The global energy crisis can be a historic turning point towards a cleaner and more secure future

on October 28, 2022
By Newsroom


The global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system, according to the latest edition of the IEA’s World Energy Outlook.

Today’s energy crisis is delivering a shock of unprecedented breadth and complexity. The biggest tremors have been felt in the markets for natural gas, coal and electricity – with significant turmoil in oil markets as well, necessitating two oil stock releases of unparalleled scale by IEA member countries to avoid even more severe disruptions. With unrelenting geopolitical and economic concerns, energy markets remain extremely vulnerable, and the crisis is a reminder of the fragility and unsustainability of the current global energy system, the World Energy Outlook 2022 (WEO) warns.

The WEO’s analysis finds scant evidence to support claims from some quarters that climate policies and net zero commitments contributed to the run-up in energy prices. In the most affected regions, higher shares of renewables were correlated with lower electricity prices – and more efficient homes and electrified heat have provided an important buffer for some consumers, albeit far from enough. The heaviest burden is falling on poorer households where a larger share of income is spent on energy.

Alongside short-term measures to try to shield consumers from the impacts of the crisis, many governments are now taking longer-term steps. Some are seeking to increase or diversify oil and gas supplies, and many are looking to accelerate structural changes. The most notable responses include the US Inflation Reduction Act, the EU’s Fit for 55 package and REPowerEU, Japan’s Green Transformation (GX) programme, Korea’s aim to increase the share of nuclear and renewables in its energy mix, and ambitious clean energy targets in China and India.

In the WEO’s Stated Policies Scenario, which is based on the latest policy settings worldwide, these new measures help propel global clean energy investment to more than USD 2 trillion a year by 2030, a rise of more than 50% from today. As markets rebalance in this scenario, the upside for coal from today’s crisis is temporary as renewables, supported by nuclear power, see sustained gains. As a result, a high point for global emissions is reached in 2025. At the same time, international energy markets undergo a profound reorientation in the 2020s as countries adjust to the rupture of Russia-Europe flows.

“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Even with today’s policy settings, the energy world is shifting dramatically before our eyes. Government responses around the world promise to make this a historic and definitive turning point towards a cleaner, more affordable and more secure energy system.”

For the first time ever, a WEO scenario based on today’s prevailing policy settings – in this case, the Stated Policies Scenario – has global demand for every fossil fuel exhibiting a peak or plateau. In this scenario, coal use falls back within the next few years, natural gas demand reaches a plateau by the end of the decade, and rising sales of electric vehicles (EVs) mean that oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s before ebbing slightly to mid-century. This means that total demand for fossil fuels declines steadily from the mid-2020s to 2050 by an annual average roughly equivalent to the lifetime output of a large oil field. The declines are much faster and more pronounced in the WEO’s more climate-focused scenarios.

Global fossil fuel use has grown alongside GDP since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century: putting this rise into reverse will be a pivotal moment in energy history. The share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix in the Stated Policies Scenario falls from around 80% to just above 60% by 2050. Global CO2 emissions fall back slowly from a high point of 37 billion tonnes per year to 32 billion tonnes by 2050. This would be associated with a rise of around 2.5 °C in global average temperatures by 2100, far from enough to avoid severe climate change impacts. Full achievement of all climate pledges would move the world towards safer ground, but there is still a large gap between today’s pledges and a stabilisation of the rise in global temperatures around 1.5 °C.

Today’s growth rates for deployment of solar PV, wind, EVs and batteries, if maintained, would lead to a much faster transformation than projected in the Stated Policies Scenario, although this would require supportive policies not just in the early leading markets for these technologies but across the world. Supply chains for some key technologies – including batteries, solar PV and electrolysers – are expanding at rates that support greater global ambition. If all announced manufacturing expansion plans for solar PV see the light of day, manufacturing capacity would exceed the deployment levels in the Announced Pledges Scenario in 2030 by around 75%. In the case of electrolysers for hydrogen production, the potential excess of capacity of all announced projects is around 50%.

Stronger policies will be essential to drive the huge increase in energy investment that is needed to reduce the risks of future price spikes and volatility, according to this year’s WEO. Subdued investment due to lower prices in the 2015-2020 period made the energy sector much more vulnerable to the sort of disruptions we have seen in 2022. While clean energy investment rises above USD 2 trillion by 2030 in the States Policies Scenario, it would need to be above USD 4 trillion by the same date in the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, highlighting the need to attract new investors to the energy sector. And major international efforts are still urgently required to narrow the worrying divide in clean energy investment levels between advanced economies and emerging and developing economies.

