In the two decades since Greenpeace launched its groundbreaking Energy Revolution scenarios in 2005, renewable energy uptake has accelerated at speeds most analysts could not have anticipated, but leaders at the UN General Assembly must act even more boldly. 

Greenpeace’s pioneering vision for the clean energy transition was once considered unrealistic, perhaps even idealistic – but given the rapid changes to the world’s power generation, the scenarios have been proven right and perhaps not even ambitious enough. 

It’s a charge, however, that can be more readily laid at current world leaders attending the UN General Assembly in New York this month who lack sufficient ambition.  

Under existing policies and targets, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found in June that renewable energy capacity would grow to 8,000 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, missing the target to triple capacity to 11,000 GW – an objective agreed at the UN climate talks COP28 in Dubai last year. 

Global goal of tripling renewables by 2030 still out of reach, says IRENA

Political leaders must now turn that promise into action as part of a fast and fair fossil fuel phase-out. These are issues to also be discussed in New York at the first Global Renewables Summit, which I will attend, and where governments will be urged to ‘Now Deliver Change’. 

With new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for 2035 due by next February, it is essential they include robust policies and targets for renewable energy expansion, while also targeting the goal of doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. 

Let’s be clear: the consequences for a lack of action are dire. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from under-nutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone. Climate action now is essential. 

All three of the world’s hottest years on record – 2023, 2020 and 2016 – have occurred since the Paris Agreement in 2015 set the goal to limit warming to 1.5°C and already 2024 is on track to eclipse last year.  

Renewable energy implementation must now reach the heights of our stated ambition if we’re to stave off the worst impacts of a changing climate and protect people from harm. 

Rising demand fuels risk

The IEA is urging governments to close the “bridgeable” gap between current policies and what’s required to meet the 2030 renewables targets.  

That requires an accelerated roll-out of renewables, but we must also improve energy efficiency and total energy demand reductions to minimise the adverse impacts of mining for the critical minerals essential for today’s clean energy. 

The IEA notes solar PV and wind energy capacity accounted for 95 percent of growth in renewables expansion in 2023 as demand for critical minerals remained robust. 

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

However, to limit warming to 1.5°C, one of the latest IEA scenarios estimates that $800 billion of investment in mining for critical minerals is required up to 2040. This need for new supplies, however, puts Indigenous Peoples, local communities and the environment at risk. 

Critical minerals present a multitude of complex issues, such as the inherent uncertainty of the demand estimates. Rather than ramping up mining to an uncertain projection while trying to limit adverse impacts, we must first understand which impacts might be avoidable. 

Opaque supply chains

Actions to achieve overall energy, resource and material reductions, such as through energy efficiency and circularity, must be combined with long-term holistic societal and policy changes to minimise environmental impacts and stay within planetary boundaries. 

Better public transport systems, as outlined in Greenpeace’s Sustainable Mobility Vision, can greatly reduce the need for critical minerals in electric vehicles – a huge source of forecast demand – while promoting more equitable access to mobility. 

Critical minerals in short supply should be prioritised for the energy transition above other uses, and substitution is a great opportunity to leverage abundant and lower-impact options (for example, EV batteries that do not use key metals such as nickel and cobalt). 

Human rights must be “at the core” of mining for transition minerals, UN panel says

Where mining is required, it needs to occur within limits, avoiding sensitive areas – including the deep sea – and it must respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, ensuring their empowerment in decision-making, with benefits shared equitably. 

There’s also plenty of work to be done in ensuring adequate governance, traceability, human rights, worker safety and equity across the energy transition supply chains, which often remain relatively opaque and fraught with challenges. 

But like any problem, there are solutions if we’re brave and prepared to not only envision a new world, but commit with concerted action to bringing it to life. Imagine how far and how quickly we could go if today’s political leaders put their full weight behind an urgent renewables push. 

The climate crisis demands bold, transformational change and the only thing stopping us is a lack of political will to act now. 

The post Global push to triple renewables requires responsible mining of minerals appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UAE talks cap a year that saw the world’s climate scientists lay out the unequivocal need for steep and immediate emissions cuts to limit warming to 1.5ºC and ways to get there.

A year in which the International Energy Agency set out a narrow but feasible 1.5ºC aligned pathway for the decline of fossil fuels and acceleration of renewables.

Fossil fuels are relentlessly and undeniably killing us, but renewable energy promises a better future, where no one is left behind.

Primer: The ‘inevitable’ fossil fuel fight set to dominate Cop28

Take my homeland of Denmark as an example. For more than 80 years Denmark has allowed exploration for hydrocarbons and since 1972, oil – and later gas – has been produced in the Danish offshore waters of the North Sea.

In 2019 alone, Denmark produced a total of 3.2 billion cubic meters of fossil gas. So we’ve certainly done our part in causing this crisis.

