Tag: United Nations Climate Change Conference

Nuclear’s uncertain role in the shift away from fossil fuels is seen as critical and very contentious

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Cooling towers at a nuclear power plant in Slovakia. Nuclear power is likely to be discussed in great detail at the COP28 climate change summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Janos Kummer | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The role that nuclear power should play in creating a more sustainable future has long provoked strong feelings — among advocates and critics alike.

It’s set to be a hot topic at the COP28 summit in Dubai, which begins this week. There are reports that there will be a concerted effort to get behind a big increase in nuclear capacity from now to 2050.

Of particular interest to observers will be a ministerial event called “Atoms4NetZero” on Dec. 5. Co-hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the COP28 presidency, the event will “announce the IAEA Statement on Nuclear Power,” according to the COP28 website.

That, it adds, reflects the “critical role of nuclear in the net zero transition.”

Atoms4NetZero was namechecked by the World Nuclear Association in September when it announced the launch of an initiative called "Net Zero Nuclear," which aims to triple the planet's nuclear capacity by the middle of the century.

In a statement issued alongside that announcement, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA's director general, stressed the importance of the coming climate summit.

"Building on the efforts made during COP 26 and COP 27, nuclear energy will feature even more prominently at COP28," he said.

"As more nations understand the role nuclear can play in achieving energy security and decarbonisation targets, global support for nuclear energy is growing," he added.

The IAEA, for its part, will also have its own "Atoms4Climate" pavilion at COP28, where it says it will "showcase how nuclear technology and science are addressing the twin challenge of climate change mitigation and adaptation."

A major debate

In a sign of how polarizing the debate around the subject can be, this month, the leader of Germany's center-right Christian Democratic Union lamented his country's move away from nuclear power after the closure of its last three plants in April 2023.

"The German government took a decision which was in our view absolutely wrong, a strategic mistake to get out of nuclear," Friedrich Merz told CNBC's Annette Weisbach.

Merz — whose party is not in the coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz — said rather than focusing only on wind and solar, "all energy sources" need to be utilized.

"The energy supply — for this country, for our industry — is decisive for our competitiveness," he went on to state.

High-profile figures in the German government do not share Merz's viewpoint.

"The phase-out of nuclear power makes our country safer; ultimately, the risks of nuclear power are uncontrollable," Steffi Lemke, Germany's federal minister for the environment and nuclear safety, said in April.

"We now face decades full of challenges before we can safely and responsibly dispose of our nuclear legacy," she later added.

"But switching off the final three nuclear power plants will usher in a new era in energy production."

This kind of analysis — that nuclear is not the answer — is shared by environmental organizations like Greenpeace.

"Nuclear power is touted as a solution to our energy problems, but in reality it's complex and hugely expensive to build," its website says. "It also creates huge amounts of hazardous waste."

"Renewable energy is cheaper and can be installed quickly," it added. "Together with battery storage, it can generate the power we need and slash our emissions."

While Germany — Europe's largest economy — has moved away from nuclear, other countries are looking to expand their capacity.

They include the U.K., which says it wants to deliver as many as 24 gigawatts by 2050, and Sweden, which is looking to construct new reactors.

France, a major player in nuclear power, is also planning to increase its number of reactors.

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Energy markets are still affected by the shocks from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and discussions about nuclear power are not going away anytime soon.

"Amid today's global energy crisis, reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels has become the top energy security priority," noted the International Energy Agency, viewed by many as a leading authority on the energy transition.

"No less important is the climate crisis: reaching net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by mid-century requires a rapid and complete decarbonisation of electricity generation and heat production," it added.

"Nuclear energy, with around 413 gigawatts (GW) of capacity operating in 32 countries, contributes to both goals by avoiding 1.5 gigatonnes (Gt) of global emissions and 180 billion cubic metres (bcm) of global gas demand a year."