“The environmental case for clean energy needed no reinforcement, but the economic arguments in favour of cost-competitive and affordable clean technologies are now stronger – and so too is the energy security case. Today’s alignment of economic, climate and security priorities has already started to move the dial towards a better outcome for the world’s people and for the planet,” Dr Birol said.

“It is essential to bring everyone on board, especially at a time when geopolitical fractures on energy and climate are all the more visible,” he said. “This means redoubling efforts to ensure that a broad coalition of countries has a stake in the new energy economy. The journey to a more secure and sustainable energy system may not be a smooth one. But today’s crisis makes it crystal clear why we need to press ahead.”

Russia has been by far the world’s largest exporter of fossil fuels, but its invasion of Ukraine is prompting a wholesale reorientation of global energy trade, leaving it with a much-diminished position. All Russia’s trade ties with Europe based on fossil fuels had ultimately been undercut in previous WEO scenarios by Europe’s net zero ambitions, but Russia’s ability to deliver at relatively low cost meant that it lost ground only gradually. Now the rupture has come with a speed that few imagined possible. Russian fossil fuel exports never return – in any of the scenarios in this year’s WEO – to the levels seen in 2021, with Russia’s reorientation to Asian markets particularly challenging in the case of natural gas. Russia’s share of internationally traded energy, which stood at close to 20% in 2021, falls to 13% in 2030 the Stated Policies Scenario, while the shares of both the United States and the Middle East rise.

For gas consumers, the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter promises to be a perilous moment and a testing time for EU solidarity – and the winter of 2023-24 could be even tougher. But in the longer term, one of the effects of Russia’s recent actions is that the era of rapid growth in gas demand draws to a close. In the Stated Policies Scenario, the scenario that sees the highest gas use, global demand rises by less than 5% between 2021 and 2030 and then remains flat through to 2050. Momentum behind gas in developing economies has slowed, notably in South and Southeast Asia, putting a dent in the credentials of gas as a transition fuel.

“Amid the major changes taking place, a new energy security paradigm is needed to ensure reliability and affordability while reducing emissions,” Dr Birol said. “That is why this year’s WEO provides 10 principles that can help guide policymakers through the period when declining fossil fuel and expanding clean energy systems co-exist, since both systems are required to function well during energy transitions in order to deliver the energy services needed by consumers. And as the world moves on from today’s energy crisis, it needs to avoid new vulnerabilities arising from high and volatile critical mineral prices or highly concentrated clean energy supply chains”

Inadequate progress on climate action makes rapid transformation of societies only option

on October 30, 2022
By Newsroom


As intensifying climate impacts across the globe hammer home the message that greenhouse gas emissions must fall rapidly, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds that the international community is still falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place.

However, the Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies finds that urgent sector and system-wide transformations – in the electricity supply, industry, transport and buildings sectors, and the food and financial systems – would help to avoid climate disaster.

“This report tells us in cold scientific terms what nature has been telling us, all year, through deadly floods, storms and raging fires: we have to stop filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and stop doing it fast,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.”

A wasted year

The report finds that, despite a decision by all countries at the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, UK (COP26) to strengthen Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and some updates from nations, progress has been woefully inadequate. NDCs submitted this year take only 0.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, less than one per cent, off projected global emissions in 2030.

This lack of progress leaves the world hurtling towards a temperature rise far above the Paris Agreement goal of well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C. Unconditional NDCs are estimated to give a 66 per cent chance of limiting global warming to about 2.6°C over the century. For conditional NDCs, those that are dependent on external support, this figure is reduced to 2.4°C. Current policies alone would lead to a 2.8°C hike, highlighting the temperature implications of the gap between promises and action.

In the best-case scenario, full implementation of unconditional NDCs and additional net-zero emissions commitments point to only a 1.8°C increase, so there is hope. However, this scenario is not currently credible based on the discrepancy between current emissions, short-term NDC targets and long-term net-zero targets.

Unprecedented cuts needed

To meet the Paris Agreement goals, the world needs to reduce greenhouse gases by unprecedented levels over the next eight years.

