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Tag: Eco-friendly practices

  • Travel companies are ‘greenwashing’ — here are 3 ways to find ones that aren’t

    Travel companies are ‘greenwashing’ — here are 3 ways to find ones that aren’t

    People said the pandemic made them want to travel more responsibly in the future.

    Now new data indicates they’re actually doing it.

    According to a report published in January by the World Travel & Tourism Council and Trip.com Group:

    • Nearly 60% of travelers have chosen more sustainable travel options in the last couple of years.
    • Nearly 70% are actively seeking sustainable travel options.

    But finding companies that are serious about sustainability isn’t easy, said James Thornton, CEO of tour company Intrepid Travel.  

    “You see hotels saying they’re sustainable, and then you’re using these little travel bottles for shampoos and shower gels,” he said.

    It’s all just “greenwashing,” he said, referencing the term that describes companies’ efforts to appear more environmentally sound than they are.

    For a company to say they’re “100% sustainable” or they’re “eco-conscious” …  doesn’t mean anything.

    James Thornton

    CEO, Intrepid Travel

    The term has risen in popularity alongside the increase in demand for sustainable products and services.

    The result is a mix of those who are truly dedicated to the cause — and those who sprinkle eco-buzzwords and photographs of seedlings, forests and other “green” imagery in their marketing materials, with no real action to back up their claims.

    Finding companies that are sustainable

    Be wary of these tactics, said Thornton.

    “For a company to say they’re ‘100% sustainable’ or they’re ‘eco-conscious’ …  doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “I would urge travelers to be very cautious when they’re seeing these words, and to really dig in and look in a bit more detail.”

    Consumer interest in sustainable travel has changed considerably in the past two decades, said Thornton. He said when he joined Intrepid travel 18 years ago, “people would look at us like we’re a bit crazy” when the company talked about sustainability.

    Now, many companies are doing it, whether they are serious, or not.

    Thornton said he believes the travel industry is currently divided into three categories. One third have “incredibly good intentions, and [are] working very actively on addressing the climate crisis … and they’re making good progress.”

    Another third have “good intentions but [aren’t] actually taking action yet. And often … they’re not quite sure how to take action.”

    The final third “is just utterly burying its head in the sand and hoping that this thing is going to go away, and the truth of the matter is — it isn’t.”

    To identify companies in the first category, Thornton recommends travelers look for three critical things.  

    1. A history of sustainability

    To ascertain whether a company may be jumping on the eco-bandwagon, examine its history, said Thornton.

    He advises looking for “a long history of association with issues of sustainability, or is this something that only just appeared?”

    Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton.

    Source: Intrepid Travel

    If the messaging is new for the company, that’s not a deal breaker, he said.

    “But that would then encourage the customer to probably want to look in a bit more detail to see if what a company actually does has rigor behind it,” he said, “Or whether it’s something that’s just being done for marketing sake — and therefore greenwashing.”

    2. Check for measurements

    Next, travelers should see if the company measures its greenhouse gas emissions, said Thornton.

    “The honest truth is that every travel company is ultimately contributing towards the climate crisis,” he said. “So the best thing any travel company can start to do is measure the greenhouse gas emissions it creates.”

    To do this, Thornton advised travelers to check the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism.

    “The Glasgow Declaration website lists the organizations that have agreed to actively reduce their emissions … and actually have a climate plan that shows how they’re doing that,” he said.

    Signatories must publish their climate plan, which is monitored by the United Nations World Tourism Organization, he said.

    “Consumers can use this as a way to check if the company they’re booking with is serious about decarbonization,” he said, adding that more than 700 organizations are on the list.

    Thornton said travelers can also check the Science Based Targets Initiative, which is a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

    Its website has a dashboard that details emission-reducing commitments made by more than 4,500 companies worldwide, including American Express Global Business Travel, the United Kingdom’s Reed & Mackay Travel and Australia’s Flight Centre Travel Group.

    3. Look for certifications

    Finally, travelers can check for independent accreditations, said Thornton.

    One of the most rigorous and impressive is the B Corp Certification, he said.

    “It took Intrepid three years to become a B Corp,” he said.

    Other companies with B Corp status include Seventh Generation, Ben & Jerry’s, Aesop — and Patagonia, which Thornton called “arguably the most famous B Corp in the world.”

    To get it, companies are reviewed by the non-profit B Lab and a certification lasts for three years, said Thornton.

    Kristen Graff, director of sales and marketing at Indonesia’s Bawah Reserve resort, agreed that B Corp is the “most widely respected” certification.

    “The other one is the Global Sustainable Tourism Council,” she said. “These actually do an audit and are legit.”

    Bawah Reserve, a resort in Indonesia’s Anambas Islands, is applying for B Corp certification. The resort uses solar power and desalinates drinking water on the island.

    Source: Bawah Reserve

    Other travel eco-certifications are less exacting, said Graff.

    “Many of them are just a racket to make money,” she said.

    Bawah Reserve started the process to become B Corp certified in November of 2022, said Graff. “We anticipate it will take about a year to complete,” she said.

    B Corp uses a sliding scale for its certifications fees, which start at $1,000 for companies with less than $1 million in annual revenue.

    “The cost is fairly minimal,” said Thornton, especially “if you’re serious about sustainability.”

    He said Intrepid pays about $25,000 a year for the certification.

    Other advice

    Thornton also advised travelers to ask questions like:

    • Are you using renewable energy sources?
    • Is the food locally sourced?
    • Are employees from local communities?
    • Who owns the hotel?

    He said there are places that are perceived to be sustainable but that are “actually owned by a casino.”

    Lastly, Thornton recommends travelers look to online reviews.

    “Often a little bit of research on Google … can give you a really good indication around whether a hotel or a travel experience is doing what it says it’s doing — or whether they’re actually greenwashing.”

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  • AP Interview: IMF chief urges targeted COVID policy in China

    AP Interview: IMF chief urges targeted COVID policy in China

    BERLIN — It is time for China to move away from massive lockdowns and toward a more targeted approach to COVID-19, the head of the International Monetary Fund said days after widespread protests broke out, a change that would ease the impact to a world economy already struggling with high inflation, an energy crisis and disrupted food supply.

    IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva urged a “recalibration” of China’s tough “zero-COVID” approach aimed at isolating every case “exactly because of the impact it has on both people and on the economy.”

