Companies that want to retire their CO2-emitting assets (coal, oil, gas) can struggle to afford the cost of the decommissioning process. Brad Handler and Morgan Bazilian at the Payne Institute for Public Policy, writing for the World Economic Forum, explain how the creation of a new financial instrument, the 'carbon retirement portfolio' (CRP), could be a solution. In essence, it’s simple. Investors create a fund that buys the asset and takes the … [Read more...]
Only Carbon Removal can make Germany’s new climate goal a reality
Germany can’t hit its emissions targets without significant carbon dioxide removal (CRD), explain Simon Göss and Hendrik Schuldt at cr.hub. Clean energy and energy efficiency won’t do it alone. Policymakers have grasped that hard-to-abate sectors (industry, agriculture, buildings, transport) will struggle to deliver the reductions needed. Meanwhile, the climate disasters (floods, wildfires, etc.) that have cost lives this year are piling on … [Read more...]
Electric Micromobility: how to cut emissions, create jobs and transform urban transport
What if e-bikes, electric scooters and electric skateboards were added to walking and cycling in our attempts to reduce emissions through behaviour change? It’s a promising solution for all those people who genuinely want to reduce their emissions but don’t want the extra exercise. Quoting from their report, Jennifer Dungs at EIT InnoEnergy looks at the gains to be made, along with a valuable reduction in city congestion. Micromobility is still … [Read more...]
CBAM needs universal adoption of methods for measuring carbon intensity
Europe needs to account for the emissions of imported goods. That cannot happen without the international agreement on standards and certification systems for the carbon intensity of all steps in the value chain for all relevant products. Dolf Gielen and Francisco Boshell at IRENA and Massamba Thioye at the UNFCCC explain that several such systems exist around the world, but they need to be harmonised and widely adopted to truly reflect what is … [Read more...]
Record global power sector emissions by 2022, because Renewables aren’t growing fast enough
The IEA is forecasting that renewables will cover only half the projected increase in global electricity demand in 2021 and 2022. Despite renewables’ impressive growth, coal and gas will be needed to cover the rest. That means emissions will rise to record levels. That will be the reverse of the IEA’s (and many others’) “Roadmap to Net Zero by 2050” pathway, where three-quarters of global emissions reductions between 2020 and 2025 come from the … [Read more...]
EU: Slow-moving CO2 targets for cars put EV battery boom at risk
Europe’s battery manufacturers are positioning themselves to be global leaders. Their project pipeline will be enough to power a new European car fleet that is 75% battery-electric by 2030. That’s 38 European gigafactories by 2030 (fully funded, part-funded and proposed), €39.5 billion worth in investments, creating 44,000 direct factory jobs. But existing CO2 emissions cut targets imposed on car manufacturers – a leading driver of demand for … [Read more...]
‘Fit for 55’ should prioritise decarbonisation of laggards: buildings, transport, industry, agriculture
Today’s long-awaited "Fit for 55" legislative package from the European Commission will trigger intense and difficult negotiations that will last two years, says Nicolas Berghmans at IDDRI. Its scope is wide and inevitably interconnected. The twelve legislative proposals include adjustments to existing measures (renewable energy, energy efficiency, carbon market/EU ETS, energy taxation, climate effort sharing between Member States/ESR, land use … [Read more...]
UK: exposing the gap between ambitious climate laws and actual policies
Like many nations, the UK has big gaps between what is actually needed to reach net zero by 2050, what targets and ambitions have actually passed into law, and what policies are actually in place to comply with those laws. The UK’s climate watchdog, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has issued two reports that measure the UK’s performance and makes recommendations, summarised here by Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief. The first report focuses on … [Read more...]
End Fossil Fuel subsidies by shifting them to poorer households
In May, the environment ministers of the G7 agreed to end fossil fuel subsidies within this decade. Around $650 bn/year is spent worldwide on subsidising all energy sources, with the majority ($450bn) going to fossil fuels despite the climate crisis. But simply removing the subsidies has proven difficult. They keep energy costs low for consumers. It’s why public protest resisted the change in Ecuador and France in 2019. And developing nations … [Read more...]
What if Carbon Capture fails? Modelling the consequences and solutions
Most policy scenarios being used by governments include carbon capture as a vital tool to reduce emissions. Though it’s far from proven at scale, models assume that between 2030 and 2050 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will get its act together and deliver on its part in the net-zero puzzle. Assuming that will happen, burning fossil fuels can continue for longer. But Neil Grant and Ajay Gambhir at Imperial College London, writing for Carbon Brief, … [Read more...]
Cement: replacing limestone with volcanic rock could slash energy use, and emissions by two-thirds
Cement production accounts for 8% of global emissions, and it will rise as nations get richer and build more. It’s mainly because of the energy needed for the high heat process, and the carbon released from the limestone used. It’s one of the leading hard-to-abate sectors, and coming up with an alternative process and cement recipe is firmly on the industry’s agenda. Josie Garthwaite at Stanford University summarises a study that aims to replace … [Read more...]
EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism lacks the detail to drive industry’s relocation near clean energy
High emissions industries should be relocated to where the cheap clean energy is. So long as the shipping costs (in terms of price and emissions) aren’t prohibitively high, those locations can be anywhere in the world. To get the calculations right, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (accounting for the emissions of imported goods) must be harmonised internationally. They must also – crucially – count all relevant emissions. But the EU’s draft … [Read more...]
The EU’s “Fit for 55” package: a primer on the EU ETS and other main policy levers
On July 14 the European Commission will present the much awaited “Fit for 55” legislative package. Lara Dombrowski and Simon Göss at Energy Brainpool have written a very useful primer on what’s at stake for the EU ETS, along with a summary of the other main policy levers that will be decided upon. The authors describe the EU ETS as the central instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It caps emissions for 10,000 power sector, industrial … [Read more...]
Norway an EV role model? Their pathway is expensive and paid for with oil & gas exports
Norway is an EV leader thanks to a generous pot of tax incentives. Today, battery-electric cars make up more than half of all new car sales in Norway. Schalk Cloete takes a detailed look at what those incentives cost, and how many tonnes of CO2 they avoid. In short, Norway – a major oil and gas exporter - needs to sell over 100 barrels of oil (which emits 40 tonnes of CO2) to pay for the tax breaks it gives EVs to avoid one tonne of CO2. And … [Read more...]
How Clean Energy Standards have driven clean electrification in the U.S.
John Rogers at the Union of Concerned Scientists presents evidence from the U.S. of the effectiveness of using standards to drive clean electrification. In principle it’s simple: set a legal requirement for the percentage of clean electricity. How it’s done depends on the efforts of all the actors affected. 30 states are using different versions of Clean Energy Standards (CES) – the first began in 1983 and more than half of them began before 2004 … [Read more...]
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