Article 6 of the Paris Agreement creates the framework for mechanisms that will allow nations and sub-national actors to trade emissions. Executed correctly, it must raise ambitions and reduce total emissions. It must also ensure there is transparent and accurate accounting for emissions, with no double-counting. It made little progress at December’s COP25. This was partly due to some countries “insisting on accounting loopholes”, writes Isabella … [Read more...]
Peak Energy by 2030: Efficiency gains will make the Transition affordable
We can’t afford the energy transition? Next time you hear that from someone, perhaps you can show them this. Sverre Alvik at DNV GL explains that, according to their latest Energy Transition Outlook, although annual global energy expenditure will have to increase from $4.6tn in 2017 to $5.5tn in 2050, its share of growing world GDP will almost halve from 3.6% to 1.9%. That’s because continuing energy efficiency gains are making sure that total … [Read more...]
Most “sector leader” German DAX firms will miss the Paris target
By how much would the earth warm up by 2050 if every company were to operate as emissions-intensively as yours does today? It’s a fascinating way to measure whether you are doing enough, or whether you are leaving the hard work to someone else. The fintech "right. based on science" has created a model that tries to answer these questions. They have used it on the 30 companies listed on the German DAX index by calculating the future emissions of … [Read more...]
COP25: the “easy wins” are coming to an end. What now?
Lola Vallejo at IDDRI says the impressive wins we’ve seen so far in clean electrification are merely the easy “low hanging fruit”. Other big sectors like transport, buildings and industry have barely started to transition. As COP 25 convenes in Madrid this week, the world will want to know what promises will be made - via each country’s self-imposed enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - to meet the Paris goals, because the current … [Read more...]
IEA’s WEO 2019 scenarios won’t hit the Paris targets, again. It must start telling us what will
As always, the energy world is abuzz with reactions to the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook, published yesterday. As always, it’s getting plenty of criticism from those who say it lacks ambition, and in doing so will again get quoted to justify support for continued reliance on fossil fuels, explains Kelly Trout at Oil Change International. The IEA’s most ambitious pathway, the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), gives a 66% chance of … [Read more...]
DNV-GL: energy’s shrinking share of growing global GDP shows how we can afford Transition
At the current rate of progress higher energy efficiency, more renewables, and carbon capture will not be enough to keep the global temperature rise to well below 2°C. So to point the way, DNV-GL has condensed its Energy Transition Outlook 2019 into 10 ways technology can meet the COP21 targets. This article gives figures on how much solar and wind we really need, battery production, annual investment in grids, and energy efficiency. It further … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 3 of 5): fossil fuels
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. To make his predictions he has created simulations of cost-optimal technology mixes and made his own assumptions over the drivers that will affect them: policy, technology, demand growth and behavioural change are all included. Cloete reminds us that fossil fuels did not reach their dominant … [Read more...]
Extract CO2 from our air, use it to create synthetic fuels
Carbon Capture needs to take off, but nobody knows how it’s going to happen. We need innovation, scrutinised, tested and funded. Jim Conca looks at a method of extracting CO2 directly from the air that’s being pioneered by Carbon Engineering in Canada, backed by private investors and government agencies. It grew out of academic work at the University of Calgary and Carnegie Mellon University. It’s “Direct Air Capture” system can remove a ton of … [Read more...]
EU policing of Member State gas plans not consistent
Elisa Giannelli at E3G explains why the European Commission’s assessment of Member States’ natural gas plans is not consistent, on three fronts. Firstly, with its own EU climate targets: many nations are planning to increase their consumption of and investment in gas regardless of EU-wide targets to cut emissions. Secondly, the Commission is critical of some of these nations but actually supportive of others. Thirdly, even the EU’s own policies … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 2 of 5): wind and solar
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. Many of his assumptions are different from the big institutions, not least that technology-neutrality will be widely adopted as the best policy, as carbon budgets are exhausted around 2030. There are other big differences too. He starts with wind and solar, two technologies that the IEA and … [Read more...]
UN climate summit: which nations are leading, which failing
Ahead of the UN climate summit in New York on September 23rd, where countries are expected to set themselves more ambitious targets and roadmaps than they did in Paris in 2015, Bill Hare of Climate Analytics looks at the emissions league table. There are some surprises at the top: Ethiopia, Morocco and India, though he points out being at the top can still be a long way from doing enough to meet the 1.5℃ goal. At the bottom are Australia, the … [Read more...]
Lightweight Gasoline Cars: a necessary 30-year stop gap?
We should all be driving electric vehicles. But we have to wait for renewable electric grid capacity to support them all, charging points everywhere, and enough new batteries to be manufactured and put in all the new, affordable BEVs. And we’re running out of time. An interim solution has come from a study by MIT and Ford. David Chandler, writing for MIT, explains the study, which says that an interim solution – for certain regions - is … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the IEA’s WEO 2019
Schalk Cloete is creating his own Global Energy Forecast to 2050. He wants to see how his own independent analysis will match up with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. And so do we. Rich with data, his major predictions include a global policy shift from technology-forcing to technology-neutrality shortly before 2030, driven by growing worldwide acceptance of the severity of climate change. The exhaustion of the 1.5°C and, … [Read more...]
“Hard-to-abate” sectors need Hydrogen. But only 4% is “green”
40% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from “hard-to-abate” industry sectors like industrial processing and transport. Electrification won’t be enough. They also need hydrogen, argue Patrick Molloy and Leeann Baronett at Rocky Mountain Institute. Hydrogen production is already well established and growing. But it’s mainly for the chemical industry, which never meant it to be “green”: sure enough, only 4% of current hydrogen production is … [Read more...]
Peak coal on the horizon: a country-by-country review
Though the global coal fleet still increased by 17GW in the first half of 2019, net of retirements, the pipeline is definitely shrinking. Two thirds of proposed projects never even get started. Notably, in China existing coal plants have been running, on average, only 50% of the time since 2015, evidence of a large excess of capacity. But is it enough? The IPCC’s pathway to 1.5C requires unabated coal power generation to fall by 55-70% by 2030 … [Read more...]
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