The global push toward renewable energy, intended to reduce climate-aggravating emissions, has revealed how the environmental and social costs of extracting the minerals it requires fall disproportionately on local communities and ecosystems.  

Many argue that electromobility and renewable energy technologies will help mitigate climate change – but adopting them on a large scale would require a massive increase in the mining of minerals such as lithium, which are key to their development.  

According to the World Bank, the extraction of 3 billion tons of minerals over the next 30 years is crucial to powering the global energy transition. The International Energy Agency further predicts a four-fold increase in mineral extraction by 2040 to meet climate targets.  

However, the rush for these so-called “critical” minerals risks amplifying the very crises it seeks to help solve, exacerbating ecological degradation and perpetuating socio-economic injustice in the Global South. 

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

The very naming of these transition minerals as “critical” creates a false sense of urgency, reinforcing the current damaging system of extraction, and failing to consider the protection of communities, ecosystems, and species in areas of exploitation. 

While mainstream strategies emphasize technological fixes, a deeper examination reveals that, without addressing the broader implications of mineral extraction, the quest for a greener future may only deepen existing environmental and human rights violations.  

UN-backed principles 

The UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals was formed in April this year to identify common and voluntary principles that will help developing countries benefit from equitable, fair and sustainable management of these minerals.  

The Panel brings together strange bedfellows – not least China and the US – and will need to work hard to create consensus to identify principles and recommendations for governments, companies, investors and the international community on human rights, environmental protection, justice and equity in value chains, benefit-sharing, responsible investments, transparency and international collaboration. It must raise the level of ambition and listen directly to civil society organizations and rights-holders, including local communities.  

Our reflection on what the Panel cannot ignore points to three elements: a status quo approach to “development”; a high level of technological optimism concerning mining; and a lack of urgency regarding ecosystem limits and communities’ rights.  

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

First, we acknowledge that the Panel is under pressure from powerful actors, but it will need to resist the assertion that mining is always beneficial to the economic growth and prosperity of nations. This status-quo perspective reinforces the notion of unlimited natural resources for human consumption, mirroring the economic development promises of the early 20th century, which contributed to the current climate crisis.   

The Panel must not fail to consider the possibility of degrowth or the imposition of limits on mining activities that could lead to reduced material and energy consumption. Nor should it neglect other forms of traditional and local knowledge that may offer possibilities for alternative development. 

Then, on the impacts, pollution and other ecosystem disruptions caused by mining, it is consistently stated that assessments and evaluations are necessary – and that these can preserve ecosystem integrity.  

The Panel must acknowledge the irreversibility of certain mining impacts on ecosystems, which are already evident. This belies the optimistic view that all mining problems can be resolved through technology, a notion that is both false and unrealistic. What’s more, it undermines the precautionary principle, which calls for protective action from suspected harms, even before scientific proof exists.  

Finally, in the dominant narrative, transition minerals are found in “empty” places, deemed void of life, where only the resources to be extracted are counted. This ignores both the biodiversity and traditional communities that inhabit these areas.  

Indigenous rights at risk 

More than half of the minerals needed for the energy transition are found in or near indigenous territories, which are already facing the consequences of the climate and ecological crisis, such as extreme aridity, permanent water shortages and scarce water availability.  

These impacts may be increased by mining project pressures and mineral extractive activities, which are already facing the impacts of the climate and ecological crisis, such as extreme aridity, permanent water shortages or scarce water availability.  

It is essential to ensure respect for the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination; to obtain their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) before projects are begun; to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence; and to ensure not only remediation of impacts but also the ability of local people to maintain their own cultural, social, economic and political ways. 

Lithium tug of war: the US-China rivalry for Argentina’s white gold

In addition, current plans for the extraction of transition minerals are limited to the scale of the mining concession in question, without considering the cumulative impacts derived from others operating in the same area and ignoring the socioeconomic activities already taking place in these ecosystems.  

Instead, it is essential to ensure the bio-capacity of ecosystems to maintain their life-supporting functions and the diversity of uses by communities in territories, not just industrial ones. Decisions on mineral extraction should not be based solely on market demand, but also on the biophysical limits of ecosystems and, more sensibly, on the balance of water systems.    

The UN Panel has been established at a time when we can apply the lessons learned from the historical impacts of mining worldwide. This calls for the Panel to raise the level of ambition of its work by generating and advancing binding guidelines and mechanisms.  

Gathered this week in Nairobi, the Panel is working to set the rules of the game, defining principles and recommendations which will be officially presented in September during the UN General Assembly. It has a unique opportunity to oversee substantive changes to the global energy system – one that we cannot afford to miss. 

The post The UN can set a new course on “critical” transition minerals   appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a statement, Air New Zealand’s CEO Greg Foran said that because of delays to the delivery of more fuel-efficient aircraft and because “so many levers needed to meet the target are outside our control”, the airline was dropping its target and withdrawing from the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an influential non-governmental arbiter of corporate climate targets.

As several airlines have made similar targets for 2030 or 2035, the move has cast doubt on whether they can meet them. It has also raised difficult questions about the role of carbon offsets in decarbonising aviation, a sector that accounts for an estimated 2-3% of global emissions.

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Sustainability consultant and offset developer Chris Hocknell told Climate Home that Air New Zealand’s decision to leave SBTi shows that the body’s rules, particularly around offsets, are too harsh. He accused SBTi of “environmental zealotry”, a “lack of realism” and of not engaging with businesses trying to reduce their emissions.

But Thomas Day, a researcher at the New Climate Institute, said weakening SBTi’s rules to accommodate companies that are not aligned with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C would “completely defeat the purpose of 1.5C validations”.

Dutch airline KLM has a similar target to the one Air New Zealand has just abandoned, which it plans to meet with more efficient aircraft and cleaner fuels. Their spokesperson told Climate Home that they “are sticking to that [target]” but “at the same time, we recognise that it is not easy to decarbonise aviation”.

While Air New Zealand’s Foran partly blamed delays to the delivery of more fuel-efficient aircraft for dropping the target, the KLM spokesperson said their deliveries of new aircraft which consume about a quarter less fuel per passenger-kilometre are “currently more or less on schedule”.

But, the spokesperson said, “we recognise the picture Air New Zealand paints regarding the availability and pricing of alternative jet fuel” and “would like to see even more being done from governments to encourage production”.

Not enough biofuels

While fuel-efficiency can shave a chunk off a plane’s emissions, the only way to fly a plane without producing emissions is to stop using fossil fuels to power them.

Currently, the only non-fossil-based fuel commercially available is made from biofuels, turning crops like corn, soy and oil palm or used cooking oil into jet fuel.

But there is not enough of this being produced to meet demand and, as a result, it is currently more than four times as expensive as regular oil-based jet fuel.

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Jonathan Lewis, transport lead at the Clean Air Task Force, told Climate Home that he doubts whether there will ever be enough of these biofuels produced to power the world’s planes. A recent report he co-authored found aviation will need about 40% more energy in 2030 than all the world’s biofuels will be able to supply.

It’s a concern shared by the CEO of RyanAir Michael O’Leary. He told the Guardian in December: ” I don’t see where we will get the supply in the volumes we need. You want everybody running around collecting fucking cooking oil? There isn’t enough cooking oil in the world to power more than one day’s aviation.”

Even if the world could produce enough biofuels, that is likely to come with bad environmental and social side-effects, as the growing of crops to fuel planes displaces crops for food and encourages the chopping down of forests.

Other options for cleanly powering planes are fuels based on green hydrogen and ammonia. But these fuels are in early stages of development and would require big changes to airport infrastructure and, for hydrogen, aircraft design.

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Airlines’ climate targets are all based on emissions per passenger and per kilometre so flying less won’t help them meet them, but it will reduce their and the world’s total emissions.

No airline has said it will reduce flights for climate reasons, so any pressure on that is likely to come from consumers and governments. France recently banned some short-haul domestic flights to howls of protest from the airline industry.

Offsets to fill the gap?

Another way for airlines to meet their climate targets is for them to buy carbon offsets. Lewis said that that was likely to be “a necessary part of decarbonising the aviation sector”.

While many airlines have bought offsets whose claims of emissions reduction are highly questionable, initiatives like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market are trying to improve the industry’s integrity.

But on the same day Air New Zealand announced it was leaving, the SBTi released the results of a consultation on the use of carbon offsets to meet climate targets.

UK court ruling provides ammo for anti-fossil fuel lawyers worldwide

It found that the evidence it had reviewed “suggests that various types of carbon credits are ineffective” and “there could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting”.

This review, published by SBTi’s technical experts, struck a very different note to an earlier statement put out in April by the body’s board which said offsets “could function as an additional tool to tackle climate change” and “consequently, SBTi has decided to extend their use”.

That statement by the board prompted a revolt by staff, many of whom called on CEO Luiz Amaral to resign, which he did in July citing personal reasons.

Too strict or lax?

Hocknell accused SBTi’s technical experts of a “very puritanical approach” and said he hoped that SBTi’s pro-offsets elements won out in what he predicted would be a “big, big fight”.

Hundreds of companies have dropped out of SBTi after failing to follow through on a promise to set sufficiently ambitious climate targets. “If I get my crystal ball out, you’ll see hundreds more companies drop this before the end of the year,” said Hocknell.

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But New Climate Institute’s Thomas Day, who has accused SBTi of being too lax, told Climate Home “the purpose of the SBTi is to support the transformation of sectors and to offer a platform for companies who commit to this transformation.”

“It would completely defeat the purpose of 1.5C validations if the rules would be redefined to accommodate companies who are not willing or able to do so,” he added.

“If the technologies do not yet exist to put the aviation or oil and gas sectors on a 1.5C-aligned trajectory, then we need to recognise this and consider as a society how to address this, rather than moving the goalposts to pretend that everyone is on track,” Day said.

Pedro Martins Barata, the Environmental Defense Fund’s carbon markets lead, told Climate Home there were two ways of looking at Air New Zealand’s announcement.

One is that the airline set a target without measuring the consequences and “should get a reputational bad rap”. The other is that “in a voluntary system you need to walk players through how to increase their ambition over time and allow flexibility, or risk alienating corporate players and essentially becoming irrelevant in the process”.

“Are we better served by a small number of incredibly ambitious companies that can commit to far-reaching standards?” he asked, “or by having a much broader movement that can significantly impact climate change?”

“If you’re in the second camp,” he said, “you’d want Air New Zealand to do something even by purchasing good carbon credits, rather than simply walk away from it all.”

This article originally said incorrectly that Denmark had banned some short-haul flights.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Matteo Civillini)

The post As first airline drops goal, are aviation’s 2030 targets achievable without carbon offsets? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Consultants and analysts have warned of looming shortages due to surging demand for key minerals like lithium and cobalt used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies.

But after investment in critical minerals production jumped 30% last year to $41 billion, having gained 20% in 2021, that picture is looking brighter, the IEA said.