Wind is winning

Yet, now we’re proving the impossible possible. Wind energy, which was long seen as a nice-to-have but not good for energy security, is already delivering over half of all Denmark’s power needs, largely thanks to community commitment and political ambition.

Furthermore, the Danish Parliament announced in 2020 that it would cancel all future licensing rounds for new oil and gas exploration and production permits in the Danish part of the North Sea and end existing production by 2050.

In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop28

The Nordic nation hasn’t stopped there as it initiated the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an international alliance of governments and stakeholders working together to facilitate the managed phase-out of oil and gas production.

Launched at Cop26 and led by the governments of Denmark and Costa Rica, the alliance aims to elevate the issue of oil and gas production phase-out in international climate dialogues, such as those we will shortly see in Dubai.

Denmark doesn’t have it all sorted out though as oil and gas production is projected to increase over the coming years before peaking in 2028 and 2026 respectively and will start declining hereafter.

Make polluters pay

Rising emissions and planned expansion of fossil fuel production, wherever in the world, are wildly out of sync with the direction of progress needed on the international stage, while financial support to reduce emissions in poorer countries, along with finance to address escalating climate impacts, remains completely inadequate.

Meet the Italian fugitive advising Emirati start-up Blue Carbon

The last thing the world needs is new fossil fuel developments. At Cop28, governments must do their utmost to agree to end expansion and instead rapidly phase out coal, oil and gas, and accelerate the renewable energy transition.

It doesn’t end there. Citizens, like me, of wealthy countries, like Denmark, with historical responsibility for the climate crisis, need to make sure our governments take accountability for finding and channeling money from where it sits to where it’s needed – from polluters to those least responsible and most in need as they transition to renewable energy and build climate resilience.

We need a credible finance package that includes the launch of a new Loss and Damage Fund, and steps to start making polluters pay for the destruction and harm they have caused.

The climate crisis is not in some far-off future. It is here right now and the planet is not coping despite the credible solutions on offer.

A world free of fossil fuels is possible as much as climate resilient frontline communities, but it won’t feel that way until it is done. It’s time for governments to get it done and stop the climate emergency. Dubai awaits.

Mads Flarup Christensen is the executive director of Greenpeace International

The post The Cop28 climate summit must set us free from fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

Across the world and all over our social media feeds, boiling temperatures, devastating wildfires, worsening droughts and violent floods are reported on a near daily basis. These are not just statistics – these are lives, loves and livelihoods being lost and shattered. From Hawaii to Greece, Libya to China and beyond, the impacts of climate change are being felt on every continent.

Despite this, political leaders are doing little to transform the fossil fuel industry that is dedicated to keeping the world dependent on a failed energy system. With over US$200 billion in profits for the “big five” oil and gas companies in 2022, it is clear that the driver of the fossil fuel industry is profit at any human cost.

The science tells us we are in the throes of a planetary emergency, yet our politicians continue to kick action into the long grass. The costs in both lives and finances will only grow the longer action is postponed. Imagine how much easier it would have been if governments and corporations had started to act when IPCC warnings were first sounding the alarm.

G20 foot-dragging

The G20 Summit just wrapped where leaders failed to reach agreement on the phase out of all fossil fuels, and only managed a coy commitment to triple renewables through “existing targets and policies,” taking note of the need to mobilise $4 trillion a year by 2030 for clean energy in low-income countries.

This foot-dragging cannot continue: the opportunity to step up is at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Ambition Summit during next week’s UN General Assembly and at Cop28 climate talks in UAE.

Facing this climate breakdown, corporate greed and government timidity, it is vital we recall our own agency. It is precisely at this moment that the power of collective action is most needed. To avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change we must come together and choose action over inaction, justice over greed, agency over hopelessness.

That’s why masses of people will be taking part in over 650 marches and events as part of the Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels on September 15 and 17. This will be one of the largest global climate mobilisations since the Covid-19 pandemic and certainly the largest one to demand the end of fossil fuels.

Make polluters pay

The fossil fuel industry is delaying its transition to a greener, safer energy system and must be held accountable for the loss and damage they have caused to humans and biodiversity. It’s time to stop all new coal, gas and oil projects and phase out these dirty fuels forever. It’s time for the fossil fuel industry to stop drilling, and start paying. Polluters should pay for the destruction they have caused, while governments, legislators, and courts must act in the interests of the people and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for their crimes, and criminalise fossil fuel extraction.

Yet we know justice won’t simply fall into our laps. Politicians often become leaders only once they’ve exhausted all other options and when the pressure becomes too big to ignore. This is why Greenpeace is calling on its members, supporters and allies to claim the public square and make our collective demands heard.

While the present is bleak, we are in charge of our future. We won’t rest until our leaders meet our climate demands for they are accountable to us, the people.

Mads Flarup Christensen is the international executive director of Greenpeace International 

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