G’s coal transition team. There are virtually no details.

That makes it difficult to judge against the recommendations of UN chief António Guterres’ greenwashing taskforce, which set high standards for using offsets to meet net zero pledges.

Kerry promised “strong safeguards” and no repeating past mistakes, which allowed dodgy carbon credits to flourish.

A campaigner against the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline confronts an adviser to Japan’s MUFG bank at Cop27. According to 350.org, campaigners asked the bank to say they would not support the pipeline and the bankers replied they could not comment on individual cases. (Photo: 350.org)

In brief…

Distancing – Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) has pulled out of Team Energy Africa, a UN-backed initiative to mobilise private sector energy investments across Africa. The move comes after we reported on the involvement of NJ Ayuk, an oil and gas lobbyist and convicted fraudster.

Should China pay? – After reports that small islands (Aosis) want China to pay into loss and damage, Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister and Aosis lead Gaston Browne told Climate Home: “All polluters, especially large ones, must contribute to the fund.” He added the “differentiated assessment” should include “historical emissions and the current level of development”.

Scramble for green hydrogen – Egypt and Norway have signed a deal to establish a 100 MW green hydrogen plant 100 MW in Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea. Egypt and Belgium also announced a green hydrogen project, Egypt Today reports.

Methane action – China has drawn up a draft national strategy on methane, its climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said at Cop27. The strategy will target the three main source of emissions – energy, agriculture and waste. They will set preliminary targets which are only preliminary because China has “rather weak statistical capability in this area”. He said public leveraged finance would be key.

Congress in balance – The Democrats are doing better than expected in the mid-term elections, winning Senate seats in Pennsylvania. At the time of writing, who will control the two chambers of Congress – the House and Senate – was unclear. Democratic control would improve prospects for climate finance.

Nature gets money – The Climate Investment Fund announced it will deploy over $350m for nature-based solutions, globally, starting in Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Kenya. COP27 host Egypt is set to invest in adaptation of the Nile Delta area, which stands to lose 30% of its food production by 2030 as a result of climate change.

Latin America united – The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC in Spanish) issued a joint call for new climate finance through sovereign funds and debt-for-nature swaps. Colombia’s Environment minister, Susana Muhamad, said debt swaps could help unify the region at climate talks, which is usually divided in two groups: left-leaning Alba nations and right-leaning Ailac.

Petroleum financing – The African Development Bank (AfDB) signed an agreement with OPEC Fund to “to expand their partnership to support sustainable economic and social development”. OPEC has contributed more than $1 billion to projects co-financed by the AfDB.

UK ups adaptation – The UK will provide £200 million ($228m) to the African Development Bank Group’s climate action window, a new mechanism set up for adaptation finance.

Weather watching wonga – Spain has announced it will fund the Systematic Observations Financing Facility, which aims to bring early warning systems to more countries. Norway has increased its donation. The beneficiaries of the facility are mainly African nations or small islands.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Could polluter taxes fund loss and damage? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Over the two-day “implementation summit”, 110 leaders are rubbing shoulders at roundtables, brokering bilateral deals and milking their podium moments.

Egyptian president Abel Fattah el-Sisi opened with a “sincere appeal” for peace. Russia’s aggression of Ukraine upended the economy of the host nation, which is squeezed between debt and global inflation.

“This war and the suffering that is caused must end,” el-Sisi said.

UN chief António Guterres called for rich and emerging economies to come together under a “climate solidarity pact” to keep the 1.5C goal within reach. “The US and China have a particular responsibility to make this pact a reality,” he said.

UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan predicted the nation will be one of the last oil and gas producers standing as the Cop28 host works to cut emissions from production.

Senegal’s Macky Sall said adapting to climate impacts shouldn’t push developing nations further into debt. Rich countries needed to deliver grants.

“We must come to terms with the concept of financial solidarity,” accepted French president Emmanuel Macron. He didn’t have any cash to hand out but backed calls for reform of development banks.

That’s unlikely to meet the urgent needs of Kenya’s “hustler-in-chief” William Ruto. Drought in the East African nation has killed 2.5 million livestock this year, causing $1.5bn in economic losses. Hungry children have been dropping out of school and the government is buying feed for wildlife.

Ruto called the lack of support for vulnerable nations “cruel and unjust”. “Loss and damage is not an abstract topic of endless dialogue. It’s our daily nightmare,” he said.

Sights set on oil and gas

Mia Mottley has gained somewhat of a rock star status in the climate talks.

Barbados’ prime minister doesn’t come to address the international community empty handed. Her interventions always include a flurry of proposals to make the economic and financial system work better.

“We have the collective capacity to transform. We are in the country that built the pyramid,” she told leaders in the plenary hall.

This time, she targeted the oil sector. Let them pay for climate damages, Mottley argued.

“It can not only be an issue of asking state parties to do the right thing,” she told leaders. “The oil and gas companies and those who facilitate them need to be brought into a special convocation between now and Cop28.”

Mottley elaborated on the idea during an all-female panel with Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon and the World Trade Organization’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala entitled: “When will leaders lead?”. “Who is going to call oil and gas at the table?” she asked.

The two leaders appeared close. A collaboration on offshore wind supply chains is in the works. Sturgeon joked Scotland might, one day, share an Independence Day with Barbados, which is preparing to celebrate its first as a Republic on 30 November.

Fact check of the day

“A just and equitable energy transition for Africa must include natural gas.”

– NJ Ayuk, African Energy Chamber

As a partner of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Sustainable Energy for All, with 200,000 Twitter followers, NJ Ayuk is an influential proponent of gas deals at Cop27.  

His mission statement for the summit makes some persuasive points. Energy poverty is a barrier to growth across Africa. The continent bears little responsibility for causing climate change. Why shouldn’t its citizens have access to fuels that rich countries have exploited for decades?  

Europe, the biggest advocate of phasing out fossil fuel finance, softened on its commitment in a scramble to replace Russian gas imports. That doesn’t help its moral authority – and nor do the rich world’s broken climate finance promises. 

But who really benefits from the dash for African gas? Most projects are geared to export markets, not domestic needs. 

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest Africa report estimates the continent could produce another 90bcm a year of gas by 2030. That’s roughly equivalent to the export capacity of LNG terminals in development.