In key battery mineral lithium, the IEA forecasts supply by 2030 will reach 420,000 metric tons – only a touch short of demand estimated at 443,000 to meet government pledges, though well below the 702,000 required for net zero.

The size of the market for critical minerals for EVs, wind, solar & other clean technologies hit $320 billion in 2022 & is growing rapidly

Investment in mineral development is surging too, up 60% in last 2 years, showing how fast clean energy is moving https://t.co/2Daf1Y0qp0 pic.twitter.com/m2aqldrBH0

— Fatih Birol (@fbirol) July 11, 2023

“We are happy that for a change we can give some good news,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told Reuters in an interview.

“This is testimony that the markets are buying in to the fact that the clean energy transition is moving very fast.”

Critical mineral start-up firms raised a record $1.6 billion in 2022, up 160% from the previous year, the IEA said.

Demand for critical minerals has surged over the past five years, including a tripling in consumption of lithium and a jump of 70% for cobalt, with the total critical mineral market now worth $320 billion, it said.

While the supply picture is improving, the Paris-based energy watchdog warned that delays and cost overruns for projects posed a risk to the upbeat scenario.

More work is also needed to diversify from key nations that have tight control on output of many minerals, such as China, Indonesia and Congo, the IEA added in a report.

The newly financed projects will help meet rising demand for critical minerals that the IEA has calculated will be needed to meet climate pledges made by governments, which would likely result in a global temperature rise of 1.7 C by 2100.

The agency made separate estimates of what would be necessary to meet a net zero-emission scenario by 2050.

Mining companies needed to make more progress in curbing greenhouse gas emissions and water use, the IEA said.

Twenty top miners emitted 0.18 kg of CO2 per kg of minerals in 2021, the same as in 2020, while water use climbed to 7.9 cubic metres per metric ton of mined output in 2021 from 5.4 cubic metres in 2019, the IEA said.

Climate Home has reported on lithium mining causing conflict over water supply in Argentina and indigenous and non-indigenous people battling in court for control of nickel resources in Guatemala.

In Jamaica, governments at the International Seabed Authority are currently debating whether to allow companies to mine the deep sea bed for critical minerals like nickel and cobalt.

The post IEA celebrates energy transition minerals investment, as fears of shortage lessen appeared first on Climate Home News.

The European Parliament last week supported new rules that would make it harder for companies to make misleading claims about the climate impacts of their products.

The draft law, which updates previous directives on consumer rights, aims to help the public make more sustainable choices and encourage companies to offer them more durable products.

It bans companies from using terms such as ‘climate neutral’ if they cannot be backed by detailed evidence. It also aims to ban environmental claims that are based solely on carbon offsetting schemes, which have come under growing criticism for misleading consumers and failing to represent actual cuts in carbon.

Cop28 moots oil and gas initiative despite greenwash accusations

Legal action is already being taken over climate marketing claims under existing EU consumer law.

A case against the TotalEnergies oil company in France was admitted by the court yesterday.

Another against KLM in the Netherlands recently resulted in the airline pulling advertising bearing the slogan ‘Fly Responsibly’ in the country.

But the proposed rules more clearly explain what companies can say about their products. They are also tougher than those in a draft Green Claims Directive tabled by the European Commission earlier this year, which was criticised for failing to meaningfully address misleading environmental statements.

Hiske Arts, a campaigner with Fossielvrij NL, which brought the case against KLM, said the new law would be a “great step forward to protect citizens from greenwashing by large polluters”.

The changes are clearly in step with national regulators, which in many EU countries are already cracking down on such claims.

False impression

Earlier this year, European dairy company Arla Foods was banned from using the term “net zero climate footprint” when marketing its products in Sweden.

The Swedish Patent and Market Court agreed with the country’s consumer watchdog that Arla had misled consumers by giving the impression that making and transporting its products did not create any carbon emissions or that the company had fully offset those impacts.

Lindsay Otis, a policy expert on global carbon markets for Carbon Market Watch, said this was a key case. “The court really highlighted the difficulties that consumers are often faced with when critically evaluating the plausibility of these claims,” she said, “and they pointed out the lack of permanence in forest-based offsetting projects.”

Shell has also been repeatedly called out over the past couple of years by the Netherlands’ advertising watchdog for a campaign that promotes its sustainability efforts.

The Advertising Code Committee ruled four times in 2022 that the company’s advertising of carbon offsets misleadingly implied it was fully offsetting the greenhouse gas emissions from driving.

And Ryanair had to adjust its carbon offset compensation scheme following an investigatory sweep of the aviation industry by the Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers & Markets.

Consumer decisions

Otis stressed that corporate advertising influences consumer decisions. “If consumers are given incorrect information they potentially think they’re making green decisions when in reality it’s not really the case”, she said.

Analysis of corporate climate plans by Carbon Market Watch and the New Climate Institute shows nearly all rely heavily on offsetting.

Their report, published in February, says offsetting remains the “dominant and relatively easy option for companies to wipe away large chunks of their overall climate impacts at low cost and with appealing short-term marketing value” which is a “major stumbling block” for the credibility of those plans.

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Carbon Market Watch’s report found that many companies still see huge marketing value in making these statements.

But it says that could change if governments and courts regulate more strictly or if consumers and investors send a signal that they are unwilling to pay a premium for claims that rely heavily on contentious offsetting practices.

The UK could be moving in that direction. Earlier this year, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), issued guidance warning marketers to be clear about whether and how much the products they advertise are actively reducing carbon emissions or are basing claims on offsetting.

The ASA has since banned adverts by German and Abu Dhabi-based airlines Lufthansa and Etihad for making unjustified claims about the sustainability of flying in the UK, and is now understood to be considering stricter enforcement of terms such as “carbon neutral”, “net zero” and “nature positive” in product marketing.

Connecting the world. Protecting its future. On Earth Day, we reaffirm our commitment to become Carbon Neutral by 2050. Happy #EarthDay#EarthDay #MakeChangeFly #Sustainability #CarbonNeutral pic.twitter.com/VU1qOJFoYh

— Lufthansa India (@Lufthansa_India) April 22, 2023

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority partially upheld a complaint against energy firm Firstgas over an ad campaign about “zero carbon gas”.

They agreed that it was misleading because it implied that consumers did need do “absolutely nothing” to avoid adding carbon to the atmosphere and suggested the company’s proposed change to zero carbon gas was imminent.

Over the water, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) began investigating suspected corporate greenwashing last October. It found a large number of “concerning” claims, many of which referred to emissions reduction, offsets or carbon neutrality.

“It can be difficult for consumers to understand the differences between these terms,” the ACCC concluded. “Many businesses also did not explain how their emissions reductions and offsets were calculated, the steps being taken to reduce their carbon footprint, or the types of offsetting projects being funded.”

The ACCC has already been asked by campaigners to scrutinise claims that airline Etihad and car manufacturer Toyota have made misleading claims about their climate impacts and strategies, and says it will be investigating others too.

Helping marketers

In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently closed an extended public consultation on reviewing its Green Guides, which aim to help marketers avoid making environmental marketing claims that are unfair or deceptive.

The current guides already provide guidance on carbon offset and renewable energy claims, but the FCC invited views on whether it should provide extra information on claims such as ‘net zero’, ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘carbon negative’.

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South Korea is also getting tougher on misleading corporate climate claims. A draft law would give the Ministry of Environment power to fine companies up to three million won ($2,270) for misleading the public about their environmental impacts. If passed, it would be the first such law in Asia.

The country’s Fair Trade Commission has already been asked to investigate claims by activists from Solutions for Our Climate that SK Lubricants is using an unreliable carbon offsetting project to advertise its products.

Jihyeon Ha, head of legal at Solutions for Our Climate, said penalising corporate greenwashing is a necessary step towards achieving net zero.

Paris agreement’s police force begins with rebuke to Vatican

But she warned that the South Korean government is “giving mixed signals” about corporate climate responsibilities by downgrading an industrial emissions reduction target in its latest carbon neutrality roadmap.

“The government needs to take further steps if they want companies to actually begin shifting their business practices to decarbonisation”, she said.

Otis said it was too early to say if the global crack down on greenwashing was effective but government intervention was essential.

As such, she urged the European Commission and the European Council to approve the rules and institute a complete ban on offsetting claims. “If the other institutions do not shift their position during upcoming negotiations, it will undermine the EU’s ability to genuinely crackdown on this kind of greenwashing,” said Otis.

A recent report by a United Nations taskforce into corporate greenwash said that offsets should only be used as a last resort, if a company’s own emissions can not be reduced.

The post Regulators crack down on corporate carbon neutrality claims appeared first on Climate Home News.

“Houston, we have a problem,” Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and president-designate of the COP28 climate summit, said to loud applause from the nearly 1,000 attendees of at the CERAWeek energy conference.

“Energy leaders in this room have the knowledge, experience, expertise and the resources needed to address the dual challenge of driving sustainable progress while holding back emissions,” Jaber said in his speech to an audience that included OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

Jaber and Kerry, who strode to the stage and shook Jaber’s hand when the speech ended, left the room together. The two held a meeting ahead of the conference on Sunday.

“Look forward to working together to deliver ambitious action on clean energy transition and align the oil and gas sector w/ 1.5C imperatives,” Kerry later tweeted.

UAE’s Cop28 boss calls for “course correction” on climate change

Jaber was a controversial pick to lead the COP28 climate summit because his country is an OPEC member and major oil exporter. The United Arab Emirates is only the second Arab state to host the conference, after Egypt in 2022.

He called on his peers to get behind efforts to limit global warming. “Alongside all industries, the oil and gas needs to up its game, do more and do it faster,” Jaber said.

The UN-backed climate change conference’s recent inclusion of oil and gas representatives is a far cry from 2021 summit, where energy companies complained they were shut out of the event.

Jaber’s appointment as COP28 president last year fuelled activist concerns that the oil industry was hijacking the world’s response to the global warming crisis.

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Some activists demanded he give up his ADNOC role to steer the event. Jaber’s COP28 presidency involves shaping the conference agenda and negotiations between governments.

But others say the whole energy industry needs to be involved in the energy transition. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked an energy crunch that underscored continued dependence on fossil fuels and vulnerability to supply disruptions.

On Monday, Jaber emphasised that he would “consult and convene” with all members of the energy world.

“This industry must take responsibility and lead the way,” he said of the oil and gas sector. “Let’s remember that progress is made through partnership not polarisation.”

The post COP28 boss urges Big Oil to join fight against climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

This – the Swiss giant says – not only captures carbon from the atmosphere, generating credits to be claimed against its climate targets.

But it also protects crops, reduces water reliance and supports workers on the very farms the company sources materials from.

This practice is called insetting, a term creeping into the “net zero” plans of a rising number of corporations.

Instead of buying carbon credits from unrelated third parties – as they would in traditional offsetting schemes – through insetting, companies invest in carbon reduction or removal projects on their own land or the land of their suppliers.

Critical report

Its emergence comes as more doubts are being cast over the reliability of carbon offsets. A new critical report says this is no coincidence.

