Fiona Harvey Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN
Sat, 20 July 2024
An oil rig in the Caspian Sea near Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2017. The country is hosting the Cop29 UN summit this November.Photograph: Grigory Dukor/Reuters
Fossil-fuel producing countries and companies are being asked to pay into a new international fund to help poor countries cope with the effects of the climate crisis.
The climate investment fund is being set up by the Azerbaijan government, host country of the Cop29 UN climate summit in November.
The Climate Finance Action Fund will take financial contributions from fossil-fuel-producing countries and companies and use the money to invest in projects in the developing world that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help build resilience to the impacts of extreme weather.
Yalchin Rafiyev, the chief negotiator for the Cop29 presidency, said: “Traditional funding methods have proven to be inadequate to the challenges of the climate crisis, so we have decided on a different approach. The fund will be capitalised with contributions from fossil-fuel countries and companies and will catalyse the private sector. Any developing country will be eligible [to receive money from] the fund.”
But contributions to the fund will be voluntary and no mechanism is proposed to force the countries and companies most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions to pay into it.
This falls well short of the levy on fossil fuels that some campaigners have been calling for. Bronwen Tucker, the public finance lead at the campaign group Oil Change International, said: “This is a dangerous distraction from the strong new climate finance goal and national plans that Cop29 must ensure for a fair, full and fast fossil fuel phase-out.”
However, setting up the fund at Cop29 does represent a first attempt within the UN climate negotiations to link fossil fuel-producing countries and industries, which produce the bulk of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, with a responsibility to help poor countries pay for the consequences they face from the climate crisis.
Harjeet Singh, the global engagement director at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said: “While the announcement of a new fund for developing countries echoes the longstanding demands for holding the fossil fuel industry accountable, it must not serve as a free pass for continued extraction of gas, oil and coal.
“The fossil fuel industry has caused the climate crisis and must be adequately penalised to pay for the transition and climate damages.”
Azerbaijan is seeking at least $1bn from at least 10 countries and big companies to capitalise the fund. The fund will be headquartered in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital, and its overseeing board will be made up of representatives from the contributors, and will be independent of existing multilateral development banks, including the World Bank.
Tucker said: “Polluters must pay for their climate crimes on the scale of trillions, not with a $1bn voluntary fund that gives Big Oil decision-making powers. Fossil fuel interests have knowingly and systematically blocked, delayed and undermined necessary climate solutions and shouldn’t have a seat at the table.”
Azerbaijan has not yet been specific about its own contribution to the fund, though it has pledged to make one. No other countries have yet signed up.
The fund will not invest in any fossil fuels, including gas. Any profits generated by the fund, for instance by investing in renewable energy, will be ploughed back into the fund, so there will be no opportunity for profit-taking by private sector investors and governments.
Bob Ward, a policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, warned: “The Climate Finance Action Fund could be regarded as climate-washing if it is intended to alleviate the pressure to phase out oil, coal and gas.”
Azerbaijan also made a series of other announcements on its presidency, including reiterating its wish for Cop29 to be a “peace Cop”, with the potential for requesting warring in November.
Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, who has been visiting his home in Grenada where the houses of relatives were severely damaged by Hurricane Beryl, called on all countries to produce stronger plans to cut emissions, and to assist the poor countries worst hit by the climate crisis.
“The significance of this process [the Cop, or conference of the parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] is that it is humanity’s best hope of solving the climate crisis, achieving decarbonisation and building climate resilience,” he said. “This process does deliver results, as we have seen.”
UN chief urges wealthy countries to beat fossil fuel ‘addiction’ amid expansions
Sat, 20 July 2024
An oil rig in the Caspian Sea near Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2017. The country is hosting the Cop29 UN summit this November.Photograph: Grigory Dukor/Reuters
Fossil-fuel producing countries and companies are being asked to pay into a new international fund to help poor countries cope with the effects of the climate crisis.
The climate investment fund is being set up by the Azerbaijan government, host country of the Cop29 UN climate summit in November.
The Climate Finance Action Fund will take financial contributions from fossil-fuel-producing countries and companies and use the money to invest in projects in the developing world that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help build resilience to the impacts of extreme weather.
Yalchin Rafiyev, the chief negotiator for the Cop29 presidency, said: “Traditional funding methods have proven to be inadequate to the challenges of the climate crisis, so we have decided on a different approach. The fund will be capitalised with contributions from fossil-fuel countries and companies and will catalyse the private sector. Any developing country will be eligible [to receive money from] the fund.”
