Global economies will need to invest as much as $55tn through the middle of the century to meet an emissions goal and contain warming of the planet, according to a report by a group of executives from energy-intensive companies including ArcelorMittal SA, BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Reaching the net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050 will require large-scale electrification of industries, buildings, and transport, as well as the use of hydrogen and biofuels in areas that can’t be electrified, according to the Energy Transitions Commission. Using less energy to produce more and recycling material will aid the efforts. Building renewable power plants will take up a bulk of the estimated investment.

More frequent and severe natural calamities across the world have heightened the need to contain climate change and end the use of coal and other fossil fuels while expanding clean energy. That’s forcing some of the biggest fossil fuel users to recast their energy mix and adopt greener sources of power. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a 2018 report that reaching net-zero CO2 emissions by mid-century will be key to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Humanity is on course to miss that mark, with the World Meteorological Organization saying there is a 20% chance that global temperatures will breach the limit in at least one of the next five years. The decarbonization strategy will involve phasing out of coal-fired plants, according to the report. Those that remain should be used as a peaking or a seasonal back-up to renewable power and should be retrofitted with carbon capture and storage. The report highlighted some challenges on the way. China, the world’s biggest coal user, “is not yet on a clear path towards a net-zero economy and new coal investments are continuing despite evidence that renewables are now highly competitive on a new-build basis in most of China’s provinces,” it said. The nation can become a fully developed, rich economy with net-zero emissions by 2050 by rapidly deploy- ing renewable power projects and reducing its dependence on coal, according to the report. The country needs to double annual investments in solar and as much as quadruple investments in wind energy, along with accelerating the use of clean energy in industries and residential heating. India, the second-biggest coal user, is likely to see consumption of the fuel peak between 2027 and 2030, before gradually sliding down, Ajay Mathur, a co-chair at Energy Transitions Commission, said in a phone interview.

BP Plc’s journey from oil major to clean energy giant will start with a five-year sprint to dramatically boost wind and solar power.

By 2025, the company intends to have approved more than 20 gigawatts of renewable energy projects, an eightfold increase from 2019, Dev Sanyal, BP’s executive vice president of gas and low-carbon energy, said in a online presentation on Tuesday.

Most of that would be solar — putting BP on a par with today’s biggest generator of electricity from the sun. The company also plans big investments in wind, following on from last week’s $1.1 billion deal with Equinor ASA.

“With falling costs comes real growth,” Sanyal said. “Renewables have become the fastest growing source of energy and we see this continuing over the next decade and beyond.”

This rapid expansion would just be the start of the London-based oil giant‘s transformation into a low-carbon integrated energy company. Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney has pledged to eliminate all net greenhouse gas emissions from BP and its customers by 2050.

Trading Gains

BP’s in-house trading operations are at the heart of Looney’s pledge to move away from fossil fuels without sacrificing profits. Renewable energy projects typically gives returns of 5% to 6%, Looney said, but the company’s expert traders can add about 2 percentage points to that.

Lightsource BP, which currently manages about 2 gigawatts of solar plants, is already achieving returns of 8% to 10% and “we actually believe it can do better,” Looney said. Access to low-cost funds, and integration with the rest of BP and its project management experience can boost returns, said Sanyal and Looney.

BP will gradually expand its electricity trading over the next five years, increasing the amount of power it buys and sells annually by about 40% to 350 terawatt hours.

Of the 20 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity BP intends to begin developing over the next five years, 83% will be solar, 15% wind and 2% bio-energy, Sanyal said.

That much solar would give BP about the same capacity as is currently owned by the world’s biggest operator, China’s State Power Investment Corp. Ltd, according to data from BloombergNEF.

Solar power will be crucial for achieving the breakneck pace of growth BP laid out. It is relatively quick to install, taking as little as 18 months from concept to construction, Sanyal said. That’s much faster than massive offshore wind farms, which can take a decade to plan and construct.

By 2030, BP plans to have taken the final investment decision on 50 gigawatts of low-carbon energy capacity, and be trading 500 terawatt hours of power each year.

BP currently makes biofuels in a joint venture with Bunge Ltd. in Brazil, produces biogas in the U.S. and processes some renewable fuels within its refining portfolio.

“We see these businesses as generating returns of around 15% or higher,” Sanyal said. “It competes well within our disciplined financial framework.”