The New Climate Institute (NCI), a German campaign group, says insetting is simply offsetting in disguise and is plagued by the same integrity issues.

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The report also raises concern over companies “successfully” lobbying standards-setters to rubber-stamp the inclusion of insetting claims within their net zero pledges.

In particular, the report points the finger at the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), a corporate climate target watchdog supported by NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund and World Resources Institute. The report accuses it of “legitimizing” insetting.

What is insetting?

There is no single and universally-accepted definition of insetting, but the term generally refers to a company offsetting emissions through carbon reduction or removal projects along its own supply chain. Insetting is most commonly used by corporations with a large land footprint and involves protecting nature.

The International Platform for Insetting (IPI) – a business-led group – says insetting brings a more “holistic” approach. “Insetting is an important mechanism for companies not only to achieve their net zero commitments,” Michael Guindon, IPI’s executive director, told Climate Home. “But it also helps companies reach other goals, in improving biodiversity, ecosystems and livelihoods for communities they work with.”

But the NCI claims insetting is just a rebranding operation for “low-standard” offsetting. “The impression is that offsetting has gained a bad reputation, so companies are moving to a different term to avoid criticism, rather than abandoning it altogether,” Silke Mooldijk, co-author of the NCI report, told Climate Home News, “This distracts from the need for real emission reductions”.

The NCI scrutinised the climate pledges of 24 major multinational corporations. It found that the practice of so-called insetting is “gaining momentum and undermining more companies’ climate strategies”.

Offsets – also referred to as carbon credits – have come under increasing criticism over the last few years with academics, journalists and NGOs raising questions over the real contributions to emission reduction. In December 2022 a Guardian investigation  claimed up to 90% of forest-based carbon credits approved by a leading certifier are worthless – which the certifier Verra denies.

Methodologies questioned

The NCI report says the insetting claims it analysed are also plagued by a lack of robust methodologies and the required verification steps.

Insetting within a company’s supply chain may take the form of emissions reduction projects or carbon dioxide removals.

The NCI calls both “highly contentious”. It claims that describing emissions reduction projects as insetting is a “false concept”, because this is a measure of reducing its own emissions and should not be used to neutralise some of the companies’ other emission sources. The risk is that reductions may be counted twice.

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Carbon dioxide removals include carbon storage in soil or wood. These projects – the NCI says – may be compromised by the same integrity issues as any other offsetting project: the difficulty in demonstrating the emission reductions are additional to what would have happened anyway and that they are permanent.

Tree planting activity in Thailand. Photo: Chanklang  Kanthong / Greenpeace

Unlike offsets, insetting projects do not currently require verification against globally agreed standards.

“This could offer a potential avenue for companies to bypass those standards,” Justin Baker, a forest economist at North Carolina State University, told Climate Home News. “That raises concerns regarding the credibility or potential climate benefit of the insetting action.”

Nestlé and Pepsi

Nestlé and PepsiCo are among the companies relying on insetting for emissions reductions or removals.

Nestlé plans to halve its emissions by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050. The company says it does not use offsetting outside its value chain to deliver emissions removals – even though some of its brands do buy offsets

Its main focus, it says, is instead on sucking in carbon through restoring forests, wetlands and peatlands on its suppliers’ land.

Climate Home News asked Nestlé to provide detailed information about the company’s projects but did not receive a response.

Nestlé ’s publicly available information on insetting overwhelmingly refers to tree-planting initiatives.

A chart from a Nespresso report shows the role of removals and insetting in the company’s net zero strategy. Credit: Nespresso’s Positive Cup report)

Critics like the NCI say tree planting does not always have permanent benefits. If, for example, trees were cut or went up in flames, the carbon sequestered would be immediately released back into the atmosphere.

A Nestlé spokesperson said that “when it comes to the food and agriculture sector, the NCI approach to decarbonization simply does not work”. “Food and agricultural companies like ours can and must play a role in adopting nature-based solutions to achieve their climate targets,” it added.

PepsiCo aims to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 and to reach net zero ten years later. In its strategy, the company says it wants to deploy “carbon insetting at scale” without elaborating on specific practices and targets.

In 2021 PepsiCo announced a partnership with the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund to subsidize regenerative agricultural practices on 20,000 acres of land in Illinois, a supply area for the company. They claimed this project would “generate verifiable carbon reductions” that could be used to inset corporate emissions.

“Lobbying to legitimise insetting”

The NCI claims Nestlé and PepsiCo are “among the companies successfully lobbying to legitimise the contentious practice of what they label as insetting”.

Nestlé and PepsiCo are among over a dozen large corporations who provided input into SBTI’s guidance for the forestry, land and agriculture (Flag) sector, alongside experts from several NGOs.

The guidance was supported by the charitable foundation of Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and “additional support was provided” by companies in the Flag sector like furniture shop Ikea and food companies Cargill, Mars and General Mills.

The SBTI is the most prominent standard-setter for corporate climate targets globally. It says its targets are “grounded in an objective scientific evaluation” and represent a more robust approach for companies to manage their emissions.

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It treats offsets and insets differently. SBTI’s April 2020 guidance said that “offsets and avoided emissions should not count toward [science-based targets]”.

But, in its September 2022 Flag sector guidance, SBTI accepts removals within a company’s supply chain towards greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

“No company can purchase offsets to meet its near-term Flag or energy/industry target,” the guidance says, “only removals on land owned or operated by a company or within a company’s supply chain can be included”.

In a separate document, the group said it would “assess insetting on a case-by-case basis during the validation process” due to the absence of a “standardization of the term”.

Climate Home News asked SBTI to provide details on the number of insetting claims approved or declined, but received no response.

Science Based Targets initiative accused of providing a ‘platform for greenwashing’

An SBTi spokesperson told Climate Home News that “carbon credits may be used between producers and buyers as evidence that a reduction or removal occurred in association with a commodity to ensure unique claim to the [greenhouse gas] reductions or removals”. It added that “this only applies for Flag if such a reduction or removal is associated with on-farm actions that sit within company value chains”.

The post Corporations push “insetting” as new offsetting but report claims it is even worse appeared first on Climate Home News.

Inderpal Singh, 66, grows sugarcane over 2.5 acres in Bhatipura village, Uttar Pradesh. He supplies it to the local sugar mill, Nanglamal Sugar Complex.

Nanglamal Sugar Complex is owned by Mawana Sugars, one of India’s largest manufacturers. It supplies sugar to multinational companies including Nestlé, Coca Cola and Pepsi.

Singh used to almost harvest 90,000kg of cane in a typical season. This year it will be closer to 70,000kg. He told Climate Home droughts, floods and heatwaves in Uttar Pradesh make his livelihood increasingly precarious.

“No one comes to our help. Neither the mills nor the government,” Singh said.

Some farmers take out insurance against pest damage and weather extremes, but can only claim when a majority of the crop is damaged. Government-promised compensation for climate-related losses, Singh said, is “largely not effective”.

Climate Home News travelled to Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra to investigate the plight of workers in the industry. These two states account for 71% of the country’s sugar exports, which could end up in cans of Diet Coke, KitKat chocolate bars and Häagen-Dazs ice cream tubs sold around the world.

Smallholders like Singh told Climate Home that they felt abandoned and exploited. While the government sets a minimum price per quintal (100kg) of raw sugarcane, erratic yields, changing quality demands and late payments strain their finances.

Climate Home News invited Nestlé, Coca Cola, Pepsi and Mawana Sugars to comment on these concerns and explain how they looked after the welfare of suppliers. At time of publication, they had not responded.

A sugarcane field in Lakhimpur, Uttar Pradesh

Sugar boom

India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of sugar, and second largest exporter after Brazil.  The Indian government described last year as a “watershed season” for sugar production. The country produced a record 35.9 million tonnes of sugar and exported a record 11 million tonnes to more than two dozen countries. The major importers of Indian sugar were Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sudan, and the UAE. Indian sugar also went to the EU, US, Singapore, and Australia.

Consumer goods firms are doing good business. Nestlé India reported post-tax profits of over 2,000 crore rupees ($250 million) in 2021. Coca Cola and Pepsi are not publically listed companies in India but, according to business intelligence platform Tofler, each reaped operating revenue of more than $60m.

Climate Home traced the supply chain of sugarcane grown at farms in Nanglamal village in Uttar Pradesh to mills owned by Mawana Sugars, one of Nestlé’s main sugar suppliers in India.

Mawana Sugars is India’s sixth largest sugar manufacturer, operating two mills in Uttar Pradesh. Mills are critical to the sugar supply chain. They procure and process the harvest from the fields, then send the resulting sweeteners to buyers including the government.

‘Responsible sourcing’

Nestlé, a Swiss multinational that owns brands including KitKat, Smarties and Häagen-Dazs, procured sugar in 2019 from two Indian mills in Uttar Pradesh, including Nanglamal mill which is owned by Mawana Sugars, according to its sugar supply chain disclosure, published in April 2020.

Nestlé claims to follow responsible sourcing principles, which include the provision of safe and healthy workplaces and a ban on forced or child labour. The company states on its website that it only works with farms that “meet at least legal or mandatory industry standards” for workers’ pay and conditions.

Coca Cola says it follows the principles for sustainable agriculture, with an emphasis on prohibiting child labour and abuse of labour and ensuring a healthy and safe working environment. Pepsi says it follows a positive agriculture agenda under which it is trying to source crops and ingredients in a way that accelerates regenerative agriculture and strengthens farming communities.

Climate Home did not find any child or forced labour in farms linked to Mawana Sugars and its customers. The investigation did identify poor working conditions and low pay, however, which made suppliers vulnerable to climate-related losses.

Smallholders told Climate Home that Nanglamal Sugar Complex delays payment, makes unreasonable demands and offers no protection from extreme weather impacts. This traps them a vicious cycle of loss and debt, they said.

Unaffordable seeds

The dominant variety of sugarcane has become prone to pests that thrive under rising temperatures. Mills such as Nanglamal are encouraging farmers to grow new varieties, said Nawab Singh Ahlawat, district president of Bharatiya Kisan Union Arajnaitik, which represents many sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh. But seeds for better varieties cost 3-5 times more, around 2-3,000 rupees ($24) for 100kg. “Only a few farmers can afford it,” said Ahlawat.

“They do not give good prices for [the] old varieties,” said Singh. “They want farmers to sow early and to sow new varieties but they do not give us (sufficient) seeds.”

“Mills don’t help the farmers,” said Omvir Singh Tomar, 65, a Nanglamal resident who supplies to Mawana. He lost 15-20% of his harvest to heavy rainfall in September and October. “No one will pay for this damage,” he said.

Then the Naglamal Sugar Complex was slow to procure Tomar’s surviving crop, he said. “So far, only 10,000-12,500 kg of my sugarcane has gone to the mill… I shudder at the thought that the remaining 70,000-80,000kg of sugarcane may stretch to April or May 2023.”