While talking up the potential for gas to improve Africa’s fortunes, the IEA concluded that: “Prospects for oil and gas production [in Africa] hinge primarily on export.” 

In a 2021 report, Oil Change International found that only a third of projected new production volumes on the continent were African-owned. Multinationals like Total, Eni and ExxonMobil tend to fly in their own workforces and reap the profits. 

“Africa is being turned into a fossil fuel shopping mall by northern countries,” said Thuli Makama, Africa program director at OCI. “Solar and wind power, not dirty gas, are the best way to growth and stability for our people.”

In brief…

Debt-for-losses swap – UN head António Guterres is proposing fresh ideas to raise funding for loss and damage. In a press conference with Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, Guterres said debt relief should be provided to developing countries to allow investment in the recovery to climate disaster: a debt-for-loss-and-damage swap.

Delivering indigenous rights – About $322 million (19%) has been disbursed out of $1.7bn pledged at Cop26 to help indigenous peoples and local community protect forests by strengthening their tenure rights, the Forest Tenure Funders Group reports.

United in diversity – Informal consultations on financing arrangements for loss and damage are starting this week. Not all developing countries agree on the way forward. Some are ok with a “mosaic” of financing options. Others, particularly small island states, continue to push for a new funding stream. China and India have remained largely silent.

Technical support – The UK has pledged £5m to the Santiago Network, which will provide technical assistance for developing countries on loss and damage. It pledged another £4m to Climate Risk Management.

Urgent meeting – UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was rushed out of the room where he was launching a forest partnership. Aides whispered into his ear during the event and a decision was made for him to leave. Sun political editor Harry Cole reports this was for an unplanned meeting with German and South African officials.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Loss and damage ‘our daily nightmare’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

The climate story is about more than molecules of CO2 and degrees of warming. It is about people and power. Who is driving change and who is blocking it?

As climate impacts intensify and hit the world’s poor hardest, the urgency to fix it has never been greater. Yet this crisis is just one of many competing for cash and attention.

An increasing number of people avoid the news because they find it overwhelming or don’t trust the messenger. Media outlets need to meet readers where they are, with rigorous reporting and creative storytelling.

We are looking for an enterprising and tenacious journalist to bust greenwash, deliver agenda-setting exclusives and empower readers to be part of the solution.

You will have the chance to travel to international conferences and hone your journalism skills in collaboration with talented colleagues.

Job title: Reporter

Reports to: News editor

Location: Remote, with occasional international travel. We welcome applications from any country in a UK-compatible timezone.

Pay: Competitive, based on location and experience.

Hours: Up to 40 hours a week, flexible. Part time or job share arrangements negotiable. Should be available for a daily news meeting in UK office hours.

Job summary

Climate Home News is looking for an enterprising, tenacious reporter to develop our coverage. The successful candidate will be versatile enough to file breaking news on a tight deadline, spot original angles and dig deeper for analysis or investigative pieces. You should be open to collaboration on multimedia and investigative projects.

Responsibilities

• Identify and develop story ideas
• Gather, verify and analyse newsworthy information
• Contact, interview and maintain relationships with sources
• Write and deliver news stories to deadline, with the reader’s perspective in mind
• Work with colleagues and freelance contributors on special projects
• Follow journalistic ethics and good practice
• Review written articles by other reporters on staff to check for clarity, grammar and overall story presentation; make suggestions and assist with any revisions that need to be made

Essential attributes

• Ability to identify relevant news angles and get to the heart of a story
• Ability to write in English in a clear, concise and conversational manner
• Ability to interact professionally and build a network of sources
• Strong research skills
• Willingness to occasionally work a flexible schedule when covering key events

Desirable attributes

• Knowledge of climate change and diplomacy
• Contacts in the climate change policy, politics and finance space
• Fluency in languages other than English
• Data journalism skills
• Multimedia skills

Education and experience

• At least two years of relevant experience as a reporter/journalist, with a portfolio of published articles
• Bachelor, master’s degree in journalism and/or NCTJ diploma

To apply

1. Send a CV and one-page covering letter to editor Megan Darby md@climatehomenews.com
2. Attach or include links to three published articles, with a brief description of how you approached each story
3. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to carry out a short writing test and remote interview

Unfortunately we do not have the capacity to offer feedback to candidates who are not shortlisted.

The deadline for applications is 28 November 2022.

About Climate Home News

Climate Home News delivers original journalism that informs and inspires action to tackle the global climate crisis. We do this by:

• Reporting and analysing major developments in international climate action
• Exploring tensions between competing interests and values
• Exposing wrongdoing or obstruction and holding power to account
• Amplifying the voices of those hardest hit by the climate crisis
• Highlighting transformative action from across society and the economy

With an international outlook, we aim to be the go-to media outlet for a global community of doers and thinkers.

In 2022, we won the Drum Online Media Award for best specialist news site.

The post Join our award-winning team! Climate Home is hiring a reporter appeared first on Climate Home News.

For the first time in the history of the UN climate talks, the issue of mobilising finance to help climate victims recover – loss and damage – made it onto the agenda. There will be no talk of liability or compensation (a red line for wealthy nations) and countries agreed to conclude the process within two years.

Negotiators have already spent late nights finalising the agenda. Cop27 Sameh Shoukry told the opening plenary that consultations went on for a marathon 48 hours before the start of the meeting. At 2.30am, the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) was still assessing the proposal.

But this is an important milestone for the vulnerable nations that have raised the issue for more than 30 years. In a statement, Aosis said this “is our bare minimum”. It opens the door for a substantive conversation on who should pay for climate damages and how.

“Loss and damage has to be credibly addressed and the time has come for us to do so. The real test will be the quality of the discussions. The judgement will be based on the quality of the outcome,” UN Climate Change head Simon Stiell told a press conference on Sunday.

Leaders to watch

110 world leaders start arriving this morning. After they shake hands, mingle awkwardly and take a group photo, they hit the podium from 2pm local time.

Several of the big hitters have stayed away and Joe Biden isn’t expected before Friday. But there could still be some important interventions.

First up is UAE president Mohamed bin Zayed, host to Cop28 in 2023. He is expected to reference the UAE’s work with the US on climate-smart agriculture (which is controversial) and clean energy. Look out for gas boosterism.