Unconditional and conditional NDCs are estimated to reduce global emissions in 2030 by 5 and 10 per cent respectively, compared with emissions based on policies currently in place. To get on a least-cost pathway to holding global warming to 1.5°C, emissions must fall by 45 per cent over those envisaged under current policies by 2030. For the 2°C target, a 30 per cent cut is needed.

Such massive cuts mean that we need a large-scale, rapid and systemic transformation. The report explores how to deliver part of this transformation in key sectors and systems.

“It is a tall, and some would say impossible, order to reform the global economy and almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try,” said Andersen. “Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to species and ecosystems, and to every one of us.”

“Even if we don’t meet our 2030 goals, we must strive to get as close as possible to 1.5°C. This means setting up the foundations of a net-zero future: one that will allow us to bring down temperature overshoots and deliver many other social and environmental benefits, like clean air, green jobs and universal energy access.”

Electricity, industry, transport and buildings

The report finds that the transformation towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in electricity supply, industry, transportation and buildings is underway, but needs to move much faster. Electricity supply is most advanced, as the costs of renewable electricity have reduced dramatically. However, the pace of change must increase alongside measures to ensure a just transition and universal energy access.

For buildings, the best available technologies need to be rapidly applied. For industry and transport, zero emission technology needs to be further developed and deployed. To advance the transformation, all sectors need to avoid lock in of new fossil fuel-intensive infrastructure, advance zero-carbon technology and apply it, and pursue behavioural changes.

Food systems can reform to deliver rapid and lasting cuts

Focus areas for food systems, which account for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions, include protection of natural ecosystems, demand-side dietary changes, improvements in food production at the farm level and decarbonization of food supply chains. Action in these four areas can reduce projected 2050 food system emissions to around a third of current levels, as opposed to emissions almost doubling if current practices are continued.

Governments can facilitate transformation by reforming subsidies and tax schemes. The private sector can reduce food loss and waste, use renewable energy and develop novel foods that cut down carbon emissions. Individual citizens can change their lifestyles to consume food for environmental sustainability and carbon reduction, which will also bring many health benefits.

The financial system must enable the transformation

A global transformation to a low-emissions economy is expected to require investments of at least USD 4-6 trillion a year. This is a relatively small (1.5-2 per cent) share of total financial assets managed, but significant (20-28 per cent) in terms of additional annual resources to be allocated.

Most financial actors, despite stated intentions, have shown limited action on climate mitigation because of short-term interests, conflicting objectives and not recognizing climate risks adequately.

Governments and key financial actors will need to steer credibly in one direction: a transformation of the financial system and its structures and processes, engaging governments, central banks, commercial banks, institutional investors and other financial actors.

The report recommends six approaches to financial sector reform, which must be carried out simultaneously:Make financial markets more efficient, including through taxonomies and transparency.
Introduce carbon pricing, such as taxes or cap-and-trade systems.

Nudge financial behaviour, through public policy interventions, taxes, spending and regulations.
Create markets for low-carbon technology, through shifting financial flows, stimulating innovation and helping to set standards.

Mobilize central banks: central banks are increasingly interested in addressing the climate crisis, but more concrete action on regulations is needed.

Set up climate “clubs” of cooperating countries, cross-border finance initiatives and just transformation partnerships, which can alter policy norms and change the course of finance through credible financial commitment devices, such as sovereign guarantees.

How Not to Offer Climate Finance

BY PATRICK BOND - DES D’SA

OCTOBER 24, 2022
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Photo by Anna Jiménez Calaf

Thorny questions for Western and South African “Just Energy Transition Partnership” negotiators

What kind of monetary carrot is needed to help high-polluting middle-income countries to rapidly decarbonize? Mainly because of a South African pilot project supposedly worth $8.5 billion, the worlds of high finance and climate justice are colliding, with unfortunate results expected at the United Nations climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

When the COP27 opens on November 6, a high-profile climate finance deal will be signed by climate policymakers from Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels on one side, and from Pretoria and parastatal electricity firm Eskom’s Johannesburg headquarters on the other. On October 19, South Africa’s Cabinet approved – and the Presidential Climate Commission endorsed – the deal, but details are still murky.