Unlike some milling companies, Mawana had not invested in healthcare or education facilities for sugarcane workers and their families, Tomar said.

Climate impacts are creating dangerous working conditions for India’s sugar workers and pushing them further into debt

Late payments

A common complaint among farmers supplying sugarcane to Nanglamal is that they are not paid on time, which pushes them into debt.

Tomar said Nanglamal Sugar Complex once paid him nearly a year late. He resorted to selling land to pay for his daughter’s marriage. Smallholders like him are investing more and more in fertilisers, pesticides, better seed varieties and diesel for their irrigation pumps “but the rate of sugarcane and our income are not increasing in the same proportion,” said Tomar.

Ahlawat said several sugar mills in the Meerut area owe farmers money. “Until last year Mawana Sugars also used to delay the payment,” he said, sometimes by months. The delays have not been as long this year, but farmers are still not being paid within 14 days, which according to the Uttar Pradesh Sugarcane Supply Act is mandatory, he added. If mills do not meet this deadline, they are liable for interest of 15% a year on the overdue sum.

VM Singh, the national convener of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, has been fighting for 25 years to get sugarcane farmers paid on time. Many mills in Uttar Pradesh owe several hundred crores of rupees (millions of dollars) to farmers, he told Climate Home. “The money that had to be paid to farmers is pending. Some owe money from last year too.”

‘Exploitation breeds exploitation’

Uttar Pradesh officials are trying to tighten the rules so farmers get paid for sugarcane within 10 days of supplying it. Under its Panchamrut scheme, the state government aims to double farmers’ incomes with initiatives to diversify into other crops, introduce drip irrigation and efficient sowing methods.

Kulveer Singh, a 62-year-old farmer from Seohara village in Uttar Pradesh Bijnor’s district, told Climate Home these were empty promises. “To my knowledge no farmer has benefitted from these schemes,” he said.

The Indian government claims that “timely payment and low carrying cost of stocks for sugar mills resulted in early clearance of cane arrears of farmers” last season. Observers told Climate Home that this is not the reality on the ground.

“Farmers are not paid on time. This sometimes translates into farmers not being able to clear their dues to others, including labourers. All this together leads to issues in the whole supply chain. It is like a vicious cycle. To put it briefly exploitation breeds exploitation,” said Abhishek Jani, chief executive of Fairtrade India.

On the way forward, Jani said, “brands need to take action in their entire supply chain. For instance, in the case of cocoa from the African region, a programme has been created and consumers in Europe are willing to pay extra for sustainable and ethically sourced cocoa. On sugar, we are far from that right now but there is a huge need for it,”  he said.

Deepak Guptara of the Uttar Pradesh Sugar Mill Association said no labour or human rights were violated during the production of sugar in the state.

Welfare board

So what is being done to improve the welfare of sugar farmers, in the face of climate threats?

In Uttar Pradesh, there is no specific scheme in place to protect the welfare of workers in sugarcane fields.

In 2019, the Maharashtra government established a welfare board for sugarcane workers to provide them with social security benefits and insurance and improve their overall standard of living.

Shekhar Gaikwad, Maharashtra’s sugar commissioner, told Climate Home that a corporation was initiated in November “for the welfare of farmers under which sugar mill owners and Maharashtra government will put money.” To date the government has paid in 40 crore rupees ($4.8m). The target is $30m.

Maharashtra is the first state to set up such a scheme for migrant workers, said Gaikwad. “Registration of labourers under the corporation has started. As of now, 200,000 farmers from the Beed district of Maharashtra have been registered,” he said.

‘Not functional yet’

But farmers told Climate Home they did not know anyone who had been registered under the programme.

The government scheme was meant to provide sugar workers with insurance, financial assistance and medical aid. Registration would be the first step to access these benefits, according to Raju Shetti, a former member of India’s parliament and president of Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, a group that works for the rights of farmers.

But, Shetti said, “all these plans have just been in the air.”

Sunil Munde a small labour contractor from Ambajogai in Maharashtra, told Climate Home that the scheme “is not functional yet”. He manages 16 labourers and none of them are registered. “There are no funds in it,” he said. “The scheme has not yet been implemented on the ground.”

18-year-old Dhanvir Kumar, of Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh, labours on his family farm alongside studying at school. His family income cannot keep up with rising costs of living, he said. “We grow sugar but can’t afford to buy sugar. Drinking tea with sugar is like a crime.”

Reporting by Mayank Aggarwal, Arvind Shukla and Isabelle Gerretsen. Photography by Meenal Upreti. Data visualisation by Gurman Bhatia. The Pulitzer Center supported this project with a reporting grant as part of its Your Work/Environment initiative.

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This purchasing power means that what they decide to buy (or not) can influence the market and what products businesses offer. This is why green public procurement can play a big role in achieving climate goals.

Currently, government procurement, industrial, energy and climate policies are not always aligned. This must, and can, change – and thankfully there is new international momentum to make this happen. When it comes to responding to climate change, we must all move (as quickly as possible) in the same direction.

Globally, many countries are still industrialising and urbanising. The world is expected to build the equivalent of another New York City every month for the next 40 years. Decarbonising construction, and reducing the carbon intensity of common materials like steel, cement and concrete, is thus an unavoidable imperative.

These materials have long been key building blocks in construction projects across the world. They also currently account for an estimated 50% (at least) of global annual industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Switching to lower-carbon versions of these materials can thus make a big difference on global emissions.

Scaling up renewables means big changes to electricity networks

Estimates suggest, for example, that if even 35% of the steel used in public construction projects was very low-emission, and 60% of the cement used was very low-emission, it could save the world 1.25 billion tons of carbon emissions a year – more than total global carbon emissions from commercial aviation in 2019.

Together, national, regional, and local government entities account for an estimated 20-30% of total construction industry revenues, and 40-60% of total concrete sales. Buying greener products can cut carbon from their own projects – and make a wider impact by sending markets signals that demand for these products is rising.

This can help mitigate the risks that companies take when they invest in the innovation and adoption of greener technologies. We have seen this happen successfully before – in the case of solar energy, for example.

Solar technology used to be very expensive. This changed after countries committed to renewable energy targets and after some, such as the United Arab Emirates, built large-scale solar plants with transparent tenders and contracting processes that helped to dramatically drive down the cost of this technology. Similar strategies and impacts are needed in the global construction industry and for its basic materials.

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Governments have processes to evaluate potential materials for their construction projects – and these materials’ carbon footprints have to be part of that criteria. In order to do this – and make informed decisions and monitor impacts – procurement officers need common definitions, harmonised data and measurement standards.

Some companies are racing to install the first commercial-scale facilities for greener steel and cement, and to implement new carbon capture technologies. But we need many more to join them, to actually meet our climate goals.

The good news is that there is new international momentum to help them. At the 2021 Clean Energy Ministerial, a new coalition of governments and private sector entities emerged to focus on decarbonising heavy industries, starting with steel, cement and concrete. This is the Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI).

Coordinated by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), IDDI aims to stimulate demand for low-carbon materials. Current member governments include Canada, Germany, India, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom – as well as the United States and Saudi Arabia which joined last week.

Gap to 1.5C yawns, as most governments miss UN deadline to improve climate plans

At this year’s Clean Energy Ministerial, during the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (21-23 September), IDDI released a new global Green Public Procurement Pledge including targets for governments to increasingly procure low- and near-zero emissions cement, concrete and steel for their public projects.

Most immediately, the pledge asks governments to start monitoring and disclosing ‘embodied carbon emissions’ – those from the production through to the use – of these materials by 2025. They are then asked to use low-emission materials in all public projects (and near zero-emission materials in signature ones) by 2030.

The longer-term goal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. A lot of work is needed to get there, however, as we’ll need to see a global wave of new technologies emerge, be installed and implemented to lower carbon intensity. These technologies will need to be as accessible and affordable as possible.

So far, green public procurement has been an underutilized tool for achieving climate goals. This should change in as many countries as possible, as soon as possible – and we should help each other to make this a reality. We must move towards net-zero goals within our own countries – and across the world.

Rana Ghoneim is the head of Energy Systems and Industrial Decarbonization Unit at the United Nations’ Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). She is also coordinator of the international Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI) which released the global Green Public Procurement Pledge focused on steel, cement and concrete.

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People took to the streets calling for urgent, just and decisive climate action. Activists were right to call out those governments and businesses using distant net zero pledges to delay meaningful action today. It is true that many of the current informal and unregulated offset schemes are insufficient and can lead to greenwashing.

However, more than 1,000 companies are setting 1.5C-aligned science-based targets to reduce their emissions. The Net Zero Standard launched at Cop26 enables companies to align their climate action with limiting global warming to 1.5C. The business leaders I met with in Glasgow had come with credible evidence of their progress as well as a sincere and urgent desire to push governments to go further and faster.

While some saw Cop26 as a story of opposing voices inside and outside, I believe that the street and the boardroom are closer than they have ever been. Their message to world leaders is loud. Action, action, action is the only antidote for the blah, blah, blah.

The Glasgow Pact has given businesses a clear direction of travel. They came with concrete policy asks, which at least in part, have been delivered. These include a commitment by nations to increase their emissions targets to pursue the 1.5C target and rules for a robust and transparent global carbon market. 195 countries now agree that coal has an expiry date, even if that date is not yet agreed. Investments in fossil fuels are now far riskier because the market expects them to become stranded assets in the foreseeable future.

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Action in this decade towards halving emission by 2030 offers our best chance of keeping 1.5C within reach. Many forward-looking business leaders are stepping up to deliver right now.

It must be accountable action. Scrutiny and transparency will ultimately benefit everyone, including business, because it will build trust with employees, customers, investors and communities. The International Sustainability Standards Board will provide a much-needed global standard for the consistent disclosure of sustainability information. Reporting will make it easier for investment to flow to 1.5C aligned businesses and drive competition. It will also make it harder for those businesses that do not take climate seriously. There will be no longer any excuse nor anywhere to hide.

A robust carbon market established under Article 6 will offset the risk of greenwashing. While not perfect, the Glasgow Climate Pact offers real progress towards a global carbon market that brings rigor and scrutiny to trading offsets, reducing the risk of double-counting. The sooner the system is up and running under the new rules, the sooner it can build trust among companies and the public that trading carbon credits is a credible and effective mechanism for driving down emissions. 

Despite corporate progress, business cannot turn the tide on global heating alone. We need clear policies and regulation from governments. And business needs to consistently advocate for ambitious climate policies. The ambition loop between companies and governments is clear, by working together, they can each accelerate climate action, unlocking business leadership and policy ambition.

Similarly, the calls for action from wider society are shaping corporate and policy decisions creating the societal changes that make it easier for consumers to cut their own carbon footprint. Our task in the coming years is to turbocharge these virtuous circles and accelerate momentum to the pace needed to avert climate breakdown.  

