Wednesday، 04 December 2019 10:07 PM

On the same September day that activist Greta Thurnberg gave a fiery speech in New York demanding world leaders tackle climate change, Mexico’s president was touting achievements of a wholly different kind: increasing funding for oil production.
“We’re investing in refineries. It hasn’t been done for a long time,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters at a news conference in Mexico City.
“What was invested this year is going to be repeated next year,” promised Lopez Obrador, noting that the government had already funnelled more than 12bn pesos ($600mn) towards revamping oil production.
The leftist leader, who was elected in a landslide last July, has framed the investment as a way to wean Mexico off its dependency on foreign energy supplies, as well as fuelling economic development through increased oil production.
But at a time when countries are facing mounting pressure to curb emissions and stave off threats from a warming climate, environmental experts say the Mexican government is moving in the wrong direction.
“While Mexico should be abandoning (oil) production, they’re rehabilitating refineries … under a logic of national sovereignty,” said Leon Avila, a professor of sustainable development at the Intercultural University of Chiapas.
“It’s an archaic perspective, based on production in the 70s during the oil boom, and they think they can do the same thing — when really we’re in another context,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Last Monday, Mexico’s government announced it would expand the rules of its “clean energy certificates” (CEL) programme to make them available to older hydroelectric plants operated by state utility company CFE.
The programme previously applied only to new projects, creating an incentive for local and foreign firms to invest in green energy.
The CEL-certified energy can be sold to big companies that are required to obtain a percentage of their electricity from clean sources.
But in a statement on Tuesday, CFE director general Manuel Bartlett Diaz said that, in line with the president’s vision for energy sovereignty, there was “no reason to subsidise private (electricity) generating companies”. Industry leaders and environmental experts said the move weakens incentives for renewable energy investment, and risks Mexico’s compliance with the 2015 Paris Agreement to fight climate change.
The Mexican CCE business council said on Tuesday that the change could jeopardise up to $9bn in foreign and local clean energy investments tied to the original CEL rules.
“The decision detracts from the only mechanism considered by law to drive Mexico’s energy transition and meet the mandatory national clean energy adoption goals,” the CCE said in a statement.
The Lopez Obrador administration has emphasised its commitment to tackle climate change and adhere to the Paris accord.
At a UN climate conference last December, Sergio Sanchez, then undersecretary for environmental protection, said the government would implement “concrete policies and actions focused both on reducing emissions and adapting to climate change”.
The Mexican senate last week also called on the federal government to declare a “climate emergency” and take necessary steps to address climate threats.
Those can range from wilder weather and rising seas to more crop-killing droughts that can drive worsening poverty and migration.
But at a press conference the following day, the president shied away from recognising climate change as a crisis.
“We have already considered a series of measures to face the climate change phenomenon in the Development Plan,” Lopez Obrador said.
But the president’s description of the plan — listing conservation efforts but omitting any policies to reduce emissions — irked environmentalists.
“There is a lack of understanding for the climate crisis we are confronting,” said Claudia Campero from the Mexican Alliance Against Fracking, an advocacy group.
According to Avila, the university professor, the president has prioritised ending Mexico’s entrenched poverty but is using oil as the primary engine to drive prosperity.
“He should care about climate change, but between climate change and going down in history for ending poverty…
well obviously he prefers that,” Avila said.
Among Lopez Obrador’s most important projects is the construction of a new oil refinery in his home state of Tabasco.
The project is set to cost $8bn, and the government says it would generate up to 23,000 jobs.
But besides boosting Mexico’s carbon footprint, the refinery, at a coastal site, is vulnerable to climate threats, environmental experts said.
Local media reported this week that the property had flooded due to heavy rains.
Environmentalists also point with concern to the government’s proposed 2020 budget, which would see fossil fuel funding continue to increase.
Under the proposal, the energy ministry’s budget would jump more than 70% compared to last year, to 48.5bn pesos ($2.4bn), following a budget increase this year of over 900% compared to 2018.
According to an analysis of the budget published in September by a coalition of environmental groups, 96% of the money is intended to support oil and natural gas related projects.
“There is no room for more development of fossil fuel extraction,” said Campero, the fracking opponent.” (But) that’s far from being the vision of this government.”
The budget does include about 56bn pesos ($2.8bn) for “adaptation and mitigation of the effects of climate change,” but of this, 70% is being set aside for transporting natural gas, a somewhat cleaner fossil fuel, Campero said.
A spokeswoman for the Mexican environment ministry did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Conspicuously absent from the budget, advocates say, is funding for expanding renewables, despite the country’s potential to adopt clean energy.
According to a 2017 study from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which focuses on promoting democracy and social programmes, 80% of Mexico’s energy currently comes from fossil fuels.
But the country’s landscape and weather conditions mean it could supply its electricity needs entirely from renewable sources, the study noted.
The Lopez Obrador administration has appeared reticent to capitalise on this potential, however.
In January, the government cancelled a public auction for companies to bid on clean energy contracts.
“Mexico is a very rich country in terms of its potential in renewables,” said Pablo Ramirez, a campaigner at Greenpeace Mexico.
“But since the arrival of the new administration, that’s been completely scrubbed off the map.”
Mexico’s 2020 budget is awaiting final approval by congress this month. – Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Qatar has stressed the importance of natural gas in meeting the economic and environmental challenges facing energy consumers around the world.