In Glasgow a year ago, Western leaders had promised $8.5 billion for a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) that would serve as the world’s decarbonization model. Since then, the concept has taken root in Indonesia, Senegal and Vietnam – although Indian negotiators are reportedly opposed to the emphasis on cutting coal.

Since then, persistent delays and non-transparent processes mean crucial details have been hidden from the view of both South Africans and Western taxpayer contributors to the JETP.

That leaves us with ten sets of critical questions.

1) First, will the JETP (plus the German government’s additional contribution of an extra $340 million announced on October 5) provide Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter with new foreign loans that, in part, encourage the parastatal to repay existing “Odious Debt,” i.e. loans from the same countries’ financiers, that it really should not be repaying on sound anti-corruption and also climate grounds?

Specifically, two fragile coal-fired power stations – Medupi and Kusile – cost not the original $9 billion promised, but instead closer to $25 billion, and most of it is debt-financed. Then-Eskom chair Valli Moosa awarded the main boiler procurement contracts to Hitachi in 2007, just after the Tokyo firm gifted 25% of Hitachi Power Africa to the ruling party’s funding arm Chancellor House.

That act was termed “outrageous” by CorruptionWatch because at the time Moosa was also an ANC Finance Committee member, resulting in the Public Protector’s 2009 finding of “improper” conflicts-of-interest management by Moosa, followed by Hitachi’s 2015 bribery prosecution in Washington – and $19 million fine – under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

There was no subsequent South African prosecution, though it was easily the most expensive case of local state capture by a multinational corporation. Extraordinarily, Moosa now is the main manager of the Presidential Climate Change Commission, which has a major role in the JETP.

Should new JETP loans enable repayment of interest on Odious Debt, instead of challenging these Ponzi-style lenders (i.e. whose new loans mainly cover interest repayment on old loans) to take a haircut, as punishmnet for funding the fraud-filled, ultra-polluting power plants?

2) Second, why specifically give the World Bank a central role in JETP management?

A protest at the World Bank’s Johannesburg office on October 14 drew scores of community and environmental activists insisting not only on the Odious Debt’s cancellation, since a 2010 Medupi credit of $3.75 billion was the lender’s largest ever project loan.

Moreover, two decades ago, the Bank made a venture capital investment in what became a massive coal mine bordering Hluhluwe-iMfolozi nature reserve (Africa’s oldest), displacing hundreds of residents but without having obtained legally-required environmental permission. On October 20, 2020, leading anti-coal activist Fikile Ntshangase was assassinated there, at a crucial point in the struggle against coal mine expansion, resulting in her lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi demanding reparations: the return of mine profits worth millions of dollars to the victimized community.

Anti-Bank protesters also demanded an end to its financing of a Richards Bay Liquefied Natural Gas terminal.

Last month, Al Gore called for firing of the institution’s president, (Trump-appointed) David Malpass, due to his “ridiculous” climate denialism, but the problem is evident when other staff push methane gas projects or demand Medupi debt repayment.

3) Will the JETP allow De Ruyter to use 44% of incoming funding for methane gas-fired power plant construction even though methane is 85 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 over next 20 years?

Given that JETP funding for Eskom is “fungible,” finance needed for De Ruyter’s two preferred methane gas power plants – 3000 MW at Richards Bay and 1000 MW at Komati, together costing R85 billion – will be freed up as it comes from the same pool to be used for solar and wind generation. Won’t JETP inflows allow Eskom’s coal addiction to be replaced by methane gas dependency?

4) Will JETP partners permit Eskom’s meth addiction because they believe – as does the European Union’s “sustainable finance taxonomy” – that gas (and nuclear energy) can be considered “green”?

Politicians in Brussels are obviously panicking about Russian sanctions – but won’t their July determination threaten the credibility of inclement (2026) EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism climate-based trade sanctions against high-carbon South African steel, cement, fertilizers, aluminium, and electricity generation (the tariffs on which are in turn based on an EU Emissions Trading Scheme that does include methane and nitrous oxide emissions)?

5) Does the JETP turn a blind eye to – thus rewarding – De Ruyter’s many extremely unjust, racist Eskom policies?

One is “Load Reduction” energy racism, which disconnects black townships far more frequently than white neighbourhoods.

Another is his requested 32% increase in 2023 tariffs, plus his phase-out of residual pro-poor cross subsidies to black homeowners.