Kenyan president William Ruto will speak on behalf of the African group of negotiators. Ruto is a proponent of leapfrogging to renewables “rather than trudging in the fossil-fuel footsteps of those who went before”.

Colombia’s new leftist president Gustavo Petro has pledged to phase out fossil fuels and is pushing for debt forgiveness in exchange for protecting the Amazon.

Indonesia’s vice-president Maruf Amin may hint at how coal-to-clean energy partnership talks are going. Any official announcement is likely to wait until the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali next week.

Mohamed bin Salman will tout Saudi Arabia’s “green initiative” and renewable plans – less oil used at home means more to export. Has his vision for economic diversification survived the latest oil price boom?

Europeans take to the stage late afternoon, starting with Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to outline the “Global Shield” Initiative to insure vulnerable populations against climate disaster. The controversial “climate club” could also get airtime. The idea is for ambitious carbon cutters to put up trade barriers against laggards.

Finally, Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni makes one of her first outings on the world stage. Her government comes fresh from watering down fossil fuel financing commitments – but then so did the preceding technocratic one led by Mario Draghi.

Pre-Cop primers

• Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda
• In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop27
• See you in court: how climate lawsuits could sharpen Cop27 loss and damage talks
• As Cop27 kicks off, where are the coal to clean deals at?
• Egypt clamps down on activism and undocumented workers ahead of Cop27
• Cop27 host Egypt plans to push gas as ‘the perfect solution’
• Fear of farmer protests hampers methane-cutting ambition

Forest pledge firms up

At Cop26 last year, an incredible 145 nations representing over 90% of the world’s forests promised to collectively “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030”.

Those signing up included Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Their decision was made easier by the fact the pledge didn’t really require them to do anything.

Since then, there have been no major meetings to take forwards the pledge nor body to organise the work.

Until now. Today, a scaled-down group of countries will launch the “forests and climate leadership partnership”, to deliver on that Cop26 aspiration.

They’ll work on mobilising public and private finance, eliminating deforestation in supply chains, supporting indigenous peoples’ conservation work, strengthening and scaling carbon markets and international collaboration.

To become a member, countries have had to prove to the UK’s satisfaction that their forests policies are credible.

The partnership and its members will be unveiled at 5pm local time. Check out our website for the full story then.

UN to lay out early warning system plan

At 4pm Egyptian time, UN secretary-general António Guterres will outline the plan to get every person on earth covered by a multi-hazard early warning system by 2027.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reckons it will cost something like $3 billion to fill in the gaps, which are mostly in the world’s poorest and smallest countries.

The WMO’s lead on this, Cyrille Honoré, told Climate Home that an early-warning system involves four elements: preparing for disaster, weather-watching, disseminating information and responding.

The multi-hazard element means recognising that one disaster often leads to another. A cyclone brings high winds but also rain, which can lead to flash floods and landslides. “You don’t want to evacuate people to a place where they could be swept away by a landslide,” he said.

The WMO relies on self-reporting of its members to judge whether they have a good early warning system in place. Lots of members – China, Brazil, Canada, Spain – have a good one but don’t respond. So it’s not clear from WMO data where the real gaps are.

Honoré pointed to small islands in the Pacific, in the Caribbean and countries in Africa. Lot of these countries have a meteorological service of less than 20 people “so it is not easy for them to deliver what they are expected to”, he said. Even countries like Germany with advanced forecasting systems have sometimes failed to communicate the severity of extreme weather to citizens.

Money for training will come from a variety of sources including through the Climate Risks and Early Warning Systems Initiative (Crews) and the World Bank.

The Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF), Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Adaptation Fund are also potential vehicles, the WMO has said.

Fact check of the day

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a climate-denying British lawmaker who was briefly energy minister under Liz Truss, tweeted that prime minister Rishi Sunak should not go to Cop27. His reason? “The cost of living won’t be solved in Sharm el Sheikh where each hotel room for the conference is £2,000 a night.”

It’s true that hoteliers are cashing in on a captive market. The Egyptian Hotel Association set a floor price of $500 a night for a five-star hotel and $120 a night for a two-star institution. It says the government ordered it to do so with 25% of the revenues going towards the costs of the summit. The government denies this.

Delegates report last-minute cancellations are rife. Hotels are arbitrarily charging extra on arrival, even on reservations made months ago at lower rates. But £2,000 a night ($2,300) is an exaggeration – and falsely implies that this reflects the luxury of the accommodation, rather than price gouging.

More to the point, the cost of living crisis is inseparable from the climate crisis. The UK is suffering more than European neighbours from high energy bills in part because of its heavy dependence on gas, a fossil fuel. Global cooperation to accelerate clean energy can help with that.

And climate action is insurance against weather disasters, not least for Rees-Mogg’s flood-prone constituency.

In brief…

Hot place to be – More than 38,000 delegates have registered to attend the blue zone at Cop27, according to UN Climate Change data. This has made things tricky at lunchtime on Sunday when the few “grab and go” cafés quickly ran out of food. More hot food options should be available from today. Warning, a sandwich is $11.

Food security in peril – Organisations representing more than 350 million small-scale farmers have written an open letter to world leaders, warning that global food security is at risk if governments fail to boost adaptation finance and promote more resilient forms of agriculture. Just 1.7% of climate finance went to small-scale producers in 2018.

Toothless – The supervisory body overseeing the establishment of a new global carbon market under the Paris Agreement has finalised eligibility recommendations for what type of “carbon removals” to trade on the new market. It relies on the host country enforcing social and environmental safeguards. Campaigners say this makes safeguards “toothless”.

Pass the popcorn – The New York Times is interviewing disgraced former UK prime minister Boris Johnson live from 10:45am local time. Johnson was in office when the UK hosted the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow but resigned after a series of scandals. Watch him try to rehabilitate his reputation.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Welcome to Sharm el-Sheikh appeared first on Climate Home News.

Some argue if they don’t have anything useful to bring, they might as well save the carbon emissions of a flight. Prior to Paris, it wasn’t routinely expected. Sharm el-Sheikh is not a “decision Cop”.

All too often when heads of state attend, they give televised speeches aimed at their domestic audiences, talk past each other, then leave. Hastily assembled coalitions announce pledges that disintegrate on contact with reality. Attendance is certainly not a sufficient condition for progress.