The Glasgow Climate Pact represents real progress within the current geopolitics and consensus nature of UN climate negotiations. Forward-looking businesses will continue to raise their own ambition while calling for more government action such as delivering climate finance to developing countries, transparency and creating a just transition. Now activists, forward looking businesses and leading nations must embrace the next phase of our journey towards net-zero: Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration.

Maria Mendiluce is CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition.

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Denmark’s climate minister Connie Hedegaard put it more politely at the official launch, saying: “Remember, we cannot press the undo button if the climate gets out of hand.”

She was trying to rev up ambition to land an international climate deal at a December summit in Copenhagen. That year, the stars did not align – as has been well documented. But the model of bringing together movers and shakers from business, politics and civil society on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to mobilise climate action stuck.

“One thing that was less clear in the early days of the climate negotiations, the 1997 Kyoto talks, for example, but became excruciatingly clear in Copenhagen, is that the major political disagreements need to be ironed out prior to the major conferences,” says Kalee Kreider, a public affairs consultant and senior advisor to the UN Foundation. “The extent to which Climate Week can help to educate those convenings is critical.”

This year, even as the coronavirus pandemic drags on, the thirteenth Climate Week NYC involves no fewer than 535 events, in person and online. It spans the same spectrum as ever from artistic interpretations of the climate crisis to coalition-building at the highest level of politics, with a multiplying array of private sector and civil society initiatives in between.

The timing is key. Climate Week NYC lands roughly two months before the annual UN climate negotiations and coincides with UNGA, where world leaders converge on New York City. It allows organisers the Climate Group to attract high profile political and business leaders like New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Arden, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Paris Agreement architect Christiana Figueres.

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In the early days, Climate Group CEO Helen Clarkson says, the week was focused on making a business case for climate action – persuading busy executives that “this is not a hippy issue”. Now, the conversation has moved on to “being a lot more practical about what it is they need to do”. This can, ideally, inspire policymakers and politicians to go further with their commitments.

The opening day always musters a few big announcements. This Monday, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos set out how he was issuing $1 billion in grants for climate conservation. New York governor Kathy Hochul announced two major green infrastructure projects, to a standing ovation.

Then there is “The Hub Live”, featuring a carefully curated lineup of speakers, with plenty of space allowed for mingling over coffee. “It is a very broad church,” says Clarkson: “A place for practitioners to come together and exchange ideas.”

A much broader array of affiliate events are only lightly vetted by the Climate Group and organised under ten themes, ranging from finance to sustainable living. This is where some enter controversial territory.

European gas shortages prompt calls to accelerate clean energy transition

Canadian oil executives used the platform on Thursday to promote their “Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero” initiative – a goal that only covers operational emissions, not the emissions when the oil is burned.

For a counterpoint, a panel run by the Stockholm Environment Institute highlights the incompatibility of increasing oil and gas production with safe climate limits, sharing tools for “rapid threat identification of fossil fuel expansion projects”.

It has always been a business-friendly milieu. While Clarkson readily acknowledges that the climate crisis was forged in the market’s failure to price in environmental damage – externalities, in economics jargon – she has little truck with anti-capitalism.

“We don’t have time to overthrow capitalism and come up with a whole other economic system,” she tells Climate Home. The week is about  “solving climate with what we have got”.

Adam Lake and Helen Clarkson take in the view at a cocktail reception at Peak, Hudson Yards, New York City (Pic: Luiz C. Ribeiro for the Climate Group)

But as the week grows and evolves, the organisers are looking beyond men in suits for inspiration.

“The event was originally set up by the Climate Group as a week that could inspire businesses and governments to take action in a positive environment which celebrates ambition and success,” says Adam Lake, head of this year’s Climate Week NYC. “While that is still at the core of what we do and why we do it, over recent years it has evolved to become a more globally focussed event.”

Before setting up her own firm, Kreider was communications director for former vice president Al Gore. She has seen Climate Week NYC from a variety of perspectives since its inception, having attended both as a participant and speaker and serving as the MC for the 2012 opening ceremony.

“In the beginning it enabled business, in particular, a way to engage on the issue in a non-partisan way. But over time, it has expanded, as the issue has grown, for civil society to become much more engaged on the climate issue,” Kreider tells Climate Home.

A focus on business always risks reflecting and reinforcing the unrepresentative state of corporate leadership: pale, male and stale. There would be no more all-male panels on Clarkson’s watch, she determined when she took over in 2017, but on other dimensions of diversity, there were still gaps.

Gloria Walton at the opening ceremony of Climate Week NYC, 2021 (Pic: The Climate Group)

In February, The Solutions Project, an organisation representing the climate leadership of women and people of colour, launched the first ever Black Climate Week. This was, in part, to draw attention to the lack of climate justice and grassroots organisers represented at Climate Week NYC. The team was pleasantly surprised by the response.

“A lot of organisations would have gotten defensive about the criticism,” says Gloria Walton, CEO of The Solutions Project, “but instead, Climate Week asked us to partner, and join forces, to make sure equity considerations are woven throughout the entire programme.”

As a result of its partnership with The Solutions Project, Climate Week NYC made environmental justice one of the ten key themes and put Walton on the opening ceremony stage. That meant putting a spotlight on the work of grassroots organisers in communities hit hard by climate change and pollution.

“We hope that the relationships formed through Climate Week NYC can support transformational change on the ground, which has been innovating at the intersections of many global crises, including climate, for decades largely without scaled support from industry,” says Walton.

“This year looks different than before. It’s important to celebrate that the needle is moving AND it is just the beginning.”

Early arrivals chat in the audience at the opening ceremony of Climate Week (Pic: Climate Group)

When Covid infections spread across the world in early 2020, it forced event organisers to drastically rethink their plans. The Climate Group took an early decision to hold Climate Week NYC online.

The downside was obvious: it is much harder to get participants talking to each other in a virtual space, no matter how you try to replicate the coffee-break vibe.

The upside was having far fewer hurdles to getting speakers from all around the world, from scientists embedded in the Amazon jungle to an Indian industrialist with a penchant for poetry. And of course there were fewer air miles travelled.

A year later, while travel restrictions persist for many, the organisers were able to get people together in a room again for a handful of events, including the opening ceremony. At the same time, a partnership with TV networks took the issues beyond Climate Week NYC’s core audience to millions of US viewers through seven late night comedy shows.

“The future is hybrid,” says Clarkson, adding: “I hope that next year the balance swings back a bit more to in-person.”

This special report was produced in partnership with The Climate Group. See our editorial guidelines for what that means.

The post How Climate Week NYC became a fixture on the political calendar appeared first on Climate Home News.

Yet, while climate action today is stronger than ever, we are still far off course from the healthy, resilient zero-emissions future within our grasp.

To get on track, we need businesses, investors, cities and regions to take climate science for what it is – an existential warning – and start cutting emissions and building resilience in 2021.

That looming climate crisis has caught up with us. From wildfires in Greece, Siberia, Turkey and North America, to floods in Europe, Turkey and China, to Olympic athletes breaking down in the Japanese heat – it is hitting our health and economic security.

New science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change traces the fingerprints of human activity across climate changes, showing that every degree of warming makes life more dangerous, whereas every bit of action makes it more liveable.

That makes the UN’s Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow this November our last shot at getting it right.

National governments cannot do it alone. Businesses, investors, cities and regions can show governments that they are willing and able to follow the science. In so doing, they will carry their sectors, value chains, customers and citizens along in the race and drive greater national ambition.

IPCC report a ‘call to arms’ for climate science in courts, legal experts say

Long-term commitments to net zero emissions won’t cut it. The science demands that we reduce global emissions by 7.6% per year – or 50% within the 2020s – while reversing biodiversity loss. But while we can point to scores of laudable commitments for net zero in or before the 2040s, examples of those already cutting annual emissions by 7.6% are scarce.

The work starts now, with wealthy countries and the private sector showing solidarity for those most at risk from Covid-19 and the climate crisis.

It goes through the G7’s Build Back a Better World initiative, which will mobilise private capital in developing countries towards climate action, health, digital technology and gender equity and equality; through the UN General Assembly, which should strengthen the drive for universal Covid-19 vaccinations; and the Food Systems Summit, which will give rise to public-private initiatives to transform the food sector, a major emitter and source of jobs and livelihoods.

It also requires G20 leaders to reaffirm their commitment to zero emissions by 2050 and how to do it: stop building coal projects, earmark stimulus spending for climate action and shore up the developed world’s promised $100 billion per year in climate finance.

IPCC report prompts calls to tackle methane emissions at Cop26

Getting these moments right will turn Glasgow into a pivot point, where we choose to look outward rather than inward, to show solidarity rather than selfishness.

This is when we create a Marshall Plan for climate action, not a Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles ended World War I by apportioning blame and the burden of reparation to Germany – crippling the German economy and leading to World War II.

The Marshall Plan ended World War II by generating public and private investment towards European reconstruction.

A Marshall Plan for climate action puts businesses, investors, cities and regions at its core – driving ambition from the bottom up to national governments. It embeds the IPCC’s science across every corner of the economy, directing public and private investment from fossil fuels and deforestation to clean energy, electric and active transport and nature-positive business.

This push has started, as demonstrated by the growth of the UN’s Race to Zero and Race to Resilience campaigns of private sector and local government actors committing to net zero by 2050 and greater resilience by 2030. But the science shows that every bit of action today will limit another fraction of a degree warming – so we need to keep racing.

Gonzalo Muñoz and Nigel Topping are the High-Level Champions for Climate Action for the UN’s Cop25 and Cop26 climate summits. 

The post Following the science means slashing emissions 7% per year – starting now appeared first on Climate Home News.

The judgement by a court in The Hague sets a significant precedent that companies, not just countries, have a duty to align with the Paris Agreement.

By ordering Shell to cut its emissions 45% by 2030 in line with global climate goals, the judge handed campaigners the tools to unleash a series of lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry.

The ruling makes clear that Shell is responsible not just for cutting emissions from its own operations, but from the use of its products as well. While the judgement didn’t rock Shell’s shares, it certainly would have set alarm bells ringing in the company’s head office as it works out the implications.

For Harro van Asselt, a professor at the University of Eastern Finland Law School, the conclusion is clear: Shell has to reconsider its fossil fuel production plan.

The company has vowed to appeal the decision — setting in motion a legal battle which could drag on for many years. For now, the verdict sends a warning to boardrooms around the world to take stock of the Paris accord.

Investors are ramping up pressure on big oil to take meaningful steps to cut their emissions. Shareholder revolts over climate action took Exxon Mobil and Chevron’s annual general meetings by storm this week.

Meanwhile in the EU, Portugal is proposing the bloc allows methane gas pipelines to remain eligible for EU funding until the end of the decade in a bid to woo support from Eastern leaders.