    Georgieva made the comments in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday with The Associated Press in which she also cautioned it is too early for the U.S. Federal Reserve to back off on its interest rate increases and held out hope that an energy crisis driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine will speed the push into renewables in Europe. She also called increasing hunger in developing countries “the world’s most significant solvable problem.”

    In China, protests erupted over the weekend in several cities and Hong Kong in the biggest show of public dissent in decades. Authorities have eased some controls but have showed no sign of backing off their larger strategy that has confined millions of people to their homes for months at a time.

    “We see the importance of moving away from massive lockdowns, being very targeted in restrictions,” Georgieva said Tuesday in Berlin. “So that targeting allows to contain the spread of COVID without significant economic costs.”

    Georgieva also urged China to look at vaccination policies and focus on vaccinating the “most vulnerable people.”

    A low rate of vaccinations among the elderly is a major reason Beijing has resorted to lockdowns, while the emergence of more-contagious variants has put increasing stress on the effort to prevent any spread.

    Lockdowns have slowed everything from travel to retail traffic to car sales in the world’s second-largest economy. Georgieva urged it “to adjust the overall approach to how China assesses supply chain functioning with an eye on the spillover impact it has on the rest of the world.”

    The Washington-based IMF expected the Chinese economy to grow only 3.2% this year, below the global average for the year, a rare occurrence.

    The Communist Party has taken steps in the direction Georgieva recommends, switching to isolating buildings or neighborhoods with infections instead of whole cities and made other changes it says are aimed at reducing the human and economic cost. But a spike in infections since October has prompted local authorities facing pressure from above to impose quarantines and other restrictions that residents say are too extreme.

    Asked about criticism of the crackdown on protests, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has defended Beijing’s anti-virus strategy and said the public’s legal rights were protected by law.

    The government is trying to “provide maximum protection to people’s lives and health while minimizing the COVID impact on social and economic development,” Zhao Lijian said.

    While China’s policy ripples out worldwide, Georgieva said the greatest risk facing the global economy is high inflation that requires central banks to raise interest rates, making credit more expensive for consumers and businesses. Coupled with that is the need for governments to take care of the most vulnerable people without undermining central bank efforts with excess spending.

    “Policymakers are faced with the very difficult time in the year ahead,” she said. “They have to be disciplined in the fight against inflation. Why? Because inflation undermines the foundation for growth, and it hurts the poor people the most.”

    Asked if the U.S. Federal Reserve should pause interest rate increases that are strengthening the dollar and putting pressure on poorer countries, Georgieva said that “the Fed has no option but to stay the course until credible decline in inflation.”

    “They owe it to the U.S. economy, they owe it to the world economy, because what happens in the United States if inflation does not get under control, can have also spillover impacts for the rest of the world,” the Bulgarian IMF chief said.

    Inflation data are still too high in the U.S. and Europe and “the data at this point says: too early to step back,” Georgieva said.

    She warned that international tensions between the China and the West and between Russia and the West threatened to restrict trade and its beneficial effect on economic growth and prosperity. She added that while there are concerns about supply chains disrupted by the pandemic, “we have to work harder on finding a way to counter these protectionist instincts” while being honest about supply concerns.

    Georgieva said the world was already seeing signs of increased hunger before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted grain supplies to Africa and the Middle East. More investment in resilient agriculture and support for small farmers as well as efforts to reduce food waste would be part of the solution, she said.

    “We have to admit in the wealthiest societies, in the wealthier families, that we waste food on a daily basis, even in quantities that are sufficient to feed the rest of the world,” she said. “Look, hunger is the world’s most significant solvable problem. It is solvable. And yet not only we haven’t solved it, but in the last years, hunger has been going up and up.”

    The world needs “a focus on food security in a comprehensive way that reduces waste, increases productivity, and most importantly, focuses more attention on small-scale farming, where a great deal of livelihoods of people, especially in developing countries like that, would go a long way to bring this solvable problem finally to an end,” she said.

    Russia’s war also created an energy crisis after Moscow cut off most natural gas supplies to Europe as Western allies supported war-torn Ukraine. The resulting high energy prices have created an opportunity to “accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy supplies” through incentives for green investments.

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  • Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    PORTLAND, Maine — Environmental groups are once again at odds with politicians and fishermen in New England in the wake of a decision by high-end retail giant Whole Foods to stop selling Maine lobster.

    Whole Foods recently said that it will stop selling lobster from the Gulf of Maine at hundreds of its stores around the country. The company cited decisions by a pair of sustainability organizations to take away their endorsements of the U.S. lobster fishing industry.

    The organizations, Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch, both cited concerns about risks to rare North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear. Entanglement in gear is one of the biggest threats to the whales.

    The decision by Whole Foods was an “important action to protect the highly endangered” whale, said Virginia Carter, an associate with the Save America’s Wildlife Campaign at Environment America Research & Policy Center.

    “With fewer than 340 North Atlantic right whales in existence, the species is swimming toward extinction unless things turn around,” Carter said.

    Whole Foods said in a statement last week that it’s monitoring the situation and “committed to working with suppliers, fisheries, and environmental advocacy groups as it develops.”

    The company’s decision to stop selling lobster drew immediate criticism in Maine, which is home to the U.S.’s largest lobster fishing industry. The state’s Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and its four-member congressional delegation said in a statement that Marine Stewardship Council’s decision to suspend its certification of Gulf of Maine lobster came despite years of stewardship and protection of whales by Maine fishermen.

    “Despite this, the Marine Stewardship Council, with retailers following suit, wrongly and blindly decided to follow the recommendations of misguided environmental groups rather than science,” Mills and the delegation said.

    Whole Foods was not the first retailer to take lobster off the menu over sustainability concerns. HelloFresh, the meal kit company, was among numerous retailers to pledge to stop selling lobster in September after California-based Seafood Watch placed American and Canadian lobster fisheries on its “red list” of seafoods to avoid.

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  • Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    PORTLAND, Maine — Environmental groups are once again at odds with politicians and fishermen in New England in the wake of a decision by high-end retail giant Whole Foods to stop selling Maine lobster.

    Whole Foods recently said that it will stop selling lobster from the Gulf of Maine at hundreds of its stores around the country. The company cited decisions by a pair of sustainability organizations to take away their endorsements of the U.S. lobster fishing industry.

    The organizations, Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch, both cited concerns about risks to rare North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear. Entanglement in gear is one of the biggest threats to the whales.