The top dogs in China, India, Canada, Japan and Australia, among other major emitters, have seemingly decided it’s not worth their time this year. Even Rishi Sunak was not planning to personally hand over the baton from last year’s UK Cop26 presidency, until climate advocates urged him to reconsider.

And yet. It matters to at least 33 African nations and Europe’s biggest economies. President Joe Biden is putting in an appearance after the US midterm elections are out of the way. Brazil’s president-elect Lula da Silva will head over to revive Amazon protections. Cyril Ramaphosa will bring his vision to wean South Africa off coal, in the hopes of securing finance that doesn’t drown the country in debt.

Because these moments are the best chances we have to focus minds. Collins Dictionary declared “permacrisis” its word of 2022. Every politician is under conflicting pressures. If they think they can fix war or inflation by abandoning climate commitments, we are all in trouble. It takes leadership to engage with the reality of the climate crisis and the efforts we owe one another.

Let’s demand better from our representatives: that they not only show face, but bring something to the table, listen and learn.

Much of Climate Home News’ coverage exposes initiatives that have not lived up to the hype; misguided, broken or downgraded promises. Accountability is essential. But don’t mistake our professional scepticism for cynicism. We also see the people trying, however imperfectly, to make things better.

We will have a team on the ground in Sharm el-Sheikh, dispatching daily newsletters and online coverage throughout the talks. Stay with us.

This week’s news…

• European nations delay fossil fuel finance ban, blaming energy crisis
• Costa Rica backs away from leading oil and gas phaseout coalition
• Egypt clamps down on activism and undocumented workers ahead of Cop27
• China, India set to snub Cop27 leaders’ climate summit
• John Kerry: Carbon offsets can help wean developing countries off coal
• Rich nations deflect GCF climate finance burden to private sector
• Brazil election: Lula victory raises hope for Amazon rainforest

…analysis…

• See you in court: how climate lawsuits could sharpen Cop27 loss and damage talks
• In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop27
• Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda
• Hali Hewa episode 6: What fossil fuel development means for Africa

…and comment

• Climate finance isn’t reaching African communities – Cop27 must fix this injustice – Omagano N Shooya, Maliasili

The post Yes, leadership matters – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

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

Is it a climate disaster? Yes and no.

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

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

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

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

This week’s news…

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

…and comment

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

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

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

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

23 out of 197

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

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

People are waiting for up to 14 hours to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II. In an age of online scheduling, it would have been easy enough to set up a booking system for mourners, but where’s the sense of occasion in that?

Joining the crowd is an exercise in asserting communal identity, at a moment of uncertainty and change.

In Pakistan, people are queuing for a more prosaic reason: to accept food aid. Half a million have lost homes and crops, their self-sufficiency swept away in exceptionally severe monsoon floods.

An attribution study today confirmed that yes, this is what climate change looks like. Rainfall levels in Sindh and Balochistan province were 75% higher than they would have been in a world without 1.2C warming.

Scientists did not let local decision makers off the hook. Poverty and weak governance put people in harm’s way. Rainfall extremes are to be expected as global temperatures rise. If Pakistan’s politicians had acted on the lessons from bad flooding in 2010, fewer people would be dead or homeless.

But there is plenty of evidence to support the climate justice argument that rich polluters owe Pakistan reparations.

This week’s stories

• Five burning climate issues for the 2022 UN general assembly
• South Australia set to become first big grid to run on 100% renewables
• Copenhagen’s failure to meet 2025 net zero target casts doubt on other pledges
• Pakistani prime minister promises compensation to flood victims
• Egyptian government denies Cop27 hotel price gouging
• EU energy crisis plan: gas price renegotiation and windfall taxes
• Displaced by drought, climate migrants clash with Zimbabwe’s timber industry
• Egypt is stifling climate activism ahead of Cop27, human rights group reports

Pakistan’s prime minister Shahbaz Sharif promised flood victims compensation. At next week’s UN general assembly, he will present leaders of rich nations with the bill.

To give disaster victims a chance of building back better, they need both international finance and robust accountability for spending it wisely on the ground.

It is not an easy ask. Albeit from a more comfortable baseline, the middle and lower classes of developed countries are feeling the squeeze from inflation. They expect their governments to take care of domestic problems first.

Only the super-rich and, in the current market, oil and gas producers are getting richer.

It will take bold leadership to make polluters pay for the solidarity and clean energy transition the situation so urgently demands.

146%

The share of South Australia’s electricity consumption generated by wind on Wednesday morning. The state leads the world on renewable energy share and is phasing out gas backup generation.

The post The queue that matters – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

And she represented an institution that amassed wealth through colonialist plunder and never meaningfully repaid it.

Accordingly, her death yesterday triggered a broad spectrum of emotional reactions. At 96 years old, it was not a surprise, but it did bookend a mighty span of history.

She was born to rule an empire, in a relatively stable climate. During her 70-year reign, former colonies asserted their independence and exploitation of fossil fuels grew to substitute for exploitation of subject peoples. Global inequities persisted as the climate crisis took hold.

Her successor, King Charles III, is an outspoken advocate for climate action. The man in charge of UK energy policy, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is a monarchist with a record of climate science denial.

How that shakes out matters not just for the millions of Brits facing soaring gas bills but everyone that shares this atmosphere.

This week’s stories

• Timeline: The climate crisis through Queen Elizabeth II’s life and reign
• As Queen Elizabeth II dies, climate advocate King Charles III takes throne
• Africa food crisis: Bill Gates and smallholders see different solutions
• Clean energy jobs overtake fossil fuel sector but wages lag behind
• Australia passes climate law targeting 43% emissions cuts by 2030
• UK puts climate denier in charge of energy policy
• African leaders blast European no-shows at climate adaptation summit
• Hali Hewa episode 4: Vanessa Nakate
• ‘Gigantic missed opportunity’: Chile rejects green constitution
• Deadly flash floods in UAE highlight need for resilience investment

The post The end of an era – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Her life and 70-year reign spanned the decline of the British Empire and drastic changes in the climate.

At her birth in 1926, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were 306 parts per million. At her death, the figure was 418ppm.

Global average temperatures rose by nearly 1C. In the second half of her reign, scientific consensus solidified around the causes of climate change and threat it posed to humanity.