In 2014, when the price of oil last crashed, the world’s governments had no agreement in place to fight climate change. The following year leaders signed the Paris accord. Green investments have soared since then. Some $1.2tn has been poured into renewable energy, and global electric vehicle sales reached 2mn last year. Bloomberg NEF expects as much as $10tn poured into clean energy by 2050. The accord also marked a cultural watershed, with emissions targets now policed by a growing environment movement that’s shaping politics from Germany to India. In a sign of the times, activist Greta Thunberg and Tesla Inc founder Elon Musk are now two of the most famous people in the world. So when this week Saudi Arabia and Russia joined in a price war that wreaked havoc on global markets already rattled by the coronavirus, it looked like the major oil-producing nations reasserting their supremacy in the short term. Instead, it may prove to be another step in a longer-term trend towards ending oil’s power to hold the world to ransom. The price of a barrel of oil remains an important economic indicator. But the relentless push to move away from fossil fuels suggests that its geopolitical impact is likely to be softer than in the past, with the imperative to combat global warming assuming its place. “The impact of the oil price on broader economic growth has been decoupling ever since the 1980s,” said Shane Tomlinson, deputy chief executive officer at environmental think tank E3G. “We could see exceptional movements in the oil price in the next few months, but I don’t think that changes the fundamental need to address climate change.” Oil’s fall to some $35 a barrel from $55 just last week has major implications for addressing climate change. Low prices incentivise more use of oil; it squeezes the budgets of oil companies, putting clean-energy projects in doubt; and some governments feel pressured to prop up struggling oil companies. All that drives up emissions, which is bad news for global warming. However, if low prices are sustained this time, there might be big positives for fighting climate change. Renewable energy is a more mature industry than five years ago. As it becomes a less risky investment, it has attracted big investors who are showering a lot of cash and building some projects that rival the capacity of conventional power plants. At the same time, oil exploration is becoming less viable economically, with an increased risk that even those projects that go ahead no longer yield good returns and with worries about stranded assets growing. “Now it doesn’t make sense to reduce your investment in renewables if the oil price crashes,” said Mark Lewis, head of sustainability at BNP Paribas Asset Management. “It’s more logical to reduce your investment in oil.” That reality points to a broader change in investor sentiment since Paris that aff ects companies and governments alike. A number of large investors have come together under groups such as Climate Action 100+ to demand companies put sustainability at the heart of their business models, and that isn’t likely to change. Tesla has eff ectively become a proxy for how the green economy is viewed by investors. Musk has demonstrated that a mass-market electric car is viable, prompting all the major carmakers to follow his lead. He’s building his latest plant outside Berlin, in a show of his intention to take the fight to the heart of Europe’s leading luxury car producer. Tesla is after all the world’s second-most valuable carmaker by market value after Toyota Motor Corporation. For governments worldwide, pressure for policy measures has mounted as the issue increasingly resonates, in part due to the kind of direct action and media campaigning espoused by Greta Thunberg. Low oil prices off er one reason to heed that voter call, since it’s a good time to end fossil-fuel subsidies or to raise taxes on consumption of fossil fuels. Such a move can also help avoid the sorts of destabilising anti-government protests seen in France, Iran and Ecuador when energy-price increases were proposed. It could even be done in a way that “protects or even benefits poorer households and communities,” said Helen Mountford, vice president of climate and economics at the World Resources Institute. The goal of reaching out to “left-behind” communities is a dynamic driving policy from the post-Brexit UK to South Africa and swaths of Latin America that suff ered waves of unrest late last year. During the last down cycle, between 2014 and 2016, when oil briefly dipped below $30 per barrel, India cut annual fossil-fuel subsidies from $29bn to $8bn and even raised taxes on consumption. Some of the money raised was diverted to renewable-energy subsidies, after setting an ambitious goal to deploy as much as 175GW of mainly solar and wind power by 2022 — about twice the power generation capacity of the UK. “Many countries are pursuing electrification and decarbonisation to make them less dependent on the volatility of oil markets,” said Adnan Amin, former director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency. “This kind of event will only reinforce that momentum.” Also since 2014, the power of Opec’s 14 nations to shape the market has been weakened by the impact of US shale production. (Opec’s Vienna base is home to an Austrian government that now includes the Greens as junior coalition partner.) The US — which is not a member of the group — became an oil exporter again on the back of its shale revolution, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2018 to regain its status as the world’s biggest producer. President Donald Trump has cheered America’s energy resurgence as an example of taking back control. However, the collapse in oil prices weakens the shale industry’s ability to pump at a profit and even pushes some of the producers toward bankruptcies, adding to economic uncertainty surrounding the virus that may hurt Trump’s re-election bid, says Amin. Since Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the Paris agreement, it could yet tilt the presidential race in favour of a candidate more in favour of climate action. In Brussels, meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen doubled down on European Union plans to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, despite the emergence of what she called “unforeseen challenges.” “Today it’s no longer the question if there will be a European Green Deal or whether the EU will become climate- neutral but the question is how we’re proceeding and how far-reaching will the transition be,” Von der Leyen said on Monday. That stance is understandable given that EU citizens say they want the bloc to focus on tackling climate change and preserving the environment as its No 1 priority, according to a recent Eurobarometer survey for the European Parliament. “Clearly we cannot ignore what’s going on globally,” said EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius on Bloomberg TV. The global “climate emergency didn’t go anywhere.”