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November 26, 2023
Global demand for oil, coal and gas set to peak by 2030, energy agency IEA says

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Wind turbines and a lignite-fired power plant photographed in in Germany.

Jan Woitas | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Demand for oil, coal and natural gas is set to peak before the end of this decade, with fossil fuels’ share in the world’s energy supply dropping to 73% by the year 2030 after being “stuck for decades at around 80%,” the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

A transformative shift in how the planet is powered is also underway, with the “phenomenal rise of clean energy technologies” like wind, solar, heat pumps and electric cars playing a crucial role, according to a statement accompanying the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2023 report.

Energy related carbon dioxide emissions are also on course to peak by the year 2025.

Despite these seismic shifts, the IEA says more effort is required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a key goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The IEA’s analysis of governments’ “current policy settings” shows the world’s energy system is on course to look very different in the next few years.

In its statement, the Paris-based organization said it sees “almost 10 times as many electric cars on the road worldwide” in 2030, with “renewables’ share of the global electricity mix nearing 50%,” higher than the roughly 30% today.

Among other things, heat pumps — as well as other electric heating systems — are on course to outsell boilers that use fossil fuels.

“If countries deliver on their national energy and climate pledges on time and in full, clean energy progress would move even faster,” the IEA’s statement said.

“However, even stronger measures would still be needed to keep alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C,” it added.

“As things stand, demand for fossil fuels is set to remain far too high to keep within reach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 °C,” the statement went on to say.

In a sign of how high the stakes are, the IEA’s report said its Stated Policies Scenario was now “associated with a temperature rise of 2.4 °C in 2100 (with a 50% probability).”

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Tuesday’s report reaffirms the content of an op-ed published in September 2023 that was authored by the IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol, and published in the Financial Times.

In remarks published Tuesday, Birol sought to emphasize the huge potential for change while also highlighting the massive amount of work that still needs to be done.

“The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” he said. “It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ — and the sooner the better for all of us,” he added.

“Governments, companies and investors need to get behind clean energy transitions rather than hindering them,” Birol said.

“There are immense benefits on offer, including new industrial opportunities and jobs, greater energy security, cleaner air, universal energy access and a safer climate for everyone.”

“Taking into account the ongoing strains and volatility in traditional energy markets today, claims that oil and gas represent safe or secure choices for the world’s energy and climate future look weaker than ever,” Birol said.

COP28 nears

The IEA’s report comes just weeks ahead of the U.N.’s COP28 climate change summit in the United Arab Emirates.

The shadow of the Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in late 2015, looms large over the IEA’s report.

The landmark accord aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”

The challenge is huge, and the United Nations has previously noted that 1.5 degrees Celsius is viewed as being “the upper limit” when it comes to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.

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October 24, 2023
The world’s largest floating wind farm is now officially open — and helping to power North Sea oil operations

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The Hywind Tampen project is located in waters off the Norwegian coast.

Ole Berg-rusten | AFP | Getty Images

A facility described as “the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm” was officially opened by Crown Prince Haakon of Norway on Wednesday, marking the culmination of a major renewable energy project years in the making.

Located around 140 kilometers (86.9 miles) off the coast of Norway in depths ranging from 260 to 300 meters, Hywind Tampen uses 11 turbines. The wind farm produced its first power in Nov. 2022 and became fully operational this month.

While wind is a renewable energy source, Hywind Tampen helps power operations at oil and gas fields, the idea being that it will cut these sites’ carbon dioxide emissions in the process.

“Hywind Tampen has a system capacity of 88 MW and is expected to cover about 35 per cent of the annual need for electricity on the five platforms Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B and C,” Norwegian energy firm Equinor said.

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Floating offshore wind turbines are different from fixed-bottom offshore wind turbines, which are rooted to the seabed. One advantage of floating turbines is that they can be installed in far deeper waters than fixed-bottom ones.

In recent years a range of companies and major economies like the U.S. have laid out goals to ramp up floating wind installations.