As a constitutional monarch, the Queen served a ceremonial role and rarely made her opinions public. Yet as one of the longest serving heads of state of all time, she had a front row seat for the major events of the twentieth and early twenty-first century.

There are few countries she did not visit and few world leaders, whether popular heroes or oppressive dictators, she did not meet.

At last year’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow, UK, she called for climate action not words. In unusually personal comments, she spoke of how important the issue was to her deceased husband, her son – now the king – and grandson.

The post Timeline: The climate crisis through Queen Elizabeth II’s life and reign appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Senate passed legislation supporting the target in a vote of 37 to 30, even though several senators who supported it wanted a more ambitious 2030 target.

The center-left Labor Party government officially committed Australia to the 43% target after it came to power for the first time in nine years at May elections. But entrenching it in law has made it more difficult for any future government to reduce the target.

Climate change and energy Minister Chris Bowen said the Senate vote provided certainty to clean energy investors while strengthening transparency and accountability in Australia’s carbon reduction processes.

“The message to investors is that Australia is open for business,” Bowen told Parliament.

Comment: Australia excels at exporting the climate problem. Now it can finally export solutions

The conservative opposition party voted against the bill. The opposition has advocated since 2015 a target of reducing emissions by between 26% and 28%.

Independent senator David Pocock insisted on several amendments touching on transparency and accountability before he supported the bill.

These were soon passed by the House of Representatives, where the government holds a majority. The government holds only 26 of the 76 Senate seats.

Greens party senators supported the 43% ambition although their proposed amendments to increase the target to at least 75% and ban future Australian coal and gas projects were defeated.

‘End to climate wars’

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek tweeted: “The decade of climate wars is over.” It was a reference to how heated and divisive the issue had become.

Analyst and writer Ketan Joshi responded that such celebrations were premature, “while a slew of new coal/gas projects get hand-waved through”.

In November 2021, the Australia Institute counted 72 new coal projects and 44 new gas and oil projects under development. These would result in 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions a year if fully exploited, it calculated – equivalent to 200 coal power stations.

The previous government pursued a “gas-led recovery” to Covid-19, which included subsidising several new gas basins. Labor has not substantively changed direction on developing fossil fuels for export.

While Plibersek rejected a proposed coal mine near the Great Barrier Reef last month, the Labor government opened up 47,000 square kilometres for offshore oil and gas exploration.

RenewEconomy reported that Labor received half a million dollars from fossil fuel groups in the 2020/21 financial year. The Liberal-National coalition that was in power at the time got almost $675,000.

The post Australia passes climate law targeting 43% emissions cuts by 2030 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Germany was heavily reliant on Russian gas imports. To defund Vladimir Putin’s war machine, that had to change. Few climate advocates would dispute that in the short term, alternative gas supplies were part of the answer.

The rub comes when buying gas turns into driving gas infrastructure expansion. This week, Scholz encouraged Canada’s Justin Trudeau to build an LNG export terminal on the east coast. Previous stops on his energy diplomacy tour included Senegal, Argentina and Egypt.

There is no room for new fossil fuel infrastructure in a 1.5C world, as the International Energy Agency has made clear. Pipelines and LNG terminals take years to build – not solving the immediate energy security crisis – and decades to pay off the investment – worsening the climate crisis.

To add a veneer of climate respectability to this fossil binge, each announcement comes with the magic words “hydrogen-ready”.

Green hydrogen has an important role to play in decarbonising heavy industry and freight. But it has different properties to methane gas. Its tiny molecules leak more easily and liquefy at lower temperatures. It doesn’t travel well. Infrastructure designed for methane is not automatically suitable to carry hydrogen.

Energy experts were scathing about the idea of shipping liquefied hydrogen across the Atlantic. Ammonia made from green hydrogen is easier to transport, but conversion brings its own challenges.

And developing countries may well ask why they should export their precious renewable resources for the benefit of German industries before their own citizens have clean power.

If the German government is serious about hydrogen diplomacy, it needs to address these technical and equity questions. Otherwise “hydrogen-ready” is little more than misdirection.

This week’s news…

• Oil not charcoal the biggest threat to Congo rainforest, top researcher warns
• British company forces Italy to pay €190m for offshore oil ban
• Germany hypes green hydrogen alliance while shopping for Canadian fossil gas
• China hit by longest and strongest heatwave on record
• Factories shut down as heatwave hits hydropower in China’s Sichuan province
• Migrants on US-Mexican border suffer from extreme water scarcity
• World Bank backs carbon credit blockchain registry to attract crypto investors

…and comment

• We got fooled again: As big oil and gas cash in, Britons crippled by energy bills – Richard Black, ECIU/Imperial College London

‘Easy target’

DRC’s push to open the Congo rainforest to oil drilling raises tough questions for climate finance efforts in the region.

The Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) focuses almost exclusively on poverty as a driver for deforestation in the country. It is true that slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal production to serve a growing population puts pressure on the forest.

But research commissioned by Cafi from the Food and Agriculture Organization, due out this autumn, is expected to shift more scrutiny onto industrial activities.

While communities are “nibbling on the edge of the forest” for food and fuel, said lead author Aurelie Shapiro, they don’t have the chainsaws and heavy equipment to fell big, carbon-rich trees. Mining and large-scale agriculture leaves deeper and longer lasting scars.

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

There is nothing in Cafi’s agreement with the DRC government to ban oil exploitation in the most valuable carbon sinks. Donor countries, mostly in Europe, have little moral authority to demand that one of the world’s poorest countries forgo an economic opportunity. Their $500 million deal can be easily trumped by oil and gas revenues.

Yet if they cannot offer a more sustainable path out of poverty than oil development, the climate damage could be enormous.

The post Misdirection – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Only a month ago, it looked impossible. Even after senator Joe Manchin’s surprise change of heart, many hardly dared to believe it. Yet here it is.

Politically, it is a huge and long overdue breakthrough, against formidable vested interests. Substantively, it is far from enough to keep a 1.5C global warming limit in reach.

Analysts project that it will get the US about four fifths of the way to its 2030 emissions reduction target. There are a lot of factors that could amplify or blunt the impact.

Jesse Jenkins, the Princeton professor behind the widely cited Repeat model, hailed signs of increased action from state and business leaders. As an injection of federal funds makes clean technology cheaper, it could tip the balance in favour of the climate action on many levels.