This week’s news…

• Portugal draft proposal allows methane gas pipelines to receive EU funding until 2030
• Shell ordered to slash emissions 45% by 2030 in historic court ruling
• Brazil’s environment minister investigated for illegal logging cover-up
• G7 commits to end unabated coal finance in 2021 to ‘keep 1.5C within reach’
• With Indonesia’s answer to Elon Musk in jail, electric vehicles are going nowhere
• Facebook fuels climate misinformation online, report finds

and comment…

• To meet net zero by 2050 we need a long-term vision for carbon pricing
• Governments are overlooking a key piece in the climate puzzle: community energy

The post Paris deal enters boardrooms – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Governments and businesses alike are adopting net zero targets at a rapid pace: countries with net zero targets now represent over 60% of global emissions, while companies with such commitments together represent sales of nearly $14 trillion.

These commitments may not yet be ambitious enough to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C, but they come tantalizingly close. And by setting their sights on almost complete decarbonisation by mid-century, they should ideally provide the signal needed to shift investments from polluting industries to clean technologies.

Yet this is not how it is playing out in practice.

Last week, the International Energy Agency outlined what it believes must happen if we are to reach net zero by 2050. First on the list is not approving any new coal plants, coal mines, or oil and gas fields from 2021 onwards.

Fossil fuel companies, however, are planning to invest heavily in new fields and mines over the coming years, many of them in highly sensitive ecosystems such as the Arctic.

Meanwhile, hundreds of coal plants are in the planning stage around the world. These investments typically have life spans of several decades, meaning many could still be in operation well beyond the mid-century decarbonisation goal.

Why would investors continue to inject money into ventures that are simply not compatible with the commitments adopted by the world’s governments?

Brazil’s environment minister investigated for illegal logging cover-up

The truth is that investors take their decisions based on concrete strategies, roadmaps, and incentives, while targets may be seen as merely aspirational. Yet in most countries, long-term strategies are sorely lacking. To-date, only 29 countries have submitted the long-term decarbonisation strategies called for by the Paris Agreement.

Equally lacking are the clear and robust price signals needed to drive low-carbon investments at scale. Most experts agree that placing a price on emissions is essential for achieving decarbonisation. Yet in the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2021, my colleagues and I found that only 3.76% of global emissions are covered by a carbon price above $40/tCO₂e — the lower end of the range leading economists say is needed to meet the 2C target that represents the absolute minimum commitment under Paris.

Source: World Bank, State and Trends of Carbon Pricing, 2021

Perhaps more sorely missing still is the long-term clarity on how carbon prices will develop. Only a handful of countries have set out clear pricing pathways, and even these do not extend further than 2030 – far shorter than the lifespan of most energy investments.

In addition to locking-in high-carbon investments for decades to come, the absence of robust and stable price signals risks delaying R&D and pilot projects needed to achieve deep decarbonisation.

A recent analysis of the effectiveness of carbon prices found that while they have had some impact on reducing emissions, low prices and broad exemptions have led to little impact on innovation and zero‐carbon investment.

Goldman Sachs estimates that carbon prices upwards of $100/tC2e will be needed to drive the technological breakthroughs necessary to unlock hard-to-reach emissions reductions, while Woodmac predicts prices of $160/tCO₂e are needed to meet the 1.5C target.

Comment: Governments are overlooking a key piece in the climate puzzle: community energy

The State and Trends report also reveals that more and more companies are starting to adopt their own internal carbon prices, mostly with a view to triggering low-carbon investments.

Yet these prices are often modeled on (expected) regulatory prices in the jurisdictions they operate in and are therefore also too low to drive the investments needed. Oil and gas companies, for instance, on average assume a carbon price of a mere $31/tCO2e.

Evidently, this is hardly enough to discourage Arctic drilling.

There are some encouraging signs. The European Union – which in the process of aligning its emissions trading system with its 2050 net zero goal and the European Green Deal – has seen prices soar to record highs in recent months.

The New Zealand government, meanwhile, is setting its emissions cap for the coming years to align with its own 2050 net zero goal. And an increasing number of countries are showing interest in developing long-term strategies that set out clear decarbonisation pathways toward mid-century.

As more countries move to agree on net zero targets, they would do well to move quickly to connect them to concrete plans and robust economic incentives. Ambitious targets are a crucial start, but they must not prove mere castles in the sky.

Darragh Conway is the lead legal counsel at Climate Focus and a lead contributor to the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report 2021. 

The post To meet net zero by 2050 we need a long-term vision for carbon pricing appeared first on Climate Home News.

This roadmap shows that net zero has become mainstream, fossil fuels must be phased out urgently and that those businesses that work towards cutting their emissions in line with 1.5C will be in the best position to thrive.

Until now, there was no clear guidance on what net zero really means. It is not the same for Germany, the US or China. It is not the same if you produce steel, beverages or clothes. This roadmap helps provide that guidance.

For the private sector, guidance on net zero comes from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which relies on the IEA scenarios. The SBTi has come to represent the mark of scientific rigour for companies that are seriously working to reduce their footprint aligned with the Paris Agreement. It is now consulting on a Net Zero Standard for the private sector, due to be released in November this year. The standard will include guidance to help companies set science-based, net zero targets.

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The IEA roadmap says the energy sector will be dominated by renewables and there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply. It highlights the urgent need to shift away from coal burning.

With 300+ businesses already switching to 100% renewable electricity through RE100 and a growing number of power utilities aligning their emissions reductions with the 1.5C target, through science-based targets, many businesses already see this in the future. The IEA roadmap reinforces the trend. What is needed now is for governments to adopt supportive policies, like phasing out coal use and ending fossil fuel subsidies.

An increase in investments in grid infrastructure is also specified in the roadmap along with a lower reliance in carbon capture and storage (CCS) compared to previous reports. Net zero hinges on an unprecedented clean technology push, through to 2030, and requires huge leaps in clean energy innovation. This again provides clarity for business on where to focus their efforts and resources. It reaffirms the recent conclusions from the Energy Transition Commission on electrification and hydrogen which conclude that massive clean electrification will be the primary route to decarbonization, complemented by hydrogen in the harder-to-abate sectors.

Action cannot wait. To arrive at net zero by 2050, global emissions must halve by 2030.

With a few weeks until the G7 summit, the business community has very clear asks to leaders in line with the IEA roadmap to net zero:

• Put forward strengthened, high quality national contributions to the Paris Agreement in line with a 1.5C trajectory to halve global emissions and contribute to reversing nature loss by 2030
• Deliver on the commitment by developed countries of $100 billion a year in support of climate action by developing countries
• Commit to 100% sales of zero-emission vehicles by 2035 for new light-duty vehicles
• End coal financing immediately, coal exports by 2025, and phase out the use of coal by 2030
• Lay out roadmaps by 2022 to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies and financing by 2025 at the latest
• Put a meaningful price on carbon
• Make climate-related financial disclosure mandatory for corporations, in line with recommendations by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures

For the energy transition to net zero to be effective, governments need collaborate with the private sector at an unprecedented level. Government action, company strategies and investor choices can make this goal a reality.

María Mendiluce is CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition.

The post What the IEA net zero roadmap means for businesses and governments appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Race to Zero “should be open for everybody,” Nigel Topping says in an online interview. “There should be no ideological exclusion.”

The goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 has become the benchmark for climate ambition. While a small but growing number of governments have formally adopted the target, a much bigger group of companies, investors and local governments are setting climate neutrality goals.

Launched in June, the Race to Zero campaign sought to galvanise climate action around the 2050 goal at a time when the world locked down to halt infections from Covid-19 and the global economy slumped.

Topping, officially the high-level climate action champion for next year’s Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow, UK, co-leads the campaign with Chile’s Gonzalo Muñoz.

Net zero: The inside story of the target that will shape our future

To join, companies, investors and local governments need to demonstrate they have set science-based targets in line with limiting global temperatures rise to 1.5C  — the tougher goal of the Paris Agreement. While a number of oil and gas companies have net zero targets, none are aligned with 1.5C.

With research on how to align oil and gas companies with the 1.5C target expected to be published early next year, Topping hopes some companies will be in a position to meet the 1.5C requirements and join the campaign before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021.

Last month, UK broadcaster Channel 4 News reported that consultancy firm Boston Consulting Group, which advises oil and gas companies on how to continue to generate growth, was supporting the high-level climate champions’ work.

Setting climate targets in line with the 1.5C temperature goal requires oil and gas companies to radically transform their business model. Previous analysis has found that to set a genuine net zero target, oil companies would need to cut absolute emissions by 100%.

Instead, oil and gas companies are relying on offsetting some of their emissions to meet the target. And so are other businesses in hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation and the steel industry, where technological solutions are not available for full decarbonisation.

As part of our new Net Zero zone, Climate Home News is looking for ambitious climate leaders to share their work. Enquire here about how you can gain access to our Net Zero zone, reach our audience and inspire others to follow your lead.

But poor quality offsets risk giving companies a free pass to continue polluting without actually reducing emissions – a red line for Topping and his team.

“Companies that are not committed to reducing emissions but are claiming to be climate neutral by buying lots of offsets won’t be part of the Race to Zero,” he says. “That is not a path for survival.”

Since the last climate talks in Madrid in December 2019, the campaign has seen a doubling of the number of net zero pledges, with 452 cities, 22 regions, 1,101 businesses, 45 investors and 549 universities signing up.

“It’s going well, it has lots of momentum and we will keep it going,” Topping tells Climate Home.

By the Cop26, the climate champions wants the number of commitments to have increased tenfold.

“Around the world people are frightened, angry, worried and desperate to help and feel a sense of urgency.” Publicly pledging to commit to climate neutrality “is a way to [help],” he says, calling for small and medium size companies, which account for 90% of businesses worldwide, to step up.

In an interview with Climate Home in February, Topping said he hoped 60% of world economic output would be generated in areas which have a 2050 goal of net zero emissions by the end of 2020. Things are going better than that.

Joe Biden’s victory in the US election on a net zero platform, following pledges from China, Japan and South Korea, brings the total to 74% of global GDP. (China’s target is 2060, but the destination is the same.)

Tracker: Which countries have a net zero carbon goal?

Many climate events planned for this year have been cancelled, postponed or moved online – up to and including Cop26, which was originally scheduled to start 9 November 2020.

But webcast panel discussions have their advantages, says Topping: “Being forced to be virtual means we can reach more people.”

“I think you have cloned yourself because I’m seeing you everywhere for hours a day trying to promote your Race to Zero,” Dave Turk, of the International Energy Agency joked with Topping during an event at New York Climate Action Week in September.

With a team of around 50 people – with many seconded from businesses and civil society networks – the Race to Zero is hoping to shift the dial for climate action in the real economy.

In recent months, they have explored how non-governmental actors can support communities build resilience and adapt to intensifying climate impacts with the aim of setting up a new campaign in 2021. “We need more global collaboration to drive the solution,” Topping says.

Known for his former role as CEO of the We Mean Business coalition of companies working to accelerate the transition to a zero carbon economy, Topping previously made a career in optimising large-scale manufacturing systems. A job, he says, that has led him to think about achieving big systemic change.

The re-engineering of the global economic and social system towards net zero emissions is his biggest challenge yet.