    The decision by Whole Foods was an “important action to protect the highly endangered” whale, said Virginia Carter, an associate with the Save America’s Wildlife Campaign at Environment America Research & Policy Center.

    “With fewer than 340 North Atlantic right whales in existence, the species is swimming toward extinction unless things turn around,” Carter said.

    Whole Foods said in a statement last week that it’s monitoring the situation and “committed to working with suppliers, fisheries, and environmental advocacy groups as it develops.”

    The company’s decision to stop selling lobster drew immediate criticism in Maine, which is home to the U.S.’s largest lobster fishing industry. The state’s Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and its four-member congressional delegation said in a statement that Marine Stewardship Council’s decision to suspend its certification of Gulf of Maine lobster came despite years of stewardship and protection of whales by Maine fishermen.

    “Despite this, the Marine Stewardship Council, with retailers following suit, wrongly and blindly decided to follow the recommendations of misguided environmental groups rather than science,” Mills and the delegation said.

    Whole Foods was not the first retailer to take lobster off the menu over sustainability concerns. HelloFresh, the meal kit company, was among numerous retailers to pledge to stop selling lobster in September after California-based Seafood Watch placed American and Canadian lobster fisheries on its “red list” of seafoods to avoid.

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  • Asia-Pacific leaders tackle trade, sustainability in Bangkok

    Asia-Pacific leaders tackle trade, sustainability in Bangkok

    BANGKOK — The war in Ukraine, great power rivalry Asia, inflation and food and energy shortages are on the agenda as leaders prepare for the third back-to-back gathering this week, a Pacific-Rim summit taking place in a heavily guarded venue in Thailand’s capital.

    Leaders from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will meet formally in closed-door sessions Friday and Saturday. For some, it will be at least the third such opportunity for face-to-face talks in the past two weeks, though the U.S. is represented in Bangkok by Vice President Kamala Harris, who is attending instead of President Joe Biden.

    APEC’s official mission is to promote regional economic integration. Most of the business conducted happens on the summit’s sidelines in meetings such as a planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

    The two Asian powers have a history of tense relations, a legacy of Japan’s World War II aggression compounded by territorial disputes and China’s growing military might. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said the encounter would “carry great importance.”

    Xi, Harris and French President Emmanuel Macron will also speak at a business conference held just ahead of the summit meetings that is mostly closed to media apart from outlets sponsoring the event.

    The APEC meetings are being held in downtown Bangkok’s main convention center, which is cordoned off with some streets in the area completely closed to all traffic. Rows of riot police stood guard behind the barricades at a major intersection nearby, underscoring host Thailand’s determination to ensure the summit suffers no disruptions.

    “The APEC meeting this year takes place amidst a dual jeopardy. We need not be reminded of the severe security conflicts that know not what victory looks like. Meanwhile, the world is staring at the hyper inflation married to recession, a broken supply chain and scarcity and climate calamities,” Don Pramudwinai, Thailand’s foreign minister said in opening a meeting of foreign ministers and commerce ministers who were working on draft statements due to be issued after the summit.

    Apparently alluding to Russia and recent condemnation of its war on Ukraine, he also said there was a growing “cancel mentality” that makes “any compromise appear impossible.”

    Before the summit, Thai officials said they were hoping to steer APEC toward long-term solutions in various areas, including climate change, economic disruptions and faltering recoveries from the pandemic.

    “What we are going to do is to have all economies agree on a set of targets … climate change mitigation, sustainable trade and investment, environment resources conservation and, of course, waste management,” said Cherdchai Chaivaivid, director-general of Thailand’s Department of International Economic Affairs. “This is the first time that APEC is going to talk about this. This is the first time that we are going to open a new chapter in how trade, business, investment should be done.”

    APEC’s official mission is to promote regional economic integration, which means setting guidelines for long-term development of a free trade area. Most of its work is technical and incremental, carried out by senior officials and ministers, covering areas such as trade, tourism, forestry, health, food, security, small and medium-size enterprises and women’s empowerment.

    Leaders from the 21 economies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean often take the opportunity to conduct bilateral talks and discuss side deals. The Latin American contingent comes from Chile, Mexico and Peru. Other members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Biden are no-shows this year. Putin has been avoiding international forums where he would be showered with criticism over the invasion of Ukraine. Biden will be hosting his granddaughter’s wedding at the White House.

    That leaves Chinese leader Xi as the star attendee in Bangkok, where he also is making an official visit to Thailand just after obtaining a rare third term as top leader at a once-in-five years Communist Party congress.

    Biden is giving ground to China in the competition for friends and influence in Southeast Asia by skipping the APEC meetings. But U.S. officials say Washington has demonstrated its seriousness in relations with the region through frequent visits by Cabinet members including Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and other key senior officials.

    As host, Thailand invited three special guests to the meeting: the French president Macron; Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was to represent the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but will not attend after getting COVID-19.

    For Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the most welcome visitor may well be the Saudi leader, who is making an official visit to help restore friendly relations with Thailand after decades of disruption due to a theft of Saudi royal jewelry and the unsolved murders of Saudi diplomats in Bangkok.

    “This is a good opportunity, that Mohammed bin Salman is visiting Thailand and both countries will resume a good economic relationship after over 30 years,” the chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, Sanan Angubolkul, told The Associated Press. “To have the French president join us also shows how important this region is.”

    The war in Ukraine remains a likely thorn in APEC’s consensus-oriented efforts. None of the earlier APEC meetings this year issued statements due to disagreements over whether to mention the conflict.

    Like Indonesia, which hosted the Group of 20 summit in Bali this week, and Cambodia, which hosted the ASEAN meetings, Thai officials have put the best possible face on the situation, contending that agreement on other points will allow APEC to move forward regardless.

    Skeptics doubt the meeting will accomplish much.

    “This APEC is only a photo opportunity for leaders. Its agenda has drawn much less attention than the ASEAN summit and G-20,” Virot Ali, a political scientist at Thailand’s Thammasat University, told The Associated Press.

    “I don’t think we will see any progress from APEC. The current geopolitics, trade war, COVID-19, and Russia-Ukraine war are the issues that people are paying more attention to and feeling more impact from,” he said.

    ———

    Associated Press journalists Grant Peck and Tassanee Vejpongsa contributed to this report.

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  • Qatar: No ‘white elephant’ legacy for World Cup stadiums

    Qatar: No ‘white elephant’ legacy for World Cup stadiums

    One of the World Cup stadiums in Qatar is named after the Persian Gulf country’s international dialing code — 974 — and another is called “Education City.” They’re unusual names that hardly sound like they have links to soccer, and after the tournament many no longer will.