On the other hand, a big bet on carbon capture technologies is risky. Scaling up carbon capture and storage means thousands of miles of pipeline, which is bound to be controversial. That’s even if the industry can make it commercially viable without using the CO2 to pump more oil.

The $370 billion spending on climate action is less than half the US’ annual military budget. It puts America first, with protectionist measures and no sign of further support for developing countries.

Accordingly, the international response has been muted. The bill’s passage was not enough to repair a strained relationship with China. Since the cancellation of a planned bilateral working group earlier this month, the world’s two economic superpowers have resorted to conducting climate diplomacy over Twitter.

This week’s news…

• Brazil election: Lula challenges Bolsonaro’s deforestation record, backs oil development
• China responds coolly to US climate bill, rejecting a call to resume cooperation
• After finally passing a climate bill, US calls on others to act

…and comment

• Why the US climate bill might struggle to deliver on carbon capture

There are more hopeful signs for climate cooperation from Brazil, where halting deforestation is emerging as a voter priority for October’s presidential election.

Former president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva set out his platform this week from a leading position in opinion polls. It includes rebuilding the environmental institutions de-funded by incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and providing “green” loans to farmers.

Bolsonaro, running for reelection, is proposing to hire 6,000 firefighters to tackle wildfires and finance emission reductions with green bonds and carbon credits.

More pertinent than their plans, though, are their records. Lula oversaw a historic decrease in deforestation 2003-2011. Under Bolsonaro, the rate of destruction resurged to a 12-year high, as the government opened the Amazon to business and suppressed indigenous land rights.

On fossil fuels, there is not much to choose between the two candidates. While Lula talks about diversifying state-owned Petrobras away from oil in the long term, for now he backs expanding production.

Diplomatically, Bolsonaro was hostile to what he saw as interference on Brazil’s sovereign territory. A change of leadership offers a chance for a reset.

The post Twitter diplomacy and Brazil’s climate election – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

After nearly two years of saying “no”, coal-state senator Joe Manchin said “yes” to a climate spending bill, clearing its path to adoption. The $370 billion compromise package is projected to achieve a 31-44% emissions cuts by 2030 on 2005 levels – not the US’ whole 50-52% target, but bringing it within reach.

Nobody but Manchin can know what ultimately changed his mind. It could have been a cunning plan all along to trick the Republicans into passing a bipartisan semiconductor bill. It could have been concessions to oil interests – which merit further scrutiny. Or he could simply have tired of being a villain, not just to US campaigners but globally.

As influential activist Bill McKibben writes: zeitgeist matters.

Assuming the bill passes, which is now highly likely but not certain, it will reinvigorate a demoralised climate movement. There is still plenty of work to do to amplify the upsides of the bill and minimise the fossil-boosting tradeoffs, at state and project levels.

This week’s news…

• Sri Lanka can’t afford fossil fuels but can’t afford to get off them either
• US set to pass $369bn of climate spending after Manchin U-turn
• EU energy ministers agree to cut gas use in the face of Russian supply disruptions
• Make polluters pay for climate adaptation, voluntary carbon market body proposes
• South Africa turns to renewables, gas and batteries to end power cuts
• UK freezes international aid to keep within self-imposed limit

…and comment

• Russia’s war on Ukraine underscores the importance of curbing methane emissions – Marcelo Mena, Global Methane Hub and Durwood Zaelke, IGSD

One thing the bill does not address is the US’ shameful shortfall in climate finance to developing countries.

The OECD quietly confirmed today that rich countries failed to deliver on their collective $100 billion target in 2020. They mobilised $83.3 billion, a 4% increase on the previous year, mostly as loans.

It matters for countries like Sri Lanka, which is drowning in debt in large part due to overreliance on imported fossil fuels – and now lacks the fiscal space to invest in renewables.

Sovereign debt is also a concern for South Africa as it negotiates terms with international partners to support a transition away from coal. President Cyril Ramaphosa this week set out a vision for clean energy (and some gas) to tackle the country’s persistent power outages, but getting finance on sufficiently favourable terms will be critical to deliver.

“Holy shit. Stunned, but in a good way.”

Minnesota senator Tina Smith reacts to the political breakthrough on US climate spending

The post US Democrats pull back from the brink – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Talk Radio host Julia Hartley-Brewer invited listeners to shrug off not just a vast body of scientific research but the evidence of their own sweat glands in a manufactured clash with climate campaigner Leo Murray. (Don’t read the comments, for your sanity.)

The Daily Mail newspaper mocked “snowflake Britain” on its front page one day and reported a “nightmare of wildfires” the next, without any sign of self-reflection.

Those attitudes are out of step with a clear majority of people, in the UK and globally, who are worried about climate change and want to see more action to tackle it.

Unfortunately, the task of choosing the UK’s next prime minister falls to a group of people that is likely to get its news from such sources: Conservative Party members.

As the field narrowed to two contenders this week, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, they affirmed their commitment to the UK’s net zero emissions target but had little to say on how to deliver.

This week’s stories

• Between a wolf and its food: as one deep sea miner flops, others eye the prize
• Massachusetts set to enable citizens to give climate finance to vulnerable nations
• Chinese court rules bitcoin mining harms the climate
• Bioenergy is a bigger deal than you think – which is why the details matter
• In Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, UK’s two PM contenders have poor climate records
• UK government touts ‘guilt-free flying’ on country’s hottest day on record
• Germany promotes insurance-based ‘global shield’ for climate victims

Sunak’s stinginess on climate action as finance minister and Truss’s links to climate denialist think tanks do not inspire confidence. Truss, the frontrunner in polls of the party faithful, is running on a platform of aggressive tax cuts, which doesn’t bode well for international climate finance either.

Net zero is a legally binding target, so there will be institutional pressure to narrow the policy gap, whoever wins this contest. A high court judge has ordered the government to show how its emissions cuts add up by next March.

The sums were not rigorous for the one climate policy that landed on the UK’s hottest day ever, a “jet zero” strategy. It ruled out curbing demand for air travel and bet the house on unproven future technologies, allowing aviation emissions in its highest ambition scenario to remain above 1990 levels in 2050. That’s not zero.

It is more than a domestic issue. Many countries have emulated the UK model of climate framework legislation enforced by an independent watchdog, but does it have teeth? The two years before the next general election will put that to the test.