“I spend a lot of my time acting as a bridge or a translator between different worlds,” Topping said in a TED interview earlier this year, as he works closely with both government officials in the Cop26 team and the private sector.

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If the net zero goal is clear, how to get there isn’t so. “What is a transition pathway to 1.5C or 2C ?” he asks. “That is what civil society wants to know.”

To try to answer this question, his team has worked to develop pathways for 23 sectors, from aviation and shipping to cement and steel, to ensure companies are taking action in the short term that is putting them on track to meet the 2050 goal.

Synthesising existing research, the pathways sketch out what needs to happen in the next 5-10 years to set the pace for net zero. They are due to be released during a 10-day series of events to take stock of the campaign’s progress starting 9 November.

“There is no agreement on a pathway” to decarbonise aviation for example, Topping says. He recalls telling the International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao) that without committing to net zero by 2050, they will “lose [their] licence to operate”.

In September, the oneworld alliance of 13 global airlines, including American Airlines, British Airways and Finnair, committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 – accelerating the need for viable technological solutions such as alternative fuels.

“We need to focus on the dynamics of exponential change,” Topping says, which means public investment to support emerging technology until the market locks in a solution. Then, “investments really take off because it’s safe. That is part of what we need to really get to scale.”

Working through “networks of networks of networks” of green groups, trade associations and company alliances, Topping hopes early pathway adopters will create “feedback loops” that drive ambition through entire sectors of the economy.

By Cop26, he hopes to reach “tipping points” where at least 20% of the main actors in each sector have committed to the pathway to net zero.

He doesn’t expect it to be easy. “We need to be clear about challenges and disagreements. For example, how much can we rely on carbon capture? That is a big conversation that we should not shy away from.”

The post UK climate champion: Oil majors can join the ‘race to zero’ – if they align with 1.5C appeared first on Climate Home News.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has presented a carbon border tax as an important tool “to ensure that EU companies can compete on a level playing field” with big emitters such as China and the USA. This week von der Leyen announced that the EU would raise its emissions reduction target to at least 55% compared to 1990 levels – up from 40% currently – by 2030. 

The main reason for introducing a carbon border tax is to prevent carbon-intensive production from relocating to countries with lower emissions standards, a problem known as “carbon leakage.”

IMF president Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday called on major emitters to cooperate and draw up a carbon pricing agreement. “The EU cannot stop global warming on its own. But it can bring the world together. A top priority should be an agreement on a carbon pricing floor among major emitting countries,” Georgieva said in a statement. 

Georgieva said that in the absence of such an agreement, applying the same carbon price on the same products, irrespective of where they are produced, could help avoid carbon leakage and ensure fairness towards European businesses.

An EU climate mitigation policy published by the fund elaborated on the position: “A carbon border adjustment mechanism could complement the package to avoid an increase in emissions outside the EU due to higher carbon prices in the EU.”

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Susanne Droege, senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Climate Home it was significant the IMF had publicly endorsed the EU’s plan to introduce a mechanism to avoid carbon leakage at the bloc’s border. “Carbon border tax is a potential option on how to implement that mechanism,” she said.

Harro van Asselt, professor of climate law and policy at the University of Eastern Finland, said several options remain open for how that carbon price could be applied.

“What seems most likely is that it will be in the form of a charge similar to the EU emissions trading system (ETS) allowance price for a limited set of sectors, for example cement and electricity, with importers being required to draw from a separate pool of allowances,” he said. 

Comment: How von der Leyen could make a carbon border tax work

Russia’s economic development minister said in July that an EU carbon border tax would contravene World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. China and the US have also clearly stated their opposition and asked the WTO to make the EU clarify its plans, according to Droege.

It is critical that the bloc’s efforts to design the policy go hand-in-hand with diplomatic efforts to reassure major trade partners. “Otherwise there is the real risk of retaliation,” said van Asselt. The EU learned the hard way when it tried to impose the ETS on international aviation in 2012 and was forced to limit the scope to intra-EU flights only following strong international and industry backlash. 

Joe Biden has said that if he is elected US president in November, he may introduce a US carbon border tax “on carbon-intensive goods from countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations.”

The post IMF endorses EU plan to put a carbon price on imports appeared first on Climate Home News.

Like in previous years, the UK hosts of the two-week event are seeking corporate sponsors to shoulder some of the cost, initially estimated at £250 million ($330m).

Unlike in previous years, which have seen large polluters use such deals to bolster their green credentials, sponsors of Cop26 are expected to have a credible plan to cut their emissions to net zero by 2050, the official website states. Climate Home News understands that oil and gas majors will not be considered.

Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate research and policy at the Boston-based NGO Corporate Accountability, has long campaigned for polluters to be “kicked out” of climate talks. She told CHN that, if confirmed, the decision to exclude oil and gas companies from sponsorship deals would be “a testament to the strength of the movement”.

“For years, the UN climate talks have failed to deliver for people on the global frontlines of the climate crisis, yet has rolled out the red carpet for the world’s largest polluters,” she said.

A decision not to allow oil and gas sponsorship “is long overdue,” she added. “It should be the bare minimum of any government hosting talks meant to avert the very crisis that the fossil fuel industry has fueled and profited off of for decades.”

UN climate science report likely to be delayed beyond 2021 Glasgow summit

Dylan Tanner, executive director of Influence Map, which tracks corporate lobbying against climate action, told Climate Home News sponsorship of large climate conferences have been a part of the playbook for polluting companies for a long time.

Governments hosting the talks have previously been criticised for giving a platform to those responsible for causing the climate crisis.

Air France, gas and electricity company Engie and carmaker Renault were among the sponsors of Cop21 in Paris in 2015, when countries agreed to limit global temperature rise “well below 2C” by the end of the century.

In 2018, Poland’s leading coal company Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW) sponsored the climate talks held in Katowice, at the heart of the country’s coal-producing region. The Polish pavilion memorably advertised coal-shaped bars of soap.

Last year, corporate accountability groups accused Spain of allowing its biggest polluters to use the climate summit in Madrid to “wrap themselves in the green branding of the COP”.

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In a note on the Cop26 website, the UK presidency said it was looking for companies that “are making real contributions to the fight against climate change” to sponsor the event. Eligible businesses must have committed to cut their emissions to net zero by 2050 or earlier, including “a credible short term action plan” to achieve their goal, before Cop26.

While applications are open to any company that can demonstrate strong climate credentials, priority will be given to UK-based businesses or with a large UK footprint. The call for sponsors does not explicitly rule out oil and gas companies from sponsorship deals.

UK-based oil majors BP and Shell have both committed to achieve net zero emissions in their operations by 2050 or sooner. Their plans rely on large scale use of carbon offsets and technologies such as carbon capture and storage. A decision to rule out any sponsorship deal from fossil fuel companies would imply the Cop26 presidency does not consider such plans credible.

Cop26, which is scheduled for November 2021 after being delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, is set to be the largest international event the UK has ever hosted, with 30,000 delegates from around the world expected to attend.

The UK is hoping to leverage the resources, commitments and expertise of companies with ambitious climate plans to bolster international climate action and spur a “race to zero”.

Britain’s Nigel Topping and Gonzalo Muñoz of Chile are leading the call for companies, cities and regions to “set the pace” and  pledge to cut their emissions to net zero by 2050 at the latest.

The post Big oil need not apply: UK raises the bar for UN climate summit sponsorship appeared first on Climate Home News.

Setting out strategies to mobilise private finance ahead of the UN climate talks in Glasgow, or Cop26, Carney said such investments “could become the greatest commercial opportunity of our time”.

“The objective for the private finance work for Cop26 is simple,” he said, “to make sure that every private finance decision takes climate change into account.”

Appointed special advisor on climate finance to UK prime minister Boris Johnson, Carney, outgoing governor of the Bank of England, made the remarks at the heart of the City of London on Thursday.

“Achieving net zero emissions will require a whole economy transition – every company, every bank, every insurer and investor will have to adjust their business models,” he added.

“This could turn an existential risk into the greatest commercial opportunity of our time.”

Carney said that achieving a whole economy transition wasn’t “about funding only deep green activities or blacklisting dark brown ones”. “We need fifty shades of green to catalyse and support all companies toward net zero,” he said.

Finance has been identified as a key priority and a cross-cutting theme of Cop26 by the UK presidency, which said it will help deliver all other objectives.

UK’s Nigel Topping seeks broad movement to drive global economy to net zero by 2050

Rich countries have promised to mobile $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries curb emissions and cope with climate impacts. Huge investments are still needed to deliver that goal.

At the UN climate talks in Madrid in December, China, India and Brazil insisted the delivery of this commitment was a precondition for any discussion on enhancing their climate pledges.

Countries are under pressure to submit tougher 2030 climate targets and publish long-term decarbonisation strategies before the start of Cop26.

Cop26 president and the UK minister for business, energy and industrial strategy, Alok Sharma, told the City audience “unleashing the finance which will power the shift to a zero-carbon economy” had to be the focus in the run-up to conference.

Sharma quoted Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that found nearly $7 trillion per year throughout the next decade was needed to meet both the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Much of this funding needs to come from the private sector,” he said, noting the key role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), including the World Bank. Carney added the UK will ask MDBs to “develop robust implementation plans” aligned with the Paris Agreement before Cop26.

The Netherlands faces pressure as global ‘test case’ for deep emissions cuts in 2020

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), agreed on the vital role central banks needed to play ahead of the summit. But she called on the financial sector to re-think “the principles that have constantly applied” to the financial system.

“We can all do something. And in doing so you start questioning conventional wisdom, the ways things have been done,” she said.

Lagarde warned that prompt commitments by governments to ramp up ambition was essential to deliver “a smooth transition for the economy”.

“But if that intervention is delayed the reduction in emissions may have to be sharper, faster, resulting in a disorderly, disjointed and more disrupted transition for the economy,” she said.

Ahead of the summit, Sharma also said the UK will support “private sector coalitions” to identify the climate impacts of their portfolios and loans.

This comes after Nigel Topping, the UK’s climate action champion, told Climate Home News he would focus on building coalitions of ministers and non-state actors to bring about “tipping points” for change in specific sectors.

These coalitions will result in “big announcements” at Cop26, he said.

The post Net zero goal ‘greatest commercial opportunity of our time,’ says Mark Carney appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nigel Topping said he hoped 60% of world economic output will be generated in areas which have a 2050 goal of net zero emissions by the end of the UN climate talks in Glasgow, in November, up from 49% now in an estimate by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank.

Besides the huge diplomatic efforts the UK presidency needs to deliver ahead of the critical UN negotiations, or Cop26, cities, states, regions, businesses and investors are under growing pressure to play their part in propelling the world into a decade of ambitious climate action.

For Nigel Topping, that means re-thinking the interaction between national governments and non-state actors to create a global movement that can wean the global economy off fossil fuels.

Topping, who was appointed by the UK presidency to drive climate ambition alongside Chilean Gonzalo Muñoz, warned the divide between state and non-state actors “has been a bit too rigid in the past”.