    Qatar built seven of its eight lavish World Cup stadiums and heavily renovated another. The smallest World Cup host nation since Switzerland in 1954, Qatar has a population of 2.6 million, with only 360,000 Qatari citizens, and a limited domestic league.

    So it’s questionable it needs so many large venues after the tournament, especially after the past three World Cups — in South Africa, Brazil and Russia — exposed several stadiums without long-term use.

    At least Stadium 974 in Ras Abu Aboud won’t become a white elephant, since it will disappear. The 40,000-seat arena located port-side just east of Doha was made from recycled shipping containers — 974 of them. The demountable, energy-efficient stadium will make way for a waterfront business development.

    But many other stadiums won’t host any more soccer beyond this tournament and next summer’s Asian Cup — for which Qatar won hosting rights after host China withdrew citing the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Only two top-tier teams from the Qatar Stars League — Al Rayyan and Al Wakrah — will play in their glitzy World Cup stadiums.

    The majority of this World Cup’s venues will have their capacity diminished from 40,000 to 20,000 post-tournament as part of a sustainability drive. Education City is 13 kilometers (8 miles) from Doha. Half the seats will go and the venue will be used by 8,000 students across nine universities and eleven schools.

    What happens those extra 20,000 seats, then?

    ”(They) will be offered to countries who need sporting infrastructure,” Ali Al Dosari, the stadium’s director of installations, said in a press release. “This will allow the culture of soccer to be promoted and to a greater extent the love of sport throughout the world.”

    Qatar pledged to give 170,000 removed seats to developing countries.

    With its gold facade and 80,000 capacity, Qatar’s gleaming Lusail Stadium hosts 10 matches, including the final. It’s only 20 kilometers (12.2 miles) from Doha, but no club will call this gleaming vessel home. In keeping with sustainable development, its future lies as a community hub with housing units, shops, schools, cafes and medical clinics. The upper-tier will become outdoor terracing for new homes.

    A similar fate awaits the tent-shaped Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor City, a 60,000-seater hosting the opener between Qatar and Ecuador on Nov. 20 and soon after an eagerly anticipated tussle between England and the United States.

    The plan is for the upper tier is to be removed after the tournament, allowing for further recommissioning of seats. A five-star hotel and a shopping center will be incorporated into the stadium building, and a sports medicine hospital will open.

    Good use of existing infrastructure, no doubt, but hardly leaving a soccer legacy behind. For example, the four extra stadiums built for the 2016 European Championship in France — Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux and Nice — are being used by those club teams for the long term.

    Al Thumama Stadium is another 40,000-seater located close to the center of Doha whose capacity will be halved. The arena will then be used for soccer and other sporting events, although it is not yet clear which. A sports clinic and a hotel will open on site.

    CARRY ON PLAYING

    The 40,000-capacity Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, located 20 kilometers (12.2 miles) west of Doha in Umm Al Afaei, is home to Al Rayyan in the 12-team QSL; and to second-tier Al-Kharitiyath Sports Club.

    The 40,000-seater Al Janoub Stadium, meanwhile, is where France begins its title defense against Australia on Nov. 22.

    Al Wakrah will carry on playing matches here in the QSL after the tournament with a reduced capacity of 20,000 — a low attendance for a top-flight team compared to major European and South American leagues.

    Khalifa International Stadium near central Doha dates from 1976 and was extensively renovated to hold 40,000 fans. The oft-used stadium has held the Arabian Gulf Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup and the track and field world championships.

    “The Khalifa Stadium will continue to host matches and big tournaments,” stadium director Ahmad Al Thani said.

    A recent written request by The Associated Press for more comment on the stadium legacies from the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy was declined.

    The SC’s Secretary General Hassan Al Thawadi previously said the stadiums all met sustainability benchmarks.

    “We have recycled and reused wherever possible and implemented a vast range of energy and water efficiency solutions,’” he said in a document on the stadiums. “We have used materials from sustainable sources and implemented innovative legacy plans to ensure our tournament doesn’t leave any ’white elephants.’”

    So, although post-World Cup soccer legacy itself is likely to be low, it’s unlikely cash-rich Qatar will face similar financial and logistical problems other nations did after misusing public resources.

    EXPENSIVE ELEPHANTS

    The Montreal Olympic Stadium that hosted the 1976 Olympic Games became known as a famed white elephant that took 30 years to pay off.

    Previous soccer World Cup hosts are still shelling out, too.

    After South Africa spent $1.1 billion on its 10 stadiums for the 2010 tournament, half of which were new, many were later left unused or underused. This proved highly expensive for city councils left footing the bill and ended up bleeding taxpayer money.

    The $600 million Cape Town Stadium offered a spectacular view of Table Mountain, but for a hefty price. It has reportedly cost taxpayers in the region of $3.5 million a year, but legacy problems were partially resolved by sharing with the city’s Stormers rugby team and hosting international rugby games.

    Brazil spent nearly $4 billion building and renovating venues for 2014. Four cities in Brazil were left with underused stadiums like the $550 million Mane Garrincha in Brasilia, which even hosted one game with just 400 spectators. The 46,000-capacity Arena Pernambuco in Recife does not have a team.

    Russia’s $10.8 billion World Cup price tag was inflated by loss-making arenas with high yearly maintenance. Of the 12 stadiums from 2018, only eight host top-tier matches, generally with tens of thousands of empty seats, except at Zenit St. Petersburg and Spartak Moscow’s stadiums.

    HUMAN COST

    Qatar has been fiercely criticized for the physical and contractual conditions of workers, mostly from south Asia, needed to build stadiums, metro lines, roads and hotels.

    The exact number of migrant workers who have died or were injured working in often extreme heat on projects since FIFA picked Qatar as World Cup host in December 2010 is unclear. Definitive data has been hard to verify or not published by authorities.

    Qatar has set up a workers’ support fund which, since 2020, has paid $164 million in compensation to more than 36,000 workers from 17 different countries, Human Rights Watch said in August, citing government data.

    ———

    AP Sports Writers James Ellingworth in Duesseldorf and Gerald Imray in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

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    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Saudi oil giant Aramco unveils $1.5B sustainability fund

    Saudi oil giant Aramco unveils $1.5B sustainability fund

    Saudi oil and gas company Aramco unveiled a $1.5 billion fund on Wednesday for sustainable investments, part of efforts to burnish the state-owned company’s green credentials in an announcement ahead of the U.N. climate conference next month in Egypt.

    Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said at an investment conference in Saudi Arabia that the fund will focus on “breakthrough technologies that are important and startups that will help us to address climate change.”

    Nasser billed the fund as one of the world’s biggest sustainability-focused venture capital funds and said it would invest globally and launch immediately. He spoke at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative meeting, sometimes known as “Davos in the Desert,” a comparison to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting of corporate bigwigs and world leaders in the Swiss Alps.

    Aramco is one of the largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters. Environmentalists have long accused oil and gas companies of using climate-friendly pledges to “greenwash” their polluting activities.

    One area Aramco’s fund will focus on is carbon capture and storage, which involves sucking heat-trapping carbon dioxide from factory smokestacks and storing it underground.

    Climate experts, however, warn the technology is risky, unproven and expensive and could be used to delay the phaseout of fossil fuels. Others say all untested solutions should be pursued given how little time there is left to meet U.N. emissions-cutting goals.

    Other investment themes the fund will target include greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, nature-based climate solutions, digital sustainability, hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic fuels.

    Aramco has committed to reaching net zero operational emissions by 2050, but that only accounts for a fraction of the company’s total emissions. It does not include the carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil fuels that the company produces.

    Oil companies have been using “green-sounding ‘net-zero by 2050’ pledges” to justify technological fixes that will allow them to “keep on digging up and selling oil and gas,” said Pascoe Sabido, a researcher specializing in the energy and climate sector at Corporate Europe Observatory, which investigates European Union business lobbying.

    “Aramco’s sustainability fund has nothing to with fighting climate change and everything to do with extending the life of its fossil fuel business,” he said.

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been trying to diversify the economy away from oil revenue, though the government continues to rely heavily on crude exports.

    The U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, will hold negotiations aimed at limiting global temperature increases next month in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

    ———

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • New Zealand farmers hit streets to protest cow-burp tax plan

    New Zealand farmers hit streets to protest cow-burp tax plan

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Farmers across New Zealand took to the streets on their tractors Thursday to protest government plans to tax cow burps and other greenhouse gas emissions, although the rallies were smaller than many had expected.

    Lobby group Groundswell New Zealand helped organize more than 50 protests in towns and cities across the country, the biggest involving a few dozen vehicles.

    Last week, the government proposed a new farm levy as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government said it would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.

    Because farming is so big in New Zealand — there are 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep, compared to just 5 million people — about half of all greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Methane from burping cattle makes a particularly big contribution.

    But some farmers argue the proposed tax would actually increase global greenhouse gas emissions by shifting farming to countries less efficient at making food.

    At the protest in Wellington, farmer Dave McCurdy said he was disappointed in the small turnout, but said most farmers were working hard on their farms during a spell of good spring weather at a particularly busy time of year.

    He said farmers were good environmental stewards.

    “It’s our life, our family’s lives,” he said. “We’re not out there to wreck it, we wouldn’t make any money. We love our farms. That’s what annoys us. We’re painted at these bad guys, but a lot of farmers have spent generations looking after that land.”

    He said the proposed tax didn’t take proper account of all the trees and brush he and other farmers had planted, which helped trap carbon and offset emissions. He said if the proposed tax and herd reductions went ahead, it would be ruinous to many farmers.

    “I’m out,” he said. “Waste of time.”

    Farming remains vital to New Zealand’s economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nation’s largest export earner.

    McCurdy said farmers had almost singlehandedly kept the economy afloat during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and now that the threat had passed and a recession was looming, the government was coming after them.

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has pledged the nation will become carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes reducing methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050.

    The government had worked with farmers and other groups to try to come up with an emissions plan they could all live with. But many farmers have been incensed by the government’s final proposal, while environmentalists have said it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

    Farmer Matt Swansson said he’d “had a gutsful” of the government and would consider refusing to pay the new tax.

    He said on beautiful evenings on his farm, he thinks he has the best job in the world.

    “But when it’s rain, drizzle, and you get home and listen to the news,” Swansson said. “Why do you bother?”

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  • California baker creates life-sized Han Solo out of bread

    California baker creates life-sized Han Solo out of bread

    BENICIA, Calif. — Han Solo may be a hunk. But “Pan Solo” is a hunk of bread.

    That’s what a bakery in the San Francisco Bay Area has dubbed its 6-foot (1.8 meter) bread sculpture of the “Star Wars” character as he appeared after being frozen in carbonite in “The Empire Strikes Back.”

    Hannalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, co-owners of One House Bakery in Benicia, California, spent weeks molding, baking and assembling the life-sized sculpture using wood and two types of dough, including a type of yeastless dough with a higher sugar content that will last longer.

    The two worked at night, after the day’s business was done. The lovingly crafted details show Han Solo’s anguished face and his hands straining to reach out.

    Hannalee said she might have gotten a bit obsessed.

    “Mom made me leave it because I was obsessing over the lips,” Hannalee Pervan told the New York Times. “She was like, ‘You need to walk away.’”

    Creating Pan Solo was particularly meaningful, she told the paper, because she contracted COVID-19 in January 2021 and lost much of her senses of smell and taste.

    “So just to find joy in a different part of food is really important,” she said.

    The sculpture is now on display outside of the bakery, located about a half-hour’s drive north of San Francisco.

    Pan Solo is the bakery’s entry in the annual Downtown Benicia Main Street Scarecrow Contest. The public will get to vote on their favorites from among more than two dozen creations entered by local businesses.

    The Pervans, who are big science-fiction and fantasy fans, entered another “Star Wars”-themed creation in 2020 featuring the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda.

    Unfortunately, Pan Solo won’t last forever. The dough eventually will be composted, not eaten.

    So as a wise Jedi might warn: Don’t use the forks, Luke.

    ———

    This story was first published on Oct. 15, 2022. It was updated on Oct. 16, 2022 to correct the spelling of baker Hannalee Pervan’s first name.

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  • NASCAR teams call revenue model ‘broken,’ warn of layoffs

    NASCAR teams call revenue model ‘broken,’ warn of layoffs

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The most powerful teams in NASCAR warned Friday that the venerable stock car racing series has a “broken” economic model that is unfair and has little to no chance of long-term stability, a stunning announcement that added to a growing list of woes.