A third is permitting ongoing Eskom power plants’ violations of Air Quality Act regulations (by a factor 3200 times accepted levels), which kill 2200 residents in the vicinity of power plants and coal mines annually, and produce the world’s worst SO2 pollution.

6) Must the JETP financing come in the form of loans, which may be called ‘concessional’ – but aren’t there crucial caveats?

Surely any JETP representing a genuine carrot would take the form of grants, given South Africa’s existing $174 billion foreign debt (up from $25 billion when liberation was won in 1994)?

Unfortunately, as Climate Home News sources report, “less than 3% of the money will be delivered as grants, with the rest split between concessional and commercial loans.”

Moreover, will JETP loans be denominated in the West’s dollar, pound and euro currencies? If so, what with the Rand crashing from R14/$ to R18/$ in recent months, then what effective real interest rate should be assumed for repayment into a future with much further depreciation?

And if the JETP is actually quite expensive as the currency crashes and as exports fall once the commodity boom is over, why not issue local-currency bonds for Eskom decarbonization instead, given South Africa’s exceptionally liquid financial markets (with one of the world’s highest-ever “Buffett Indicator” ratios of stock market capitalization to GDP)?

Indeed, what hard-currency spending is truly required for core Just Transition mandates such as re-employment opportunities and climate adaptation – i.e., climate-proofing infrastructure and housing to withstand rain bombs, or irrigation to beat the droughts – where workers are paid in the local Rand currency and most materials are acquired locally, not imported?

And in future, won’t the interest rate on funding through an expanded JETP soar, if as Environment Minister Barbara Creecy said on October 20, “what we’re very sincerely hoping is that [the plan] would create appetite from the private sector and would begin to mobilise the significant quantities of financing that we’re going to need over the next ten years.”

At present, given Pretoria’s (and Eskom’s) junk rating, the interest rate demanded from international financiers for 10-year bonds is more than 10% (fifth highest among countries issuing such bonds), making such private participation exceptionally expensive.

7) Did Western JETP negotiators conduct any genuine consultation with the most vigorous community, labor and environmental critics of Eskom?

Indeed, do South Africa’s main JETP negotiators – especially former central banker Daniel Mminele and National Business Initiative leader Joanne Yawitch – have any track record of promoting climate justice alongside these social forces?

8) Will JETP funding be directed not only to Eskom but also to other multinational for-profit corporations including high-carbon auto and petrochemical companies?

Recent reports suggest the JETP will partly aim to kickstart an elite Electric Vehicle market, especially from South African assembly lines run by German climate-cheaters VW, Mercedes and BMW, hence attracting Berlin’s conflicted-interest state financing. Won’t these subsidized auto exports be sent to very wealthy customers abroad, as is desired by trade minister Ebrahim Patel, on top of $1.7 billion worth of existing irrational annual subsidies for petrol and diesel cars?

And the funding may also subsidize the “green hydrogen” fantasies of one of the world’s worst polluters, Sasol. Privatized in 2000 followed by a New York stock market listing, the apartheid-era firm was originally state-owned, getting its main boost from 1970s-80s oil sanctions.

The world’s single worst point source of CO2 emissions comes when Sasol’s Secunda refinery inefficiently squeezes massive amounts of coal to generate liquid petrol, emitting CO2 at a rate of 60 million tonnes annually (12% of the country’s total). Its racially-biased ecological wreckage is notorious from South Africa to a failed $12 billion investment in Lake Charles, Louisiana that De Ruyter promoted.

Just as German chancellor Olaf Scholz visited South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in May to purchase more coal, his state website acknowledged the “original sin” role of Sasol’s Nazi-era Fischer-Tropsch coal-to-liquid technology. Yet, won’t JETP finance soon amplify Sasol’s profits by directing South Africa’s currently-scarce solar energy into green hydrogen – for export (especially to Germany) – while local residents remain disconnected?

9) In advance of the United Nations COP27, will the long-delayed conclusion of the JETP artificially boost the (generally fake) green credentials of the main Western polluters, as happened in Glasgow in November 2021?

Won’t such applause be terribly inappropriate given the timing, just as Germany is importing several millions tonnes of South African coal for its rebooted power plants due to Russian sanctions, and the UK Conservative Party commits to new methane gas fracking?