Equinor, a major player in the fossil fuel industry, describes the turbines at Hywind Tampen as being “mounted on floating concrete structures with a common anchoring system.”

Alongside Equinor, partners in the Hywind Tampen project include Vår Energi, INPEX Idemitsu, Petoro, Wintershall Dea and OMV.

The project off Norway’s coast marks Equinor’s latest move in the floating wind sector. Back in 2017, it started operations at Hywind Scotland, a five-turbine, 30 MW facility it calls the planet’s first floating wind farm.

“With Hywind Tampen, we have shown that we can plan, build and commission a large, floating offshore wind farm in the North Sea,” Equinor’s Siri Kindem, who heads up the firm’s renewables business in Norway, said in a statement.

“We will use the experience and learning from this project to become even better,” she added. “We will build bigger, reduce costs and build a new industry on the shoulders of the oil and gas industry.”

Powering the oil and gas industry

The use of a floating wind farm to help power the fossil fuel industry is likely to spark significant debate at a time when discussions about climate change and the environment are at the front and center of many people’s minds.

This is because fossil fuels’ effect on the environment is considerable. The United Nations says that, since the 19th century, “human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.”

“Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures,” it adds.

The stakes are high. Speaking at the COP27 climate change summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last year, the U.N. Secretary General issued a stark warning to attendees.

“We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing,” Antonio Guterres said.

“Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing, global temperatures keep rising, and our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”

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August 23, 2023
Green transition won’t be perfect and we’ll need natural gas, World Energy Council CEO says

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The planet appears to be at a major crossroads when it comes to meeting climate-related goals.

Discussions about how to mitigate the effects of climate change are closely tied to the energy transition, which can broadly be seen as a plan to shift away from fossil fuels to a system in which renewables dominate.

It’s difficult to predict how the transition will pan out, given that it depends on a complex combination of factors, such as technology, finance and international cooperation.

The topic was covered in detail during a recent panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

“We need to get electrification going faster,” said Angela Wilkinson, the secretary general and CEO of the London-based World Energy Council.

“We want it to be more renewable-powered electrification,” she added, before acknowledging that a huge amount of work will be needed.

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“We can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good in this, right? The reality is, to get renewables to scale we’re going to have to have other clean energy friends in the mix, we’re going to have to build multiple clean energy bridges.”

“We’re going to have to have hydrogen [doing the] lifting, we’re going to have to have gas with CCUS [carbon capture, utilization and storage] lifting, we’re going to have to have grid strengthening going on,” Wilkinson said.

The idea of using gas as a “transition” fuel that would bridge the gap between a world dominated by fossil fuels to one where renewables are in the majority is not a new one and has been the source of heated debate for a while now.

Is hydrogen the answer?

In recent years, hydrogen has been touted as a potentially crucial tool in the shift to a net-zero future.

Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be used in a wide range of industries.

One method of producing hydrogen involves electrolysis, a process through which an electric current splits water into oxygen and hydrogen.

Some call the resulting hydrogen “green” or “renewable” if the electricity used in the electrolysis process comes from renewable energy installations like wind or solar farms.

Over the past few years, major economies and businesses have looked to the emerging green hydrogen sector to decarbonize industries integral to modern life, although the vast majority of hydrogen generation today is still based on fossil fuels.

In looking at the overall picture, the World Energy Council’s Wilkinson stressed there are no easy answers.

“It’s not that it’s a simple issue of just swapping out one technology for another technology,” she said. “It’s a much more complex challenge than that.”

IPCC concerns

In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a major report stressing the need for urgent action, with the U.N. secretary general describing it as a “survival guide for humanity.”

In a statement, Antonio Guterres said the report represented a “clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe.”

Those findings loomed large over CNBC’s discussion. As the CEO of an organization established in 1923, the World Energy Council’s Wilkinson sought to contextualize the current debate.