    The Cup Series is heading into the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course playoff elimination race Sunday with three full-time drivers sidelined with injuries suffered in NASCAR’s new car and no clear answer as to how to fix the safety concerns.

    With just five races left in the championship chase, it got much worse as teams went public with their year-long fight with NASCAR over equitable revenue distribution.

    “The economic model is really broken for the teams,” said Curtis Polk, who as Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager now holds an ownership stake in both the Charlotte Hornets and the two-car 23XI Racing team Jordan and Denny Hamlin field in NASCAR.

    “We’ve gotten to the point where teams realize the sustainability in the sport is not very long term,” Polk said. “This is not a fair system.”

    The Race Team Alliance was formed in 2014 to give teams a unified voice in negotiations with the sanctioning body. A four-member subcommittee outlined their concerns at a Charlotte hotel, with Polk joined by Jeff Gordon, the four-time NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, and Dave Alpern, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing.

    Hendrick and Gibbs have won six of last seven Cup Series championships dating to 2015, but Gordon said the four-car Hendrick lineup, the most powerful in the industry, has not had a profitable season in years. It will again lose money this season despite NASCAR’s cost-cutting Next Gen car.

    “I have a lot of fears that sustainability is going to be a real challenge,” Gordon said.

    NASCAR issued a statement acknowledging “the challenges currently facing race teams.

    “A key focus moving forward is an extension to the charter agreement, one that will further increase revenue and help lower team expenses,” NASCAR said. “Collectively, the goal is a strong, healthy sport, and we will accomplish that together.”

    Led by Polk, whose role with the Hornets brings familiarity with the NBA’s franchise model, the RTA in June presented NASCAR with a seven-point plan on a new revenue sharing model. The proposal “sat there for months and we told NASCAR we’d like a counteroffer,” Polk said.

    He did not disclose the seven points other than noting that team sustainability and longevity were priorities. The committee said they are open to all ideas, including a spending cap like that in Formula One.

    “We are amenable to whatever gets us to a conceptual new structure,” Newmark said.

    NASCAR’s counteroffer offered “a minimal increase in revenue and emphasis on cost-cutting,” Polk said.

    The team alliance was unanimous in that the only place left to cut costs is layoffs.

    “We’ve already had substantial cuts. We are doing more with less than we ever have in 30 years,” Alpern said.

    The battle over costs has simmered for years. In 2016, NASCAR adopted a charter system for 36 cars that is as close to a franchise model as possible in a sport that was founded by and independently owned by the France family. The charters at least gave the teams something of value to hold — or sell — and protect their investment in the sport.

    The team business model is still heavily dependant on sponsorship, which the teams must individually secure. Newmark said sponsorship covers between 60% to 80% of the budgets for all 16 chartered organizations.

    Because sponsorship is so vital, teams are desperate for financial relief elsewhere and have asked NASCAR for “distribution from the league to cover our baseline costs,” Newmark said.

    The current charter agreement expires at the end of the 2024 season, the same time that NASCAR’s current television deals expire.

    Although TV money is split between NASCAR, teams and the tracks, the committee found that the value of the teams is just 7% while the tracks and NASCAR have 93% of the value. Polk noted that in Formula One, all revenue is split 50-50 between the teams and series ownership.

    Mars Inc., which first entered NASCAR in 1990, late last year decided this season would be its last and JGR spent the last nine months trying to find a new sponsor to keep Kyle Busch, the only winner of multiple championships at the Cup level. Busch has since signed with Richard Childress Racing and will leave JGR after 15 seasons as Toyota’s winningest NASCAR driver.

    “We have become full-time fundraisers,” Alpern said. “Instead of working on our business, we’re raising money just to exist.”

    Polk said the teams will honor the charter agreements through 2024. But in negotiating a new charter agreement, the teams are demanding more.

    “NASCAR is a money-printing machine,” Polk said. “But the teams and the drivers are the ones putting on the show.”

    NASCAR is now under fire from nearly every angle as drivers remain angry over some recent penalties and the stiffness of the new Next Gen car blamed for causing unprecedented injuries. What should have been routine crashes into the wall have sidelined both Alex Bowman and Kurt Busch with concussions, and Cody Shane Ware opted out of Sunday’s race because of a broken foot.

    NASCAR has tested potential adjustments for the car and will present the findings to drivers Saturday morning ahead of practice at Charlotte.

    ———

    More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Cat. 3 Hurricane Orlene heads for Mexico’s Pacific coast

    Cat. 3 Hurricane Orlene heads for Mexico’s Pacific coast

    MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Orlene lost some punch, but remained a dangerous Category 3 storm on Sunday as it headed toward Mexico’s northwest Pacific coast between the tourist towns of Mazatlan and San Blas.

    After growing into a hurricane Saturday, Orlene quickly added power, peaking as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph) early Sunday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. But winds slipped back to 115 mph (185 kph) by late Sunday.

    The storm was moving over or near the Islas Marias, a former prison colony being developed as a tourist draw. The island is sparsely populated by government employees and buildings there are made of brick or concrete.

    Orlene was forecast to hit Mexico’s Pacific coast sometime Monday along a sparsely populated, lagoon-dotted stretch of mainland south of Mazatlan by late Monday.

    By late Sunday, Orlene was centered about 80 miles (125 kilometers) west-northwest of Cabo Corrientes — a point of land that juts into the Pacific just south of Puerto Vallarta — and was headed north at 8 mph (13 kph) early Sunday.

    A hurricane warning was in effect from San Blas to Mazatlan.

    The government of Jalisco state, where Puerto Vallarta is located, suspended classes Monday in towns and cities along the coast.

    The state civil defense office posted video of large waves crashing on a dock at Cabo Corrientes.

    In Sinaloa, where Mazatlan is located, some emergency shelters were opened.

    The center said the storm would likely begin weakening as its moved closer to land. But it was still projected to hit as a hurricane.

    It could bring flood-inducing rainfall of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in some places, as well as coastal flooding and dangerous surf.

    The ports of Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta were closed to ships and Mexico’s navy announced that ports including Mazatlan, San Blas and Nuevo Vallarta were closed to small craft.

    Mexico’s National Water Commission said Orlene could cause “mudslides, rising river and stream levels, and flooding in low-lying areas.”

    The hurricane center said hurricane-force winds extended out about 15 miles (30 kilometers) from the center and tropical storm-force winds out to 70 miles (110 kilometers).