NASSAU — The Caribbean and its surroundings are on the front lines of climate change. The Bahamas, the archipelago that stretches over the crystal-blue waters between Florida and Cuba, have been battered in recent years by devastating hurricanes, which have increased in severity and frequency as a result of global warming. As is the case worldwide, there is an element of injustice to this. Given that the Bahamas and Caribbean countries emit relatively minuscule amounts of carbon dioxide, their residents bear very little of the blame for the climate crisis.

But the people of the region are now flipping the script, transforming themselves from victims of climate tragedies into global leaders in clean, secure energy. The Caribbean countries have compelling economic reasons for embracing the green-energy transition. For generations, they have relied on imported fossil fuels to power their economies, which means they have long had to deal with the uncertainties of world oil markets and thus significant cost fluctuations for electricity.

Thanks to advances in renewable energies, that economic challenge has created an opportunity. Unlike imported fossil fuels, which are subject to rising costs, the prices of solar power and other clean energy sources, along with the necessary battery storage systems, continue to fall. As these technologies have become more affordable and competitive with older, dirtier fuels, they have created a powerful incentive for island countries to move away from conventional fossil fuel-fired power plants. Moreover, this trend will only grow more pronounced from here on out, as the cost advantages of newer, cleaner energies make them increasingly attractive relative to fossil fuels.

For regions like the Caribbean, solar and battery storage systems do more than simply reduce the costs of electricity; when deployed in the right way, they also improve climate resilience. As the Bahamas and other countries across the region have demonstrated over the past few years, solar- and battery-powered microgrids can provide critical services for island communities during and after severe weather events that otherwise would knock traditional energy sources offline.

But in order for these new energy solutions to provide real resilience, they themselves need to be able to withstand the storms, which tend to ravage power lines and disconnect communities from centralised sources of energy generation. Thus, in the case of solar, much depends on the methods used to secure solar panels to the ground and to rooftops.

We already know that it is possible to construct photovoltaic (PV) systems capable of surviving even the most severe category of hurricane. Through a collaboration between the Rocky Mountain Institute, the government of the Bahamas and the country’s national utility, the Bahamas Power and Light Company, we have developed and installed a solar parking canopy at the National Stadium in Nassau that can withstand the winds of a category-five hurricane. We have also built the country’s first category-five resilient solar and battery storage microgrid on Ragged Island, and are now focusing on designing and delivering sustainable and resilient microgrids for critical facilities on Abaco, following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Dorian in September 2019.

As the planet continues to warm, increased moisture in the air will translate into even more severe and frequent tropical storms and hurricanes. What we saw with Dorian and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017 is likely to become commonplace. Fortunately, as the partnership in the Bahamas shows, many of the same measures needed to build resilience are also those needed to limit greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions and slow the pace of global warming. Far from requiring a tradeoff, resilient PV systems check both boxes.

The Caribbean and Atlantic are hardly the only regions that will need to build more resilient energy infrastructure to prevent power disruptions. Communities around the world are increasingly confronting the challenges posed by severe and extreme weather, including the devastating fires in Australia, Indonesia and the western United States.

In all of these cases, clean, localised energy solutions offer unique advantages in terms of reducing emissions and keeping the lights on after a disaster. They point the way to a better future for our electricity system. By embracing the clean-energy transition, the Bahamas is setting an example for the rest of the world — and particularly for those countries that are responsible for the overwhelming share of global GHG emissions.

Jules Kortenhorst is CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Whitney Heastie is CEO of Bahamas Power and Light. ©Project Syndicate, 2020.

McAfee security researchers were able to trick Tesla vehicles into breaking the law by placing electrical tape on speed limit signs, in a demonstration of another vulnerability for self-driving cars.

In findings disclosed by McAfee through its official blog, the security company revealed that it fooled 2016 models of Tesla’s Model X and Model S, which used camera systems by Intel’s Mobileye, into breaking speed limits with the strategic placement of electrical tape.