“It’s like getting between the wolf and its food… One company may go down but another will come back.”

Catherine Coumans, MiningWatch Canada, on the race for minerals in the deep ocean

The post UK leadership wilts in the heat – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

We aim to be the go-to media outlet for a global community of doers and thinkers seeking to understand the political, social and economic drivers of the climate crisis and climate action.

To check we’re on the right path, we want to hear from you, the reader.

Please take ten minutes to complete our short survey on who you are, why you read Climate Home and how we can improve.

Take me to the survey

The post What do you think of Climate Home News? appeared first on Climate Home News.

The strategy launch at Farnborough International Airshow was delayed from morning to afternoon, while transport secretary Grant Shapps did a media round to explain why Britain’s roads and railways couldn’t handle the heat.

Publicity for the launch was confined to a press release, stacked with supportive quotes from the industry, and a tweet, in which Shapps declared it would “allow passengers to enjoy guilt-free flying”.

A handful of activists in pig masks greeted him with the sceptical slogan: “Jet zero? Pigs might fly!”

The “guilt” of air travel comes from its outsized carbon footprint. While aviation only accounts for 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, on a personal level, air travel is a polluting luxury. One long-haul flight can erase the emissions benefits of going vegetarian for a year.

It is why a UK citizens’ assembly on climate two years ago came out strongly in favour of a frequent flyer levy and ban on private jets. That was too radical for this government. Nor would it consider limiting airport growth.

Instead, it is relying on fuel efficiency, sustainable aviation fuels and carbon offsets to decarbonise – and destigmatise – the sector. The government’s “aspiration” is to run the first zero-emission domestic routes in 2030.

Germany promotes insurance-based ‘global shield’ for climate victims

The strategy sets out interim targets to net zero aviation by 2050, with a progress review every five years. For the domestic sector, it sets a more ambitious net zero target of 2040.

“We want 2019 to be remembered as the peak year for aviation emissions. From now on, it should all be downhill for carbon emissions – and steadily uphill for green flights,” said Shapps.

It is a “more challenging trajectory” than the government has previously set out, said Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation. But there is nothing to hold the industry to account for delivering – and its track record is not good.

Campaigning organisation Possible audited every climate target the international aviation sector had set since 2000. Out of 50, all but one had been missed, abandoned or forgotten about.

As with previous aviation climate strategies, “jet zero” relies on future technology breakthroughs rather than curbing demand – and all of the options run into problems at scale. By Hewitt’s calculation, to meet the UK’s jet fuel demand entirely with e-fuel would require a windfarm the size of Northern Ireland.

“We don’t feel that the government is being honest about the challenges,” she told Climate Home News.

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

Specific measures include a £165 million fund to support the development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and a mandate requiring at least 10% of jet fuel to come from sustainable sources by 2030.

This can mean biofuels derived from algae or waste, or synthetic fuels made with green hydrogen and captured carbon. None of the options are yet commercially competitive to produce.

Gaynor Hartnell, of industry body the Renewable Transport Fuel Association, said SAF was “the only viable solution for long haul flight” and welcomed the support. But the five production plants the government expects to deliver supplies cost £500 million apiece, she added, and will require further subsidies to get off the ground.

For Greenpeace UK, reducing the number of flights is the only meaningful answer. “This government doesn’t have the courage to regulate aviation emissions yet and this isn’t a plan to do that, just a delaying tactic and a very expensive waste of time,” said campaigner Emily Armistead.

This article was updated after publication with the precise temperature record.

The post UK government touts ‘guilt-free flying’ on country’s hottest day on record appeared first on Climate Home News.

Most media attention is focused on the latter. The US this week raised hopes of a compromise climate spending bill and quashed it again before you could say “Joe Manchin is a bad-faith actor”. Having somebody to blame does not make it any easier to address a system rigged in favour of fossil fuel interests.

At Climate Home, we bypassed that news cycle (come back to us when you’ve achieved something, America!) and took a longer look at the former.

Because the fact that so little climate journalism comes out of China at a certain point becomes newsworthy in itself. And once Chloé Farand started asking around, we knew this story’s time had come.

This week’s stories

• As Xi Jinping seeks more power, the world’s window into China’s climate action narrows
• Pacific islands welcome Australia’s renewed climate ambition – and ask for more
• China’s ambitious rooftop solar pilot helps drive ‘blistering’ capacity growth
• Heat and humidity gets dangerous to health sooner than most people realise
• Over the rainbow: The role of hydrogen in a clean energy system, explained
• EU lawmakers back stronger energy efficiency target in response to Russian war

It has never been easy for journalists and civil society to operate in Xi Jinping’s China. As he looks to secure a third term as president over the coming months, it is harder than ever.

Beijing’s zero-Covid policy is, most sources said, no longer just about public health, but a tool of control at a politically sensitive time. Conferences are cancelled indefinitely and travel restricted. Officials up and down the hierarchy are afraid to speak to the media.

Out of six China-based climate reporters who spoke to Climate Home for the article, four had left or were preparing to leave the country.

This is a problem. Not just for the international community, which has an interest in holding China to account for its emissions performance, but for China. In the vacuum, misinformation and Sinophobia flourish.

From the slivers of news that do emerge, we can see that Chinese experts have much to teach the rest of the world. Ok, so they might want to keep their advantage in mass producing solar panels, but when it comes to smart deployment policy, they have every incentive to share tips.

Perhaps they could give US climate campaigners, who are in despair right now, some fresh ideas.

31C

The wet-bulb temperature at which healthy adults started overheating internally in lab tests at Penn State University

The post China turns inwards – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Its previous climate submission was evasive, with a list of the government’s mega-projects and nothing resembling a target.

From that low bar, the new plan is an improvement, leading with a goal to get 42% of electricity from renewables by 2035. It still allows emissions to rise, blaming economic woes for hindering ambition.

Egypt has been particularly hard hit by disruption to food supplies since Russia invaded Ukraine, as it got much of its wheat from that region. Keeping bread on the table – and stamping out complaints – has taken up most of the government’s bandwidth this year.

Officials want Cop27 to make the case for a faster shift to renewables, to underpin food and energy security. Observers are sceptical, seeing the Sharm el-Sheikh summit as little more than a tourism ad, far from the gritty reality of Egyptian life.