“We started up in an era of energy for peace, we’ve worked through an era of energy for prosperity, and now we’re in this era of energy for people and planet,” she said.

“And it requires not just a change in thinking about what we need to do, it requires a change in thinking about who we need to do it with.”

“So if we’re really going to achieve what the IPCC is asking for, we’ve got to remember the energy transition is happening alongside industrial transitions, it’s happening alongside political transitions.”

Wilkinson also argued that the current era would require collaboration across borders, sectors and generations.

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April 2, 2023
UK government greenlights first new coal mine in three decades | CNN

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CNN
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The UK has greenlit a controversial plan to open the country’s first new coal mine in three decades, a little more than a year after the nation tried to convince the world to ditch coal at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.

Michael Gove, the UK housing and communities secretary, on Wednesday approved the plan to open the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria, a county in northwestern England that is home to the World Heritage-listed Lake District.

The controversial mine is expected to create more than 500 jobs. But the environmental trade-off is steep: The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent group that advises the government, has estimated the mine and the coal it will produce will emit around 9 million tons of planet-warming emissions every year.

Supporters of the mine argue the project will create jobs and secure the fossil fuel for British steelmaking; however, 85% of the coal mined is due to be exported.

The CCC has criticized the decision. Committee chairman Lord Deben said in a statement: “Phasing out coal use is the clearest requirement of the global effort towards Net Zero. We condemn, therefore, the Secretary of State’s decision to consent to a new deep coal mine in Cumbria, contrary to our previous advice. This decision grows global emissions and undermines UK efforts to achieve Net Zero.”

The mine’s approval was also met with fierce criticism from scientists and environmentalists.

“A new coal mine in Cumbria makes no sense environmentally or economically,” said Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, in a statement. “It will add to global CO2 emissions, as the new supply will not replace other coal but divert it elsewhere, and it will become stranded in the 2030s as the steel industry globally moves away from coal.”

Ekins also said that the mine’s approval “trashes the UK’s reputation as a global leader on climate action and opens it up to well justified charges of hypocrisy – telling other countries to ditch coal while not doing so itself.”

The government initially approved the project, but then put it on hold after a wave of protests, including a 10-day hunger strike by two teenage activists.

It came under intense pressure to reject the plan in 2021, the year it hosted the COP26 talks in Glasgow.

Alok Sharma, the COP26 President and a lawmaker for the governing Conservative Party, campaigned against the mine.

“Opening a new coal mine will not only be a backward step for UK climate action but also damage the UK’s hard-won international reputation, through our COP26 Presidency, as a leader in the global fight against climate change,” he said ahead of the announcement on Wednesday.

The decision comes a little more than a year after the conference, and after lengthy discussions between the UK government, local authorities and the public.

The Cumbria County Council had also approved the plan three times, but it backtracked its decision last February and called for a planning inquiry, effectively shifting the decision to the national government.

The Whitehaven mine, also known as the Woodhouse Colliery, is scheduled to operate until 2049, which is just a year before the UK’s self-imposed deadline to slash greenhouse gas emissions to net zero (emitting as little greenhouse gas as possible, and offsetting any emissions that cannot be avoided).

According to the International Energy Agency, investment into new fossil fuels infrastructure must stop immediately if the world wants any chance of achieving net zero by 2050. The latest climate science shows that achieving net zero by mid-century is necessary to keep temperatures from rising well above 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial times. Beyond that threshold, the world will face climate crisis impacts that could take millennia to correct, or could be irreversible altogether.

Climate activists have protested against the project, while West Cumbria Mining, which is developing the mine, said the project would bring hundreds of new jobs into a struggling region. Its opponents argue these jobs may not be secure, given the huge momentum in Europe to phase out coal.

“Opening a coal mine in Cumbria is investing in 1850s technology and does not look forward to the 2030s low carbon local energy future,” Stuart Haszeldine, a professor at the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement.