Many countries around the world are searching for the right balance of reliable and secure sources of energy, which can drive their growth, while addressing environmental concerns at the same time, HE the Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi told the 21st ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).

“In this effort, many are discovering the versatile, flexible, economic, and environmental qualities of natural gas as a key enabler in the journey to achieve a lower-carbon economy,” he said.

He stressed on Qatar’s commitment to ensuring the continued availability of reliable LNG (liquefied natural gas) supplies to world markets, and to promoting greater growth in the LNG industry, as well as to serving the growing needs of its clients.

“We all have the same objective: To place natural gas at the heart of the energy industry as a fuel of the future to affirm our true belief that natural gas is a cornerstone in the energy transition and a destination fuel, not merely a transition fuel,” he said.

Drawing attention to unprecedented recurrent climatic conditions, including mean temperatures, turbulent seasonal cycles and extreme events, al-Kaabi had recently said it is time to take another look at natural gas and the number of advantages it has to make it a pivotal element in any strategy to tackle environmental challenges.

Qatar has highlighted the efforts to reinforce its position as the world’s leading LNG producer, which include the North Field expansion to increase the LNG production capacity to 110mn tonnes per annum by 2024, and a major ship-building campaign to build up to 100 LNG carriers over the next decade.

Almost three years after Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk unveiled solar roof shingles as part of his push to buy SolarCity, the automaker says it finally has a version of the tiles that it can mass produce.

“It’s been quite hard,” Musk said on a conference call late Friday. “Roofs need to last a long time. When you add electrification to the roof, it’s a fair bit of complexity.”

The sleek roof is a key part of Tesla’s push to revive its struggling solar business. Musk unveiled the product in 2016, but the company hasn’t been able to bring production up to full scale. The photovoltaic tiles are designed to resemble regular shingles, unlike solar panels atop a roof.

The latest version of the shingles was introduced after Tesla lost its status as the biggest U.S. rooftop solar company. It’s also been sued by Walmart Inc. over fires at a half-dozen of the big-box stores that had Tesla solar systems, and the company still faces litigation from shareholders over the controversial SolarCity acquisition.

The world needs to spend $50 trillion on five areas of technology by 2050 to slash emissions and meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of halting global warming, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a report.

To reduce net emissions of carbon to zero, the world would have to eradicate the equivalent of 53.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to the report, which identified renewable energy, electric vehicles, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and biofuels as the key technologies that could help meet the target.

Carbon emissions from fossil fuels hit a record last year, but estimates vary of how much it would cost to meet the Paris target of keeping the global temperature rise to within 2 degrees. The International Renewable Energy Agency says $750 billion a year is needed in renewables over a decade. United Nations scientists say $300 billion spent on reclaiming degraded land could offset emissions to buy time to deploy zero-carbon technologies.