10) And speaking of glaring hypocrisy, the West is not alone, for isn’t Pretoria’s sub-imperial fossil ambition increasingly lethal, when deploying 1200 SA National Defence Force troops to northern Mozambique to defend Paris-based TotalEnergies, Houston-based ExxonMobil and other multinationals drilling for 125 trillion cubic feet of gas, in a war zone that has left a million people displaced and thousands dead, just as climate-fueled cyclones on the coast become more intense?

If in coming years, as Eskom injects gas in the form of Mozambique’s “Blood-Methane” LNG – or Total’s Brulpadda/Luiperd methane from offshore South Africa – into the national grid, won’t that infrastructure become a stranded asset, as even the National Business Initiative warns?

Given these contradictions, those committed to climate justice – in the West and everywhere – should consider endorsing a February call by South Africa’s Climate Justice Charter Movement, for sanctions against US, UK and European taxpayers’ financing of the JETP?

Of course, no one should oppose a JETP if these questions are resolved , and especially if the Western super-polluters concede the $8.5 billion is simply its downpayment on long-overdue “climate reparations” to Africa. The polluters should compensate poorer countries for leaving fossil fuels underground, as well as covering growing climate-proofing adaptation costs and extreme-weather Loss & Damage expenses.

Such a policy of recognizing the climate debt – and providing compensation for leaving fossil fuels underground – will help all Africans fight their own national leaders (like Ramaphosa) and transnational oil companies.

Notwithstanding ongoing protests at African oil conferences from London to Cape Town and the activist appeal “don’t gas Africa!” – the continent’s elites ever more incessantly claim that oil industry “development” is due Africa and that fossil-fuel profits will trickle down to the continent’s masses, all evidence to the contrary.

So, given the balance of forces, these ten reasonable sets of questions will not even be considered by establishment negotiators, much less answered satisfactorily. Protesters here in South Africa targeting high emitters on November 12 – a global day of action – aim to keep the world aware of how much more reform is needed before South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership is actually worthy of that name.

Bond is distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg; D’Sa coordinates the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance.

Patrick Bond is professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. He can be reached at: pbond@mail.ngo.za. Des D’Sa coordinates the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance; Patrick Bond teaches at the University of Johannesburg Department of Sociology.

Climate crisis: UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’

Failure to cut carbon emissions means ‘rapid transformation of societies’ is only option to limit impacts, report says

                                      A firefighter sets fire to land in an attempt to prevent wildfires from spreading in Gironde, south-west France. A rise in global temperature of 1C to date has already contributed to climate disasters. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images

Damian Carrington Environment editor

@dpcarrington

Thu 27 Oct 2022 

There is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”, the UN’s environment agency has said, and the failure to reduce carbon emissions means the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”.

The UN environment report analysed the gap between the CO2 cuts pledged by countries and the cuts needed to limit any rise in global temperature to 1.5C, the internationally agreed target. Progress has been “woefully inadequate” it concluded.

Current pledges for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C and catastrophic extreme weather around the world. A rise of 1C to date has caused climate disasters in locations from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.

If the long-term pledges by countries to hit net zero emissions by 2050 were delivered, global temperature would rise by 1.8C. But the glacial pace of action means meeting even this temperature limit was not credible, the UN report said.

Countries agreed at the Cop26 climate summit a year ago to increase their pledges. But with Cop27 looming, only a couple of dozen have done so and the new pledges would shave just 1% off emissions in 2030. Global emissions must fall by almost 50% by that date to keep the 1.5C target alive.

Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “This report tells us in cold scientific terms what nature has been telling us all year through deadly floods, storms and raging fires: we have to stop filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and stop doing it fast.

“We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.

“It is a tall, and some would say impossible, order to reform the global economy and almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try,” she said. “Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to ecosystems, and to every one of us.”

Andersen said action would also bring cleaner air, green jobs and access to electricity for millions.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “Emissions remain at dangerous and record highs and are still rising. We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all.”

Prof David King, a former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “The report is a dire warning to all countries – none of whom are doing anywhere near enough to manage the climate emergency.”

The report found that existing carbon-cutting policies would cause 2.8C of warming, while pledged policies cut this to 2.6C. Further pledges, dependent on funding flowing from richer to poorer countries, cut this again to 2.4C.