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  • What the war in Ukraine means for Asia’s climate goals

    What the war in Ukraine means for Asia’s climate goals

    NEW DELHI, India — The queues outside petrol pumps in Sri Lanka have lessened, but not the anxiety.

    Asanka Sampath, a 43-year-old factory clerk, is forever vigilant. He checks his phone for messages, walks past the pump, and browses social media to see if fuel has arrived. Delays could mean being left stranded for days.

    “I am really fed up with this,” he said.

    His frustrations echo that of the 22-million inhabitants of the island nation, facing its worst ever economic crisis because of heavy debts, lost tourism revenue during the pandemic, and surging costs. The consequent political turmoil culminated with the formation of a new government, but recovery has been complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the consequent upending of global energy markets.

    Europe’s need for gas means that they’re competing with Asian countries, driving up prices of fossil fuels and resulting in what Tim Buckley, the director of the thinktank Climate Energy Finance, refers to as “hyper-inflation … and I use that word as an understatement.”

    Most Asian countries are prioritizing energy security, sometimes over their climate goals. For rich countries like South Korea or Japan, this means forays into nuclear energy. For the enormous energy needs of China and India it implies relying on dirty coal power in the short term. But for developing countries with already-strained finances, the war is having a disproportionate impact, said Kanika Chawla, of the United Nations’ sustainable energy unit.

    How Asian countries choose to go ahead would have cascading consequences: They could either double down on clean energy or decide to not phase out fossil fuels immediately.

    “We are at a really important crossroads,” said Chawla.

    SRI LANKA: “SLOW GRIND”

    Sri Lanka is an extreme example of the predicament facing poor nations. Enormous debts prevent it from buying energy on credit, forcing it to ration fuel for key sectors with shortages anticipated for the next year.

    Sri Lanka set itself a target of getting 70% of all its energy from renewable energy by 2030 and aims to reach net zero — balancing the amount of greenhouse gas they emit with how much they take out of the atmosphere — by 2050.

    Its twin needs of securing energy while reducing costs means it has “no other option” than to wean itself off fossil fuels, said Aruna Kulatunga, who authored a government report for Sri Lanka’s clean energy goals. But others, like Murtaza Jafferjee, director of the think tank Advocata Institute say these targets are more “aspirational than realistic” because the current electrical grid can’t handle renewable energy.

    “It will be a slow grind,” said Jafferjee.

    Grids that run on renewable energy need to be nimbler because, unlike fossil fuels, energy from wind or the sun fluctuates, potentially stressing transmission grids.

    The economic crisis has decreased demand for energy in Sri Lanka. So while there are still power cuts, the country’s existing sources — coal and oil-fired plants, hydropower, and some solar — are coping.

    CHINA, INDIA: HOME-GROWN ENERGY

    How these two nations meet this demand will have global ramifications.

    And the answer, at least in the short-term, appears to be a reliance on dirty-coal power — a key source of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions.

    China, currently the top emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, aims to reach net zero by 2060, requiring significant slashing of emissions.

    But since the war, China has not only imported more fossil fuels from Russia but also boosted its own coal output. The war, combined with a severe drought and a domestic energy crisis, means the country is prioritizing keeping the lights on over cutting dirty fuel sources.

    India aims to reach net zero a decade later than China and is third on the list of current global emitters, although their historical emissions are very low. No other country will see a bigger increase in energy demand than India in the coming years, and it is estimated that the nation will need $223 billion to meet its 2030 clean energy targets. Like China, India’s looking to ramp up coal production to reduce dependence on expensive imports and is still in the market for Russian oil despite calls for sanctions.

    But the size of future demand also means that neither country has a choice but to also boost their clean energy.

    China is leading the way on renewable energy and moving away from fossil fuel dependence, said Buckley, who tracks the country’s energy policy.

    “It might be because they are paranoid about climate change or because they want to absolutely dominate industries of the future,” said Buckley. “At the end of the day, the reason doesn’t really matter.”

    India is also investing heavily in renewable energy and has committed to producing 50% of its power from clean energy sources by 2030.

    “The invasion has made India rethink its energy security concerns,” said Swati D’Souza, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

    More domestic production doesn’t mean that the two countries are burning more coal, but instead substituting expensive imported coal with cheap homegrown energy, said Christoph Bertram at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. What was “crucial” for global climate goals was where future investments were directed.

    “The flipside of investing into coal means you invest less into renewables,” he said.

    JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA: THE NUCLEAR OPTION

    Both Japan and South Korea, two of Asia’s most developed countries, are pushing for nuclear energy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    Sanctions against Russian coal and gas imports resulted in Japan looking for alternative energy sources despite anti-nuclear sentiments dating back to the 2011 Fukushima disaster. An earlier-than-expected summer resulted in power shortages, and the government announced plans to speed up regulatory safety checks to get more reactors running.

    Japan aims to limit nuclear energy to less than a quarter of its energy mix, a goal seen as overly optimistic, but the recent push indicates that nuclear may play a larger role in the country.

    Neighboring South Korea hasn’t seen short-term impacts on energy supplies since it gets gas from countries like Qatar and Australia and its oil from the Middle East. But there may be an indirect hit from European efforts to secure energy from those same sources, driving up prices.

    Like Japan, South Korea’s new government has promoted nuclear-generated electricity and has indicated reluctance to sharply reduce the country’s coal and gas dependence since it wants to boost the economy.

    “If this war continues … we will obviously face a question on what should be done about the rising costs,” said Ahn Jaehun, from the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement.

    INDONESIA: DAMAGE CONTROL

    The war, and consequent rising gas prices, forced Indonesia to reduce ballooning subsidies aimed at keeping fuel prices and some power tariffs in check.

    But this was a very “hurried reform” and doesn’t address the challenge of weaning the world’s largest coal exporter off fossil fuels and reaching its 2060 net zero goal, said Anissa. R. Suharsono, of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

    “We’re sliding back, into just firefighting,” she said.

    Coal exports have increased nearly 1.5 times between April and June, compared to 2021, in response to European demand and Indonesia has already produced over 80% of the total coal it produced last year, according to government data.

    The country needs to nearly triple its clean energy investment by 2030 to achieve net zero by 2060, according to the International Energy Agency, but Suharsono said it wasn’t clear how it was going to meet those targets.

    “There are currently no overarching regulations or a clear roadmap,” she said.

    ———

    Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Japan, Tong-hyung Kim and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea contributed to this report.