Here are Morgan Stanley’s estimates for the five key technology areas and some of the companies leading the drive.

Renewables

• Renewable power generation will require $14 trillion by 2050, including investments in energy storage.
• Renewables would need to deliver about 80% of global power by then, up from 37% today, meaning an additional 11 000 gigawatts of capacity, excluding hydro-power.
• Solar energy’s rapidly falling cost will make it the fastest-growing renewable technology over the coming decade with a 13% compound annual growth rate.
• Stocks that could benefit include: CGN New Energy Holdings Co., China Resources Power Holdings Co. and China Suntien Green Energy Co.

Electric vehicles

• With passenger cars currently pumping out about 7% of greenhouse gas emissions, some $11 trillion will be needed to build factories, expand power capacity and develop the batteries and infrastructure needed to switch to electric vehicles.
• With increased investment, annual EV sales could grow from 1.3 million units in 2018 to 23.2 million in 2030, lifting the total number of electric vehicles to 113 million by 2030 and 924 million by 2050.
• Some of the companies to watch: Beijing Easpring Material Technology Co., Rohm Co. and Panasonic Corp.

Carbon capture and storage

• Almost $2.5 trillion would be needed for technologies that capture carbon and store it.
• While it currently costs about $700 million to capture a million tons of carbon a year, the cost of building CCS plants is expected to drop 30% by 2050.
• With more than 200 000 megawatts of new coal-fired generation capacity under construction, CCS is the only option to offset the emissions of these plants, Morgan Stanley says.
• The bank’s top picks include Air Liquide SA and Bloom Energy Corp.

Hydrogen

• About $5.4 trillion is needed for electrolyzers to make the gas, which can help provide clean fuel for power generation, industrial processes, vehicles and heating.
• In addition, $13 trillion would be required to increase renewable energy capacity to power the plants.
• Another $1 trillion would be needed for storage, with additional investment for transportation and distribution.
• Leading players include: Johnson Matthey and Air Liquide.

Biofuels

• Almost $2.7 trillion should go into biofuels like ethanol, which are currently mixed with petroleum products but will spread eventually to areas such as aviation.
• About 4% of global transportation fuel will be biofuel in 2030.
• Ethanol, the most-used biofuel at the moment will grow at about 3% a year, while a type of biodiesel called hydro treated vegetable oil will achieve must faster growth, quadrupling production by 2030.
• Companies invloved include Neste Corporation and Sao Martinho SA.

Qatar has urged energy consumers across the globe to increasingly switch towards liquefied natural gas (LNG), which alone has four key characteristics to tackle environmental challenges.

Drawing attention to unprecedented recurrent climatic conditions, including mean temperatures, turbulent seasonal cycles and extreme events, HE the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, Saad biSherida al-Kaabi said it is time to take another look at natural gas and the number of advantages it has to make it a pivotal element in any strategy to tackle environmental challenges.

“It is versatile, flexible, economic, and clean. No other energy source can boast the combination of all these four qualities,” he told the 8th LNG Producer-Consumer Conference in Tokyo.

Al-Kaabi, who is also the president and chief executive of Qatar Petroleum, highlighted the country’s efforts to reinforce its position as the world’s leading LNG producer, which include the North Field expansion to increase the LNG production capacity to 110mn tonnes per year by 2024, and a major ship-building campaign to build up to 100 LNG carriers over the next decade.

The LNG industry is very dynamic and invigorated, and it connects all corners of the world through hundreds of trade routes, and LNG receiving and regasification terminals, he said, adding, “we, in Qatar, are doing our part to keep this momentum moving forward for the benefit of our partner countries and their peoples.”

Stressing that Qatar was collaborating with many countries around the world to ensure the security of their energy supplies and the sustainability of their economic growth, he said Doha is also working with customers, industry players, and stakeholders for a sustainable, affordable and secure energy supply for all.

“Most importantly, we are providing a sustainable energy solution to environmental and climate change concerns, and responding to widespread global moves towards cleaner and more cost effective fuels,” he said.