Speaking to Climate Home News in London, the former CEO of We Mean Business, a coalition of companies working to accelerate the transition to a zero carbon economy, said: “We need to recognise that it’s a collective leadership problem.”

“How we bring coalitions of the ambitious together around these big systems transformations require everybody to act…that is what I am most keen to build on this year,” he said.

Countries are under pressure to enhance their 2030 climate plans and publish long-term decarbonisation strategies ahead of Cop26, to bridge the gap between current levels of commitments and what is needed to limit warming to 1.5C by the end of the century – the tougher goal of the Paris Agreement.

Switzerland joins few nations confirming to UN it will enhance climate action plans

To act as a driving force besides political negotiations, Topping said both the private sector and local governments will need to come up with pathways to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century.

After the last climate talks in Madrid, 15 subnational governments, 398 cities, 786 companies and 16 investors with assets of $4 trillion committed to being carbon neutral by 2050, according to the Chilean presidency.

For Topping, the number of non-state actors that pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050 needs to increase tenfold before Cop26, noting that such commitments are only meaningful if they include “clarity on a long-term goal and clarity of short-term action”.

That, Topping said, would send “a resounding signal to the world’s governments that everybody else is getting on with it, so you can do it to, and you must and we want you to”.

At the Glasgow summit, Topping envisioned events that would gather ministers and non-state actors representatives, including mayors, CEOs and campaigners to spur innovation and move the dial on sector-specific issues such as energy, transport, and housing.

These events would act as “ambition loops between different actors,” he said.  And include “a mix of stockholders that between them really have the power to bring the transformation to a tipping point, when the markets and other governments basically have to follow”.

“We need to be really thoughtful about building the coalitions to get done what needs to be done. We can’t assume that there is a one size fits all,” he added.

Topping said he hoped to build sufficient coalitions to have “at least one big announcement a day” during Cop26, which runs from 9-19 November.

The Netherlands faces pressure as global ‘test case’ for deep emissions cuts in 2020

Real economy commitments will also help “embolden” countries to ramp up ambition Topping said, and provide evidence that some aspects of the transition are already underway.

“We’re working hard to ensure that diplomatic outreach is informed by what’s going on with the non-state actors.”

Such information will be important in moments like the EU-China summit convened by Germany in September, Topping added, as Brussels hopes to broker a climate and trade deal with Beijing to ramp up its climate target.

Building these multi-stakeholder coalitions requires “rolling up your sleeves,” he admitted. But his encouragement comes from the fact “systems change exponentially” and that society can become more sophisticated at recognising the signs a transformation is underway.

He also said that reaching 60% of the world economy in areas with a goal of net zero emissions would be a stepping stone to much greater ambition in coming years.

“If we can get to 60% now then I think we have a reasonable chance of getting to 100% by 2025 and in the next ratchet-up cycle,” Topping said. Unlike countries, “non-state actors are not waiting five years” to increase ambition, he added.

The post UK’s Nigel Topping seeks broad movement to drive global economy to net zero by 2050 appeared first on Climate Home News.

For the first time, environmental concerns dominated the top five long-term global risks for business leaders, investors and policy-makers surveyed in the WEF’s annual report, published on Wednesday.

In its 50^th edition, the WEF in Davos will focus on preventing the erosion of international solidarity – a principle that underpinned the WEF’s  foundation – and seek ways to build political and societal cohesion that can drive a global response to issues such as climate change.

US President Donald Trump, who is pulling out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg are among those due to attend the 21-24 January event.

The 750 respondents to the WEF’s 2020 Global Risks Perception Survey ranked extreme weather events, climate action failure, natural disasters, biodiversity loss and human-made environmental disasters the top five most likely risks for the global economy this year – ahead of data fraud, cyberattacks, water crisis, global governance failure and assets bubbles.

UN outlines 2030 goals to save planet’s biodiversity

The world’s elite also identified climate action failure as the risk with the greatest impact on the global economy. In the short-term extreme heatwaves and the destruction of natural ecosystems were ranked third and fourth as the risks most likely to rise in 2020.

“The horizon has shortened for preventing— or even mitigating—some of the direst consequences of global risks,” wrote Børge Brende, WEF president. “It is sobering that in the face of this development, when the challenges before us demand immediate collective action, fractures within the global community appear to only be widening.”

The United States is the only nation quitting the Paris Agreement with Trump doubting that man-made emissions are the main cause of worsening climate change. He wants instead to bolster jobs in the US coal industry.

Policy fractures also appeared strongly at the UN climate talks in Madrid, Spain, in December when large emitters blocked progress despite a growing alliance of vanguards among small, vulnerable and progressive European countries calling for ambition.

Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister of the ecological transition, warned countries that while “the rule-based multilateral order is being challenged,” the world needed “global cooperation to face the global challenge of climate change”.

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“The good news is that the window for action is still open, if not for much longer,” Brende wrote in the report’s preface, citing growing commitments from businesses to “look beyond their balance sheets”.

And indeed, concerns of climate and environmental risks’ negative impact on the global economy are on the rise.

In the last year, a growing number of businesses and investors have committed to more ambitious climate action and the decarbonisation of their operations and investments.

On Tuesday, BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager with $7tn in assets, revealed changes to the fund’s investment in a letter to clients, naming climate change a key factor in affecting economic growth, asset values, and financial markets.

The fund said it will end direct investments in companies generating more than a quarter of their revenues from thermal coal production. However, it will remain one of the largest investors in fossil-fuel companies.

“Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” wrote Larry Fink, BlackRock chairman and CEO. “The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance.”

China-backed coal plants on EU’s doorstep hide huge carbon costs

BlackRock has previously come under fire from climate campaigners for backing fossil fuel investments and failing to shift its investment strategy in the face of mounting climate emergency. Now, the decision could push other fund managers and companies across the world to consider climate risks in decision-making.

“Climate change is almost invariably the top issue that clients around the world raise with BlackRock,” Fink added.

But for climate activists, commitments and promises alone won’t do. While the Davos elite is seeking solutions on ways to mitigate global warming’s negative impacts on the world’s economy, campaigners are demanding governments and the private sector stop profiting from the fossil-fuel economy.

Writing in the Guardian, Thunberg and 21 other young climate activists demanded all companies, banks, institutions and governments attended the Davos summit “immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels”.

They wrote: “Young climate activists and school strikers from around the world will be present to put pressure on these leaders.”

The post Climate change tops risks for world in 2020 – Davos report appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate change is now a material risk for companies. Extreme weather is affecting supply chains, investors are increasingly scrutinising companies’ plans to minimise climate risk and customers are striving to cut their carbon footprint. 

The businesses that are taking action on climate are helping accelerate the transition to zero-carbon and seizing the opportunities on offer.

They are also standing up to call on governments to set bolder, long-term policies on climate. Earlier this year, in the UK, 120+ businesses called on the UK government to legislate for net-zero, giving the then prime minister Theresa May the confidence to commit to long-term ambition.

Cop25 Bulletin: A rare press conference

This week in Japan 126 companies in sent an open letter to relevant ministers calling Japanese government to raise its ambition to align with the Paris Agreement. 

And in the US 75+ businesses called on congress to pass meaningful climate legislation, including carbon pricing.

Why does business care? Because strong climate policies give companies and their stakeholders the clarity and confidence they need to invest at scale in low-carbon options. In addition, companies with ambitious emissions reduction targets need to be able to decarbonise their value chains – which requires strong policy action to fully decarbonise the economy. private sector.  

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To give a sense of the level of business ambition, there are now well over a hundred companies committed to set climate targets across their operations and value chains aligned with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and reaching net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. This is a powerful signal that business stands ready to support governments stepping up their action on climate. 

Harry Verhaar, head of global and government affairs of Signify lighting and Anirban Ghosh, CSO of Mahindra Group both recognise the urgency of the challenge and the great need for business and government to collaborate.

“We are only visitors to this planet for our lifetime, and it’s our moral obligation to pass on a healthy Planet Earth to the next generation. That’s why I call upon fellow executives, cities and governments to join us as we create integrated policies and actions that will help us to limit global warming to only 1.5C degrees,” said Verhaar. 

Ghosh added: “Business-government collaboration is vital to achieve a 1.5C future. Government ambition and business ambition create a mutually reinforcing ambition loop that accelerates progress exponentially. Governments must create a favourable ecosystem where innovation can occur and corporates must seize the opportunity to give consumers viable alternatives to lead a low carbon way of life.”  

Madrid climate talks to split nations into vanguard and laggard

Michael Fletcher, retail chief commercial officer at the British supermarket chain Co-operative Group Limited (the Co-op) explained that it isn’t enough for businesses to act alone.

“We’re proud to be the first UK retailer to pledge to meet the UN’s target to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C and reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. By making this commitment we’ll change every aspect of our future decision making. As a first step, we have already set science-based targets aligned to a 1.5C pathway, but we need everyone to do the same, so we can avert an emergency for future generations together.

“It’s going to need a great deal of co-operation and clear policy to achieve this. Political will and legislation is vital to create a level playing field and make ambitious climate action the norm and not the exception. This is absolutely necessary to allow all businesses to drastically reduce the greenhouse gases for which we’re responsible. We can get there, but not if we don’t act urgently and work together.

“We set targets and take action on the basis that if everyone does the same, we can avert an emergency for future generations. This won’t happen if others do not follow the lead. Clear policy is vital to create a level playing field and make ambitious climate action the norm and not the exception.” 

David Yates, executive general manager, sustainability, from Australian real estate company Dexus said that clear, long-term government policies provide business with the certainty needed to invest in the transition to a zero-carbon economy.

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“Policies that stabilise energy prices and set preferences for low carbon fuel sources and end-use technologies are essential for businesses that seek to build robust business cases for adopting ‘beyond business-as-usual’ solutions for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. 

“Specific policies would include those that a) foster demand for energy efficient buildings by promoting disclosure of energy performance and associated occupancy cost benefits, and b) that raise minimum building performance standards and c) incentivise or support landlords to invest in developments or retrofits to meet new minimum standards.” 

Feike Sijbesma CEO of the Dutch multinational company Royal DSM said action is more urgent than ever and that carbon pricing is key for their company, and for the world, to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.

“It is critical that policymakers step up and urgently commit to implement the key policies needed to embed climate action into our financial system, i.e. via carbon pricing. This is the way to unlock the potential from investors and companies from the private sector to support zero-emissions innovations.”

Gabrielle Ginér, head of environmental sustainability, BT explained that the demand signals that business generates should be recognised and acted upon:

“BT was one of the first companies in the world to set a science-based target aligned to a 1.5 degree pathway, and we have a target to be a net zero emissions business by 2045. Setting net zero targets sends important demand signals for innovation and investment prioritising growing the green economy. We support the UK’s net zero leadership and hope that other companies and countries will join us in accelerating climate action.”  

Jen Austin is policy director of the We Mean Business coalition  

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