Researchers applied a single piece of black electrical tape to extend the middle line in the “3” of a 35-miles-per-hour speed limit sign. This tricked the MobilEye camera into reading the sign as 85 miles per hour, forcing the Tesla vehicle’s cruise control system to accelerate the car beyond the true speed limit.

Intel disputes that the trick was an adversarial attack, as the tape may also have fooled some human drivers into thinking that the tampered sign said 85 miles per hour.

Tesla, however, stopped using Mobileye’s camera systems in 2016, which means that the newer Tesla vehicles are not affected by the electric tape trick. In addition, other vehicles using newer versions of Mobileye technology also appear to be resistant to the manipulation.

China and other developing economies are instinctively wary of developed-country proposals to combine domestic carbon prices with “carbon tariffs” imposed on imported goods. But such policies may be the only way for rich-world consumers to take responsibility for their carbon footprint in other countries.

LONDON – The climate activist Greta Thunberg has accused developed economies of “creative carbon accounting” because their measures of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, and of achieved and planned reductions, fail to consider the gases emitted when imported goods are produced in other countries. As Chinese officials quite rightly point out, about 15% of their country’s emissions result when goods are made in China but consumed in other, usually richer, economies.

China and other developing economies also are instinctively wary of developed-country proposals to combine domestic carbon prices with “carbon tariffs” imposed on imported goods. But such policies may be the only way for rich-world consumers to take responsibility for their carbon footprint in other countries.

The “creative accounting” charge would be unfair if it were meant to imply deliberate concealment; the United Kingdom’s government, for example, publishes an easily accessible carbon-footprint report. But the figures certainly support Thunberg’s point. In 2016, the UK emitted 784 million tons of GHGs on a consumption basis, versus 468 million tons on a production basis. And from 1997-2016, the UK’s consumption-based emissions fell by only 10%, compared to a 35% decrease in production-related emissions.

Likewise, the European Union’s total consumption-based emissions are about 19% higher than those related to production. And while the United States’ gap of 8% is smaller in percentage terms, on a tons-per–capita basis it is just as large.

China is easily the biggest counterpart to this developed-economy gap, with consumption emissions of about 8.5 gigatons per year, versus ten gigatons on a production basis. And while China’s per capita emissions have already overtaken the UK’s on a production basis, it will be several years before the country’s per capita consumption footprint exceeds that of the UK.

So, if the developed world is serious about limiting potentially catastrophic climate change, it must take responsibility for emissions that its consumption generates abroad.

There are only two ways to do this. One is for the rich world to consume less. But although more responsible lifestyles – buying fewer clothes, cars, and electronic goods, or eating less red meat – should certainly play a role in making zero-carbon economies possible, such changes alone will not get us close to zero emissions. Nor will they necessarily close the consumption-versus-production gap, because consumption of domestically produced goods could fall as much as that of imports. And reduced imports by developed countries mean reduced exports for poorer economies, creating challenges for economic development.

The alternative is to ensure that imported goods are produced in a low- and eventually zero-carbon fashion. The ideal policy to achieve this would be a globally agreed carbon price, which would encourage producers in all countries to adopt low- or zero-carbon technologies. Absent this ideal, there are now growing calls in Europe and the US for a second-best solution – domestic carbon prices imposed in particular countries plus “border carbon adjustments,” meaning carbon-related tariffs on imports from countries that do not impose an equivalent carbon price on their producers.

The immediate reaction of policymakers in China, India, and many other developing countries may be to condemn such policies as yet more protectionism in a world already destabilized by US President Donald Trump’s tariff wars. And anti-Chinese political rhetoric in the US – sometimes including the absurd accusation that China is an irresponsible polluter even though its per capita emissions are half those of the US – creates a difficult environment for rational policy assessment.

But in most industries, the combination of domestic carbon prices and border carbon tariffs poses no threat to the competitiveness and growth prospects of exporting companies in developing economies. Imagine that European steel producers were subject to a new carbon tax of €50 ($54) per ton of CO₂ within Europe, which also applied to imports of steel from China or anywhere else. In that case, the relative competitive position of European and foreign steel producers seeking to serve European customers would be unchanged compared to the no-tax starting point. And Chinese or Indian steelmakers, or companies in other high-emission sectors, are as well placed as their European or US peers to adopt new technologies that reduce the carbon content of their exports (and thus their liability to border carbon taxes).

Indeed, domestic carbon prices plus border adjustments are simply an alternative route to achieving the international level playing field that ideally would be secured through a global carbon price applied simultaneously in all countries. There is one crucial difference, though: if carbon taxes are imposed at the importing country’s border, rather than within the exporting country, then the importing country gets to keep the tax revenue.