Al-Kaabi pointed out that while Japan was celebrating 50 years since the arrival of its first ever LNG cargo, Qatargas has successfully delivered the 3,000th LNG cargo to JERA’s Kawagoe Terminal.

The LNG Producer-Consumer Conference is a global annual dialogue, launched in 2012, and organised by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre.

It provides ministers, heads of international organisations, corporate executives, and other stakeholders with a venue to share the latest trends in the global LNG market and discussing opportunities and challenges with a view to its development.

Millions of people in 170 countries took to the streets to protest. World leaders lined up at the UN to pledge action. A 16-year-old girl, close to tears, shamed them for robbing her of a future.
The pressure to act on climate change is mounting. Titans of global business and politics gathered in New York this week for a series of events, including an unprecedented UN summit and the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, to acknowledge that more must be done – but fell short of saying exactly what will be done.
“Time is running out in the court of public opinion, because time is running out to address climate change,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told heads of state and business chiefs at the Global Business Forum on Wednesday. “It’s right for them to hold our feet to the fire.”
The stakes have indeed never been higher. Temperatures have already risen 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1880s. The world must limit that warming to no more than 2 degrees above Industrial Revolution levels, the UN has warned, to avoid the most catastrophic of droughts, floods, mass migrations and conflicts. “You can just feel the groundswell of popular sentiment, that the urgency of this is elevated,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc chief executive David Solomon said during the forum.
When asked whether there’s enough information out there to determine his own bank’s exposure to climate change, Solomon said, “We’re working on it. The answer is we’re working on it.” It was a response that underscored both the heightened awareness among leaders that they will be held responsible for global warming and the work that still lays ahead of them.
The meetings were still “far too much a chance for people to beat their chests and say they’re making change,” said Brad Cornell, a business professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. “But who is making real change?”
The UN pointed to some change that came from its Monday summit: 77 countries committed to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2050; 70 countries pledged to bolster climate action plans by 2020; more than 100 business leaders aligned themselves with the goals of the international Paris climate agreement; and 12 countries vowed to contribute to a fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
Nobody says that’s enough. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who organised the summit and called on world leaders to announce real plans at it, said as presentations concluded, “We need more concrete plans.”
The UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report Wednesday with alarming findings on fast-accelerating and potentially irreversible deterioration of oceans and glaciers.
While some of the world’s most powerful leaders sounded off on climate in New York, a UN panel convened almost 400 miles (600 kilometres) away in Montreal to continue a years-long debate over curbing emissions from airplanes. The group may decide on what kind of system to use to regulate them – a laborious and highly political process that went largely unmentioned in Manhattan. And yet there were signs in New York that the tide is turning in favor of real action.
At the conclusion of Monday’s annual meeting of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, an industry-supported group that also met in New York, the majority of the member CEOs stuck around for a discussion on climate change. In all, nine were present at the talk, including the bosses of Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp who faced questions from students and activists as well as reporters.
“And they were listening,” according to Felipe Bayon, CEO of Colombia’s state-run oil giant Ecopetrol. “I’m very encouraged. As a citizen of the world, I think that a lot of things are possible.”
Credited for inspiring the millions of young people who’ve rallied around climate change in recent days is Greta Thunberg. The teenage activist sailed to New York on a zero-emissions boat, climbed the stage at the UN summit and told the crowd of more than 300 presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, bankers and delegates that they’ve let down her entire generation by not acting on climate change. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said on Monday. “How dare you!”
Anand Mahindra, chairman of India’s Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, said Thunberg gives him hope, as do all of the young people calling for change. It took the youth of the 1960s protesting the Vietnam War to wake everyone up to the fact that the war needed to end, Mahindra said. He’s hopeful, he said, that they can do it again to win the fight against climate change.
The movement grew so big that even US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a myth and vowed to pull America out of the Paris pact, made an unexpected appearance at the UN summit. He stayed for 15 minutes and didn’t speak. China President Xi Jinping didn’t attend the summit at all – leaving the leaders of the world’s two largest polluters visibly absent from the presenters’ list.
During the Global Business Forum on Wednesday, business leaders repeatedly pointed the finger at government to step up and dictate what should be done. “The more there’s a clear policy framework,” Solomon said, “the more you’ll get a reaction and response.”
Samir Assaf, CEO of global banking and markets at HSBC Holdings Plc, had one idea: “The private sector can provide debt, and national development banks can provide guarantees.” To which moderator Christine Lagarde, the incoming president of the European Central Bank, responded: “So, the public takes the risk and the private takes the profits.”
Green investments are proving to be less of a risk and more of a moneymaker. Solar and wind power costs have plunged so deeply that they’re now the cheapest and most profitable form of new electricity in two-thirds of the world. CEOs of corporations worldwide are saving billions by cutting their plastic waste, using less, cleaner and cheaper energy and recycling.
The world will face a serious test next year. Under the Paris agreement, countries are expected to submit new, and ideally more ambitious, climate action plans every five years. The next presentations are due in 2020.
“There’s an enormous gulf right now,’’ said Kelly Levin, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington, “between current momentum and where we need to be.”