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December 7, 2022
Young people just got a louder voice on global climate issues — and could soon be shaping policy

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COP27 was another milestone for young climate activists as they became official climate policy stakeholders under the ACE Action Plan.

Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Young people have long been at the forefront of discussions and activism around climate change.

This year’s COP27 was another milestone for them — they became official stakeholders in climate policy under the ACE action plan, which was created at COP27 in Egypt over the last few weeks.

Young people’s voices and opinions will now be much more impactful when it comes to the design and implementation of climate policies, explains Hailey Campbell, one of the negotiators who made it happen.

“Official recognition as stakeholders in the ACE Action Plan gives young people the international backing we need to demand our formal inclusion in climate decision-making and implementation,” she told CNBC’s Make It.

Campbell is also the ACE co-contact point for YOUNGO, the youth constituency for the United Nations’ framework convention for climate change and the co-executive director of the U.S.-based organization Care About Climate.

What is the ACE action plan?

ACE stands for Action for Climate Empowerment and is outlined in article 12 of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Improving education and awareness around climate change by making research easily accessible is one of its aims. Another goal of the article, and the new plan developed at COP27 to support it, is making sure governments and organizations around the world work together on policies and take opinions from the public and stakeholder groups into account when making decisions.

Srishti Singh from the Indian Youth Climate Network, who worked alongside Campbell at COP27, told CNBC’s Make It that the new ACE plan is key when it comes to different groups being considered in climate policy.

“Strengthening ACE in climate policy means better participation of stakeholders at local, regional, and global levels, including youth,” she said.

Young participants meet on a discussion panel in Youth and Children Pavilion during the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference.

Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

What does this mean for climate policy?

In short, being official stakeholders means young people get a bigger seat at the table. Campbell hopes that now, they will be able to shape policies that affect their future and work “with those who will not be here to see the impacts of decisions made today.”

The youth constituency should also see additional funding and support to take part in future COP conferences and other events about climate change, she adds.

Especially in recent years, young people have been some of the most vocal about strong climate targets and policies. Millions joined school strikes around the world, others took part in U.N. youth climate summits or made headway as activists, like 19-year old Greta Thunberg, or reached political leadership positions liked 28-year old Ricarda Lang, who is the co-leader of the German Green party.

This year’s COP27 also saw the first ever official youth representative, Omnia El Omrani, fight for the inclusion of young people’s voices, the launch of a climate youth negotiator program that aims to empower young climate activists from the global south, and the inaugural youth climate forum.

We know that including more youth creates more ambitious and just outcomes

Hailey Campbell

Co-Executive Director at Care About Climate and ACE Co-Contact Point of YOUNGO

Campbell says the goal was for young people to be at the center of policy-making.

“When we talk about representation, we don’t just want it at international negotiations and we don’t want to only be consulted. We want it at all levels of government and we want to be partners because action happens on the ground,” she said.

Her and her colleagues also hope to change the way older generations see climate change and its urgency.

“We know that including more youth creates more ambitious and just outcomes, so hopefully we will be able to advance quicker action on the climate crisis through our genuine involvement,” Campbell concluded.

How did they make it happen?

Most people on YOUNGO’s team had never formally learned negotiation skills. This included Bettina Duerr, a policy officer at Federation Internationales Des Mouvements Catholiques d’Action Paroissial.

“I did not have specific training or support in this role, but I used experiences from other contexts. Plus, our working group was really supportive throughout,” she told CNBC’s Make It.

“It helped that I was already in touch with the working group before COP27 and that we planned our strategy,” she added.

As well as learning from each other, previous networking had put the group in contact with experienced negotiators who gave them advice, Campbell added.

But their overall strategy boiled down to just three points, she explained. Those included writing out agreements they hoped to reach, partnering with other constituencies and making sure they had other groups in their corner, backing their ideas.

Duerr and Campbell both described the negotiations as intense, draining and stressful — but their commitment to the cause outweighed this.