That fact increases the incentive for exporting countries to impose equivalent domestic carbon taxes, rather than leaving their companies to pay taxes at the importing country’s borders. As a result, domestic carbon taxes with border adjustments could well prove to be an effective stepping-stone toward common global carbon prices, even if explicit international agreement on a global regime cannot be achieved.

Furthermore, such an approach suggests a potentially attractive way to encourage wider acceptance of border tariffs as being legitimate, necessary, and unthreatening. To be sure, the revenues from any carbon taxes levied on domestic producers should be used within the domestic economy – whether to support investment in low-carbon technologies or as a “carbon dividend” returned to citizens. But there is a good argument for channeling the revenues from carbon tariffs to overseas aid programs designed to help developing countries finance their transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Thoughtful developing-economy negotiators should argue for such revenue transfers, rather than opposing a policy that developed countries will have to deploy. After all, richer economies must not only drive down their own industrial emissions, but also take responsibility for those that their consumption is generating elsewhere in the world.

LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Bank of England Governor Mark Carney called on the world’s businesses to publish strategies for cutting carbon emissions and adopting cleaner power sources by November, when world leaders meet in Scotland for U.N.-led climate talks.

“It’s not just green assets and divestment campaigns or certain things are so brown or black. Every company ultimately has to have a plan for a transition and what the opportunities are and where the risks are,” Carney said in an interview.

“For Glasgow that must be well on the path. That that is the norm. That the question doesn’t even have to be asked because companies are answering that question as part of their strategy.

“And the answer is, it’s the transition, stupid,” he said, referencing a phrase coined by former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s election strategist in reference to the U.S. economy.

Carney was speaking to Reuters a month before he leaves his nearly seven-year posting at the helm of Britain’s central bank to take a new role as the United Nations’ envoy for climate.

The Canadian banker, who disarmed the British insurance industry in 2015 when, in a speech called “Tragedy of the Horizon,” he warned of their exposure to climate-related events, has been one of the most vocal public figures to push for better supervision and disclosure of climate risk.

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which he launched in 2015, has become a global standard that more than 1,000 companies, financial firms, governments and other organizations have adhered to.

The intentions behind it also chime with a shift of emphasis by another leading central banker, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.

Carney was speaking to Reuters a month before he leaves his nearly seven-year posting at the helm of Britain’s central bank to take a new role as the United Nations’ envoy for climate.

The Canadian banker, who disarmed the British insurance industry in 2015 when, in a speech called “Tragedy of the Horizon,” he warned of their exposure to climate-related events, has been one of the most vocal public figures to push for better supervision and disclosure of climate risk.

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which he launched in 2015, has become a global standard that more than 1,000 companies, financial firms, governments and other organizations have adhered to.

The intentions behind it also chime with a shift of emphasis by another leading central banker, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.

Carney said November’s COP26 climate talks would also be a good deadline for regulators to map out how to make the TCFD framework compulsory.

“One of the things we will look at ahead at for the COP26 is ‘should we have pathways to make the TCFD mandatory?’ Not overnight, but through listing requirements or securities regulation disclosure standards,” he said.

Such an effort needs to be global, Carney said, encompassing regions laying out their own plans for cutting emissions. The European Union recently announced a 1-trillion-euro ($1.08 trillion) effort become carbon neutral by 2050, a strategy that includes introducing a new climate law by next month.

“It would be productive if other jurisdictions that potentially will have mandatory disclosure standards… used more conventional routes than legislation, such as securities regulations or listing standards. Let’s have that conversation,” Carney said.

Carney could play an outsized role at November’s summit, especially in view of a reshuffle of government and other senior positions by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Johnson last month sacked former energy minister Claire O’Neill from her role as president of the COP26 talks. Newly appointed Business Minister Alok Sharma was named to the position on Thursday.

Efforts by businesses, investors and financial institutions to disclose climate risk are gathering pace.

BlackRock BLK.N, the world’s largest money manager with nearly $7 trillion in assets under management, said this month that it would take a tougher view of companies that are not properly disclosing their climate risk.

This week, BP <BP.L> set out one of the oil sector’s most ambitious targets for curbing carbon emissions, saying it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. BP plans to give details later this year.

“Last week, very few people would have said BP was Paris-aligned,” said Carney, referring to the 2015 global climate agreement, signed in the French capital. “They’ve jumped from towards back of the queue to the front of the queue.”

($1 = 0.9225 euros)

(editing by John Stonestreet)