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • What the war in Ukraine means for Asia’s climate goals

    What the war in Ukraine means for Asia’s climate goals

    NEW DELHI, India — The queues outside petrol pumps in Sri Lanka have lessened, but not the anxiety.

    Asanka Sampath, a 43-year-old factory clerk, is forever vigilant. He checks his phone for messages, walks past the pump, and browses social media to see if fuel has arrived. Delays could mean being left stranded for days.

    “I am really fed up with this,” he said.

    His frustrations echo that of the 22-million inhabitants of the island nation, facing its worst ever economic crisis because of heavy debts, lost tourism revenue during the pandemic, and surging costs. The consequent political turmoil culminated with the formation of a new government, but recovery has been complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the consequent upending of global energy markets.

    Europe’s need for gas means that they’re competing with Asian countries, driving up prices of fossil fuels and resulting in what Tim Buckley, the director of the thinktank Climate Energy Finance, refers to as “hyper-inflation … and I use that word as an understatement.”

    Most Asian countries are prioritizing energy security, sometimes over their climate goals. For rich countries like South Korea or Japan, this means forays into nuclear energy. For the enormous energy needs of China and India it implies relying on dirty coal power in the short term. But for developing countries with already-strained finances, the war is having a disproportionate impact, said Kanika Chawla, of the United Nations’ sustainable energy unit.

    How Asian countries choose to go ahead would have cascading consequences: They could either double down on clean energy or decide to not phase out fossil fuels immediately.

    “We are at a really important crossroads,” said Chawla.

    SRI LANKA: “SLOW GRIND”

    Sri Lanka is an extreme example of the predicament facing poor nations. Enormous debts prevent it from buying energy on credit, forcing it to ration fuel for key sectors with shortages anticipated for the next year.

    Sri Lanka set itself a target of getting 70% of all its energy from renewable energy by 2030 and aims to reach net zero — balancing the amount of greenhouse gas they emit with how much they take out of the atmosphere — by 2050.

    Its twin needs of securing energy while reducing costs means it has “no other option” than to wean itself off fossil fuels, said Aruna Kulatunga, who authored a government report for Sri Lanka’s clean energy goals. But others, like Murtaza Jafferjee, director of the think tank Advocata Institute say these targets are more “aspirational than realistic” because the current electrical grid can’t handle renewable energy.

    “It will be a slow grind,” said Jafferjee.

    Grids that run on renewable energy need to be nimbler because, unlike fossil fuels, energy from wind or the sun fluctuates, potentially stressing transmission grids.

    The economic crisis has decreased demand for energy in Sri Lanka. So while there are still power cuts, the country’s existing sources — coal and oil-fired plants, hydropower, and some solar — are coping.

    CHINA, INDIA: HOME-GROWN ENERGY

    How these two nations meet this demand will have global ramifications.

    And the answer, at least in the short-term, appears to be a reliance on dirty-coal power — a key source of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions.

    China, currently the top emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, aims to reach net zero by 2060, requiring significant slashing of emissions.

    But since the war, China has not only imported more fossil fuels from Russia but also boosted its own coal output. The war, combined with a severe drought and a domestic energy crisis, means the country is prioritizing keeping the lights on over cutting dirty fuel sources.

    India aims to reach net zero a decade later than China and is third on the list of current global emitters, although their historical emissions are very low. No other country will see a bigger increase in energy demand than India in the coming years, and it is estimated that the nation will need $223 billion to meet its 2030 clean energy targets. Like China, India’s looking to ramp up coal production to reduce dependence on expensive imports and is still in the market for Russian oil despite calls for sanctions.

    But the size of future demand also means that neither country has a choice but to also boost their clean energy.

    China is leading the way on renewable energy and moving away from fossil fuel dependence, said Buckley, who tracks the country’s energy policy.

    “It might be because they are paranoid about climate change or because they want to absolutely dominate industries of the future,” said Buckley. “At the end of the day, the reason doesn’t really matter.”

    India is also investing heavily in renewable energy and has committed to producing 50% of its power from clean energy sources by 2030.

    “The invasion has made India rethink its energy security concerns,” said Swati D’Souza, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

    More domestic production doesn’t mean that the two countries are burning more coal, but instead substituting expensive imported coal with cheap homegrown energy, said Christoph Bertram at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. What was “crucial” for global climate goals was where future investments were directed.

    “The flipside of investing into coal means you invest less into renewables,” he said.

    JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA: THE NUCLEAR OPTION

    Both Japan and South Korea, two of Asia’s most developed countries, are pushing for nuclear energy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    Sanctions against Russian coal and gas imports resulted in Japan looking for alternative energy sources despite anti-nuclear sentiments dating back to the 2011 Fukushima disaster. An earlier-than-expected summer resulted in power shortages, and the government announced plans to speed up regulatory safety checks to get more reactors running.

    Japan aims to limit nuclear energy to less than a quarter of its energy mix, a goal seen as overly optimistic, but the recent push indicates that nuclear may play a larger role in the country.

    Neighboring South Korea hasn’t seen short-term impacts on energy supplies since it gets gas from countries like Qatar and Australia and its oil from the Middle East. But there may be an indirect hit from European efforts to secure energy from those same sources, driving up prices.

    Like Japan, South Korea’s new government has promoted nuclear-generated electricity and has indicated reluctance to sharply reduce the country’s coal and gas dependence since it wants to boost the economy.

    “If this war continues … we will obviously face a question on what should be done about the rising costs,” said Ahn Jaehun, from the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement.

    INDONESIA: DAMAGE CONTROL

    The war, and consequent rising gas prices, forced Indonesia to reduce ballooning subsidies aimed at keeping fuel prices and some power tariffs in check.

    But this was a very “hurried reform” and doesn’t address the challenge of weaning the world’s largest coal exporter off fossil fuels and reaching its 2060 net zero goal, said Anissa. R. Suharsono, of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

    “We’re sliding back, into just firefighting,” she said.

    Coal exports have increased nearly 1.5 times between April and June, compared to 2021, in response to European demand and Indonesia has already produced over 80% of the total coal it produced last year, according to government data.

    The country needs to nearly triple its clean energy investment by 2030 to achieve net zero by 2060, according to the International Energy Agency, but Suharsono said it wasn’t clear how it was going to meet those targets.

    “There are currently no overarching regulations or a clear roadmap,” she said.

    ———

    Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Japan, Tong-hyung Kim and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea contributed to this report.

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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