“We’d stop anything we were doing to join last minute meetings with each other and with parties that wanted to champion our perspective,” Campbell said.

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November 23, 2022
New global climate deal struck at conference in Egypt

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Climate reparations, or “loss and damage” funding, is a highly divisive and emotive issue that is seen as a fundamental question of climate justice.

Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Government ministers and negotiators from nearly 200 countries finally secured an agreement Sunday aimed at keeping a critically important global heating target alive.

The new political deal reaffirms efforts to limit global temperature rise to the crucial temperature threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and the creation of a new “loss and damage” fund that would compensate poor nations that are victims of extreme weather worsened by climate change.

The two-week-long COP27 climate summit took place in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh against a backdrop of increasing extreme weather events, geopolitical conflicts and a deepening energy crisis.

Delegates struggled to build consensus on an array of issues, even as a flurry of U.N. reports published ahead of the conference made clear just how close the planet is to irreversible climate breakdown.

The scale of division between climate envoys saw talks run beyond Friday’s deadline, with campaigners accusing the U.S. of playing a “deeply obstructive” role by blocking the demands of developing countries. The final agreement was reached in the early hours of Sunday morning following tense negotiations throughout the night, with many delegates exhausted by the time the deal was announced.

Some of the major sticking points included battles over whether all fossil fuels or just coal should be named in the decision text and whether to set up a “loss and damage” fund for countries hit by climate-fueled disasters.

The highly divisive and emotive issue of loss and damage dominated the U.N.-brokered talks and many felt the success of the conference hinged on getting wealthy countries to agree to establish a new fund.

The summit made history as the first to see the topic of loss and damage funding formally make it onto the COP27 agenda. The issue was first raised by climate-vulnerable countries 30 years ago.

Lifting hopes of a breakthrough on loss and damage thereafter, the European Union said late Thursday that it would be prepared to back the demand of the G-77 group of 134 developing nations to create a new reparations fund.

The proposal was welcomed by some countries in the Global South, although campaigners decried the offer as a “poison pill” given the bloc said it was only willing to provide aid to “the most vulnerable countries.”

Rich countries have long opposed the creation of a fund to address loss and damage and many policymakers fear that accepting liability could trigger a wave of lawsuits by countries on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

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November 19, 2022
Global Carbon Emissions Showed No Signs Of Decline This Year, Scientists Warn

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Topline

Global carbon emissions continued to rise this year and have shown no signs of slowing down, the Global Carbon Project said Thursday, as world leaders push for new initiatives to halt climate change at this week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Carbon emissions rose to an all-time high in 2022.

Getty Images

Key Facts

Global carbon dioxide emissions are expected to total 40.6 billion tons this year, as emissions from fossil fuels rose 1% since 2021.

A few large carbon-emitting countries are expected to decline this year, including China (down 0.9%) and the European Union (down 0.8%), but the United States is projected to increase its emissions 1.5% and India is projected to grow 6%.

Corinne Le Quéré, a professor at the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences, suggested in a press release the rise in emissions is a result of global economies moving out of the pandemic, when demand for fuel—particularly for aviation—was far lower.

Should emissions continue to grow at this pace, the Global Carbon Project estimates there is a 50% chance that total global temperature increases will top 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next nine years—despite the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

By next year, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are expected to be 50% higher than during pre-industrial levels.

Big Number

1.4 billion. That’s how many tons of carbon dioxide need to be cut each year from global emissions in order to reach zero emissions by 2050.

Crucial Quote

UN Secretary General António Guterres opened the climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, last week by warning world leaders that the Earth is on “a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.” He added that the world is “in the fight of our lives, and we are losing.”

What To Watch For

President Joe Biden is expected to arrive at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt on Thursday to discuss the Paris Agreement.