New reports from the International Energy Agency and the UN’s climate body reached similarly stark conclusions, with the latter finding that the national pledges barely cut projected emissions in 2030 at all, compared with 2019 levels.

The UNEP report said the required societal transformation could be achieved through government action, including on regulation and taxes, redirecting the international financial system, and changes to consumer behaviour.

It said the transition to green electricity, transport and buildings was under way, but needed to move faster. All sectors had to avoid locking in new fossil fuel infrastructure, contrary to plans in many countries, including the UK, to develop new oil and gas fields. A study published this week found “large consensus” across all published research that new oil and gas fields are “incompatible” with the 1.5C target.

The UNEP report said about a third of climate-heating emissions came from the global food system and these were set to double by 2050. But the sector could be transformed if governments changed farm subsidies – which are overwhelmingly harmful to the environment – and food taxes, cut food waste and helped develop new low-carbon foods.

Individual citizens could adopt greener, healthier diets as well, the report said.

Andersen said: “I’m not preaching one diet over another, but we need to be mindful that if we all want steak every night for dinner, it won’t compute.”

Redirecting global financial flows to green investments was vital, the report said. Most financial groups had shown limited action to date, despite their stated intentions, due to short-term interests, it said. A transformation to a low-emissions economy was expected to need at least $4tn-6tn a year in investment, the report said, about 2% of global financial assets.

Despite Andersen’s doubts that the necessary emission cuts can be made by 2030, she pointed to the plummeting costs of renewables, the rollout of electric transport, major climate legislation in the US, and moves by pension funds to back low-carbon investments.

“It’s my job to be the ever hopeful person, but [also] to be the realistic optimist,” she said. “[This report] is the mirror that we’re holding up to the world. Obviously, I want to be proven wrong and see countries taking ambitious steps. But so far, that’s not what we’ve seen.”

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Prolonged drought leaves many without food and water in PNG
/ LifeGate
By Pita Ligaiula
PINA
26 October 2022 

Many PNG residents are suffering from the detrimental effects of severe prolonged drought. PNG PM says his government will look at how best they can help those affected

The prolonged dry weather is affecting food and water sources for thousands of people throughout the country and there is a fear that many would die from starvation and water.

Reports coming in from around the country indicated that four months of severe sun and heat has cause food and water sources to dry up and there is a fear of people dying from lack of water and food if no help is forthcoming.

The Markham Valley, Menyamya, the East New Britain, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, New Ireland, Manus, parts of Madang, the Eastern Highlands, Simbu, the whole of the upper Highlands are all experiencing severe dry weather.

In the Southern Highlands, people from Poroma and Nembi Plateau in the NipaKuubtu, and other parts of the province are also feeling the pinch of the dry spell.

However, Prime Minister James Marape said his government will look at how best they can help those affected by the prolonged drought in certain parts of the country, especially in the New Guinea Islands, Mamose and Highlands regions.

He said there may be similar dry weather experienced in other parts of the country but they need to establish the facts before they look at how to deal with it.

He said the National Government will need information before it can look at how it can assist those affected, particularly the people experiencing food shortage and water sources drying up.


The Prime Minister urged the respective district development authorities to look at providing immediate relief assistance while waiting for the National Government to come up with the relief efforts and look at how best they can address the issues.

Marape said that when responding to questions without notice from the Member for Daulo, Ekime Gorosahu, who wanted to know if the government through the office of the Emergency and National Disaster has any plans to support the people affected by drought in his province and the nearby provinces like the Morobe Province.

Gorosahu said a prolonged dry season for almost four months has dried up food gardens and water sources and it was affecting the lives of the people.

He said many people will go without food and water and possibly starve to death if the dry weather continues for some more days.

In the Morobe Province, reports indicated that people of the vast Markham valley are running short of food and water and classes are affected due to the sun and strong heat. Similarly, the people of Menyamya are also experiencing shortage of food and water.

Reports have also surfaced that food crops and water is gradually drying up in some parts of the New Guinea islands, as in East New Britain, New Irelands, Manus, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and the West New Britain.

According to the news reports, many of the small islands are already missing out on food and water as water wells they depend on have dried up. Marape said they will come up with a programme that will assist everyone affected.

This story was written by Pita Ligaiula, originally published at PINA on 20 October 2022, reposted via PACNEWS.