To salvage a win in these circumstances, the Cop27 presidency will have to get out of its comfort zone and engage with critics.

This week’s stories

• ‘It’s a crunch’: Hunger and unease shape Egypt’s strategy for Cop27
• Soaring inflation hinders Egypt’s climate ambition in updated plan
• Convince Republicans or revolt? No easy path to US climate action
• Brazilian court world’s first to recognise Paris Agreement as human rights treaty
• EU set to use ‘green’ label for gas, nuclear investments after parliamentary vote
• Hali Hewa podcast episode 2: Climate scientist Youba Sokona
• US proposes up to 11 new offshore oil leases, under industry pressure

The US Supreme Court’s reactionary rampage has been widely reported internationally. Its ruling to limit the power of the Environmental Protection Agency left climate advocates with a depressingly narrow scope to effect change.

Less well publicised was its Brazilian counterpart ordering the government to reactivate its national climate fund. As well as countering the worrying deforestation trends in the Brazilian Amazon, the ruling recognises the Paris Agreement as a human rights treaty, which could have international significance.

Meanwhile gas lobbyists got their way in Europe, with a parliamentary vote clearing the way for the fossil fuel to be labelled a “green” investment. Expect legal challenges.

“Most of the likely contenders… couldn’t give a shit about climate and nature”

UK international environment minister Zac Goldsmith on the race to replace outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson

The post Egypt’s climate plan lands – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Anthony Albanese is ready to say sorry, hug a Pacific islander and clean up the mess. Or, in his words, make Australia “a renewable energy superpower”.

With some votes still being counted, his Australian Labor Party is one seat short of a majority in the lower house of parliament. If it gets over the line, Albanese may not rely on the support of Greens and “Teal independents” to govern. He would do well to heed their burst of popularity, all the same.

Labor intends to submit an updated 2030 emissions target for Australia of comparable ambition to Canada, Japan and South Korea, backed by policies supporting renewables and electric vehicles. And – subject to negotiations with Eastern Europe, whose turn it is – co-host a Cop climate summit with a Pacific island nation in 2024.

What it has not committed to is curbing development of coal, oil and gas for export. Labor’s international climate finance offer is underwhelming.

As the Australia Institute’s Richie Merzian writes, the country needs to start exporting the solutions to climate change, not the problem.

Targets are not enough. Justin Trudeau told us in 2015 “Canada is back”, only to preside over oil industry expansion and rising emissions.

The climate world will judge the Albanese Administration by coal and gas projects cancelled, emissions cut and dollars delivered to communities on the frontlines.

This week’s news…

• G7 pushes Japan to speed up clean energy transition at home and abroad
• Russian climate action and research is collateral damage in Putin’s war on Ukraine
• African nations’ dash for gas exposes division at the UN and ‘hypocrisy’ in Europe
• Island states back Vanuatu’s quest for climate justice at the UN
• UN body makes ‘breakthrough’ on carbon price proposal for shipping
• Extinction Rebellion inspires Shell safety consultant to jump ship

…and comment

• Russia’s war is no excuse for G7 ministers to duck their climate responsibilities – Claire Fyson, Climate Analytics
• Australia excels at exporting the climate problem. Now it can finally export solutions – Richie Merzian, The Australia Institute

There was more encouraging news from this week’s G7 climate ministerial in Berlin. The statements that emerge from these summits generally reflect the lowest common denominator. But just sometimes, they drive stronger ambition.

Japan has signed up to language on fossil fuel finance that should curb its aggressive support for gas projects in Asia and beyond. And it was the last holdout to agree to substantially decarbonise its electricity mix by 2035.

As always, check the small print. But the mood music is good for a faster clean energy transition in the Asia-Pacific.

The post Coming out of the naughty corner – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Call for more ambitious national climate plans, yes. Single out major polluting industries, no.

During her two terms, the locus of UN activism shifted from Bonn to New York. It was top dog Antonio Guterres who translated a 1.5C global heating limit into plain English, real economy terms: Stop. Building. New. Coal. Plants.

While some may grumble that it was unfair to target Asia’s fuel for growth rather than America’s oil addiction, that’s an argument for more direct diplomacy, not less. Every sector and government needs clear science-based standards and finance mobilised to meet them.

As Guterres prepares to choose Espinosa’s successor, he should hold onto that boldness.

The chances of staying below 1.5C are already vanishingly small. Rapid emissions cuts are needed to prevent temperatures spiralling out of control. That means calling problems by their name, not hiding behind jargon and process.

Our sources say it’s an African woman’s turn to lead this agenda – and Guterres’ deputy Amina Mohammed, from Nigeria, is understood to be pointing him in that direction. We’ve thrown a few Asian and western names into the mix too, plus a token male.

Who would you like to see take the reins? Let us know.

This week’s stories…

• What’s at stake for the climate in Australia’s election?
• Slow progress on Great Green Wall prompts soul-searching at UN desertification summit
• Who will replace Patricia Espinosa as the UN climate chief?
• EU unveils €300bn plan to quit Russian fossil fuels by 2027 and boost clean energy
• Rich countries seek coal-to-clean energy deals with Indonesia and Vietnam
• Leak: EU mulls investment treaty exit as Japan blocks green reforms
• Former presidents of Mexico, Niger, Kiribati join commission to tackle overshoot risks
• Ukraine builds legal case against Russia for environmental damage

Australia elects

In a field of developed countries underdelivering on climate action, Australia stands out as the one that’s not even trying.

Under Scott Morrison’s leadership, if you can call it that, Canberra refused to strengthen its pitiful 2030 emissions-cutting target and axed its contribution to the Green Climate Fund.

A Labor victory in tomorrow’s general election would see an upturn in ambition, albeit with no plans to curb fossil fuel exports or find significant new money for international climate aid.

The curveball is a new movement of “Teal independents” running on pro-climate (green) platforms in conservative (blue) constituencies, who could end up holding the balance of power.

It’s a nailbitingly close election with high stakes for the climate.

“Hope is not yet turning into action at the scale or pace you aspire to… Understandably, this is leading to frustrations.”

Ibrahim Thiaw, UN desertification chief, on the Great Green Wall

The post The UN needs a climate chief who can name the problem – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.