But contributions to the fund will be voluntary and no mechanism is proposed to force the countries and companies most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions to pay into it.
This falls well short of the levy on fossil fuels that some campaigners have been calling for. Bronwen Tucker, the public finance lead at the campaign group Oil Change International, said: “This is a dangerous distraction from the strong new climate finance goal and national plans that Cop29 must ensure for a fair, full and fast fossil fuel phase-out.”
However, setting up the fund at Cop29 does represent a first attempt within the UN climate negotiations to link fossil fuel-producing countries and industries, which produce the bulk of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, with a responsibility to help poor countries pay for the consequences they face from the climate crisis.
Harjeet Singh, the global engagement director at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said: “While the announcement of a new fund for developing countries echoes the longstanding demands for holding the fossil fuel industry accountable, it must not serve as a free pass for continued extraction of gas, oil and coal.
“The fossil fuel industry has caused the climate crisis and must be adequately penalised to pay for the transition and climate damages.”
Azerbaijan is seeking at least $1bn from at least 10 countries and big companies to capitalise the fund. The fund will be headquartered in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital, and its overseeing board will be made up of representatives from the contributors, and will be independent of existing multilateral development banks, including the World Bank.
Tucker said: “Polluters must pay for their climate crimes on the scale of trillions, not with a $1bn voluntary fund that gives Big Oil decision-making powers. Fossil fuel interests have knowingly and systematically blocked, delayed and undermined necessary climate solutions and shouldn’t have a seat at the table.”
Azerbaijan has not yet been specific about its own contribution to the fund, though it has pledged to make one. No other countries have yet signed up.
The fund will not invest in any fossil fuels, including gas. Any profits generated by the fund, for instance by investing in renewable energy, will be ploughed back into the fund, so there will be no opportunity for profit-taking by private sector investors and governments.
Bob Ward, a policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, warned: “The Climate Finance Action Fund could be regarded as climate-washing if it is intended to alleviate the pressure to phase out oil, coal and gas.”
Azerbaijan also made a series of other announcements on its presidency, including reiterating its wish for Cop29 to be a “peace Cop”, with the potential for requesting warring in November.
Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, who has been visiting his home in Grenada where the houses of relatives were severely damaged by Hurricane Beryl, called on all countries to produce stronger plans to cut emissions, and to assist the poor countries worst hit by the climate crisis.
“The significance of this process [the Cop, or conference of the parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] is that it is humanity’s best hope of solving the climate crisis, achieving decarbonisation and building climate resilience,” he said. “This process does deliver results, as we have seen.”
UN chief urges wealthy countries to beat fossil fuel ‘addiction’ amid expansions
Oliver Milman in New York
Thu, 25 July 2024
António Guterres said the world’s wealthiest countries need to scrap fossil fuel subsidies.
Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The world’s wealthiest countries are “signing away our future” by leading a “flood” of expansion in fossil fuel activity that threatens worsening heatwaves and other climate impacts that imperil billions of people, the head of the United Nations has warned.
António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, on Thursday called on countries to “fight the disease” of the world’s “addiction” to coal, oil and gas, warning that tumbling heat records this week must spur rich nations to lead the way in phasing out fossil fuels.
“I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” Guterres said in a speech in New York. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future. The leadership of those with the greatest capabilities and capacities is essential. Countries must phase out fossil fuels – fast and fairly.”
Related: Canada is proposing to lead on climate – but it’s doubling down on oil
The remarks come a day after the Guardian revealed how a surge in fresh oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating gases, around the annual emissions of China, over the lifetime of the new drilling projects. Wealthy countries, such as the US and the UK, with a low economic dependence on fossil fuels have led this charge, handing out a record 825 oil and gas licenses last year.
Guterres said the world’s wealthiest countries need to scrap fossil fuel subsidies, end new coal projects and support developing, vulnerable countries from climate impacts such as heatwaves, flooding and droughts. “Leaders across the board must wake up and step up,” the secretary general said.
The mounting toll of the climate crisis has been brought into focus this week, with the record for the highest daily average global temperature falling on Sunday, and then again on Monday. The world has experienced 13 consecutive months of record heat, with this year expected to beat the annual temperature record, set just in 2023.
Already this summer, severe heatwaves have swept the US, Europe and Japan, while at least 1,300 people died making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The UN on Thursday released a new report calling for countries to do more to protect people from extreme heat, pointing to data showing that about 489,000 people died each year from 2000 to 2019 from heat-related deaths, nearly half of them in Asia and a third occurring in Europe. New data from the International Labour Organization shows that more than 70% of the global workforce, approximately 2.4 billion people, are now at risk from extreme heat.