Key Background

The report by the Global Carbon Project’s science team—composed of scientists from the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich—is released as the UN’s two-week climate summit comes to a close. During the summit’s 2015 meeting, nations signed the Paris Agreement and agreed to cut carbon emissions by enough in order to keep the catastrophic effects of climate change at bay. Scientists have recently cast doubt over whether several countries will be able to meet the agreement’s landmark goal of holding temperatures to 1.5 degrees. New policies and increased efforts to develop renewable energy have improved projections, though they have not been sufficient, and the U.S briefly left the Paris Agreement in 2020 before returning in 2021. A recent U.N. report indicates global temperatures will increase by as much as 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

Further Reading

‘Highway To Climate Hell’: Officials Issue Stern Warnings At COP27 Summit (Forbes)

Biden’s COP27, G20 Plans: Talk To Xi, Pressure Russia, Contain North Korea (Reuters)

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Ty Roush, Forbes Staff

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November 10, 2022
Macron welcomes French questions on climate ahead of COP27

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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron released a selfie video on social media platforms Saturday asking the public to send him questions about what France should do about climate change and biodiversity.

Thousands of responses quickly poured in. Several were hostile or questioned his sincerity, but they also included rigorous questions about fossil fuel subsidies, sea pollution and nuclear energy.

Macron, who will take part in the U.N. climate talks opening in Egypt on Sunday, promised to respond to the questions starting next week.

In the video, he read from a letter from the public asking why he doesn’t declare an “environmental state of emergency.” He said the letter “prompted me to ask questions about what we are doing about this ecological challenge, the challenge of our generation.”

Early in his presidency, Macron pledged to make tackling climate change issues a top priority, but he has come under widespread criticism for not instituting enough tangible change.

At the COP27 talks in Egypt on Monday, Macron is expected to discuss climate-related financing, protecting forests, Africa’s Great Green Wall, and other climate adaptation measures, according to his office.

He’s also expected to raise the importance — and challenge — of sticking to climate commitments as Europe faces an energy crisis stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Those are all key issues at the climate talks at the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which are expected to include more than 120 world leaders and run from Nov. 6-18.

Laurent Fabius, the French diplomat who presided over the U.N. talks in 2015 that produced the Paris climate agreement, made a plea Saturday to those gathering in Egypt: “Keep in mind that the most beautiful announcements mean nothing if they’re not backed up by precise and rapid policies and actions.”

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

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November 5, 2022
Emissions reductions pledges ‘nowhere near’ what’s needed, UN says

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A boat photographed in Turkey. This year’s COP27 climate change summit will look to build on the work undertaken at COP26 in Glasgow.

Temizyurek | E+ | Getty Images

Countries are not doing enough to limit the planet’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, according to a new report from U.N. Climate Change.

In an assessment published Wednesday, the U.N. said that “the combined climate pledges of 193 Parties under the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century.”

The analysis comes ahead of next month’s COP27 climate change summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where the shadow of 2015’s Paris Agreement will loom large.

A key aim of the Paris accord is restricting global warming “to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”

The challenge is huge, and the U.N. has noted that 1.5 degrees Celsius is viewed as being “the upper limit” when it comes to avoiding the worst consequences of the climate emergency.

U.N. Climate Change said its new report also showed that countries’ pledges, as they stand now, would see emissions jump by 10.6% by the year 2030, compared to levels in 2010.

“Last year’s analysis showed projected emissions would continue to increase beyond 2030,” it said.

“However, this year’s analysis shows that while emissions are no longer increasing after 2030, they are still not demonstrating the rapid downward trend science says is necessary this decade.”

In a statement Wednesday, Simon Stiell, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change, pulled no punches about the current position the world finds itself in.

“We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world,” he said.

“To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years,” he added.

COP27 will look to continue the work undertaken at last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which resulted in the Glasgow Climate Pact.

On Wednesday Alok Sharma, the COP26 president said it was “critical that we do everything within our means to keep 1.5C in reach.”

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October 26, 2022