Guterres urged governments to increase access to low-carbon cooling, redesign cities to cope with extreme heat, protect vulnerable people – such as outdoor workers, pregnant women, children and elderly and disabled people – and build up early-warning systems to prepare for deadly heatwaves.
“Extreme heat amplifies inequality, inflames food insecurity and pushes people further into poverty,” he said. “If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it’s that we’re all increasingly feeling the heat. Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere.”
Related: ‘This used to be a beautiful place’: how the US became the world’s biggest fossil fuel state
Guterres added: “To tackle all these symptoms, we need to fight the disease. The disease is the madness of incinerating our only home. The disease is the addiction to fossil fuels. The disease is climate inaction.”
Wealthy countries have roundly defended their climate credentials, although there is a growing recognition that expanding oil and gas production is incompatible with a scenario in which the world manages to limit dangerous global heating.
Energy security, as well as the imperative to deal with the climate crisis, demands countries like the UK “get off fossil fuels”, Ed Miliband, the UK’s secretary of state for energy security and net zero, told the BBC on Thursday.
“You look around the world, this is the new logic that developing countries, developed countries are recognizing,” he said. “Unless we drive for clean energy we are exposed – we are going to end that exposure.”
The world’s wealthiest countries are “signing away our future” by leading a “flood” of expansion in fossil fuel activity that threatens worsening heatwaves and other climate impacts that imperil billions of people, the head of the United Nations has warned.
António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, on Thursday called on countries to “fight the disease” of the world’s “addiction” to coal, oil and gas, warning that tumbling heat records this week must spur rich nations to lead the way in phasing out fossil fuels.
“I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” Guterres said in a speech in New York. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future. The leadership of those with the greatest capabilities and capacities is essential. Countries must phase out fossil fuels – fast and fairly.”
Related: Canada is proposing to lead on climate – but it’s doubling down on oil
The remarks come a day after the Guardian revealed how a surge in fresh oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating gases, around the annual emissions of China, over the lifetime of the new drilling projects. Wealthy countries, such as the US and the UK, with a low economic dependence on fossil fuels have led this charge, handing out a record 825 oil and gas licenses last year.
Guterres said the world’s wealthiest countries need to scrap fossil fuel subsidies, end new coal projects and support developing, vulnerable countries from climate impacts such as heatwaves, flooding and droughts. “Leaders across the board must wake up and step up,” the secretary general said.
The mounting toll of the climate crisis has been brought into focus this week, with the record for the highest daily average global temperature falling on Sunday, and then again on Monday. The world has experienced 13 consecutive months of record heat, with this year expected to beat the annual temperature record, set just in 2023.
Already this summer, severe heatwaves have swept the US, Europe and Japan, while at least 1,300 people died making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The UN on Thursday released a new report calling for countries to do more to protect people from extreme heat, pointing to data showing that about 489,000 people died each year from 2000 to 2019 from heat-related deaths, nearly half of them in Asia and a third occurring in Europe. New data from the International Labour Organization shows that more than 70% of the global workforce, approximately 2.4 billion people, are now at risk from extreme heat.
Guterres urged governments to increase access to low-carbon cooling, redesign cities to cope with extreme heat, protect vulnerable people – such as outdoor workers, pregnant women, children and elderly and disabled people – and build up early-warning systems to prepare for deadly heatwaves.
“Extreme heat amplifies inequality, inflames food insecurity and pushes people further into poverty,” he said. “If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it’s that we’re all increasingly feeling the heat. Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere.”
Related: ‘This used to be a beautiful place’: how the US became the world’s biggest fossil fuel state
Guterres added: “To tackle all these symptoms, we need to fight the disease. The disease is the madness of incinerating our only home. The disease is the addiction to fossil fuels. The disease is climate inaction.”
Wealthy countries have roundly defended their climate credentials, although there is a growing recognition that expanding oil and gas production is incompatible with a scenario in which the world manages to limit dangerous global heating.
Energy security, as well as the imperative to deal with the climate crisis, demands countries like the UK “get off fossil fuels”, Ed Miliband, the UK’s secretary of state for energy security and net zero, told the BBC on Thursday.
“You look around the world, this is the new logic that developing countries, developed countries are recognizing,” he said. “Unless we drive for clean energy we are exposed – we are going to end that exposure.”
No comments:
Post a Comment