Is there still a debate over climate change? Yes and no. As a scientific matter, the issues of whether it’s happening and who’s to blame are long settled. But there’s no end to debates about what to do about it. Arguments about the need for and costs of action are playing out against a nonstop, live-on-TV drama of the massive storms, record wildfires and deadly heat waves already fueled by global warming.

1. What’s new in the climate debate?

For one thing, there’s been a revolution in renewable energy. The price of wind and solar has plunged in a way even its most ardent backers wouldn’t have dared dream 20 years ago. Bloomberg NEF projects that by 2050, renewable power will produce two-thirds of the world’s electricity, the same fraction that fossil fuel produces today. The world’s biggest polluter, China, is taking far more aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than was expected even a decade ago. A combination of slower economic growth and a drive for cleaner air have put China ahead of schedule for its emissions to peak by 2030.

2. How has the debate shifted?

There’s robust argument over how to balance the effort put into mitigation versus adaptation. Mitigation gets most of the attention — the headline news from the 2015 Paris climate accord, for instance, was about the pledges different countries made to limit the release of greenhouse gases. But adaptation is becoming a pressing need as temperatures rise. Some communities are already trying to relocate away from rising waters. Storm-surge barriers and flood gates geared to climate change have gone up in Rotterdam and Venice. New York installed gates after parts of the city were inundated by the surge driven by super storm Sandy in 2012, and Houston, flooded by Hurricane Harvey’s torrential rains in 2017, is considering new defenses. Even steps as small as providing air conditioners for the poor can play an important role in making cities livable in a hotter future.

3. What’s the status of the Paris agreement?

Even though President Donald Trump intends to pull the world’s biggest economy out of the accord, the U.S. is still participating in nuts and bolts discussions on implementing the voluntary pledges made by almost 200 countries. Coalitions of cities, states, businesses and universities in groups such as We Are Still In and America’s Pledge have organized to keep progress going in the U.S. even if the country formally leaves the pact. (America’s Pledge was co-founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. He has told the New York Times that he is considering a campaign for president.) The U.S. is currently seen as on track for its climate goals for 2020 but falling short of its longer-term pledges, as are the European Union and Japan, according to Climate Action Tracker, a research project.

4. What’s Trump’s argument?

Money. Trump said the Paris pact would hurt American workers and amounted to a “massive redistribution” of wealth from the U.S. to other countries. Meeting the Paris goals would conflict with his efforts to revive U.S. coal production. He’s also moved to water down fuel-efficiency standards and proposed rolling back Obama-era regulations meant to force utilities to reduce emissions. Officials in his administration insist that U.S. economic growth is a more urgent priority than climate change.

5. Who’s agreeing with him?

Influential groups of voters in countries where a shift away from dirty fuels has raised energy prices. In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull was pushed out as prime minister in August after conservatives in his party rebelled over his plan to write the country’s Paris targets into law. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2015 bowed to pressure to allow pipelines carrying carbon-heavy oil from tar sands to be expanded. Now his plan for a national carbon price to drive down emissions is under attack and is expected to be a focus for his opponents in 2019 elections.

6. How much would meaningful action cost?

It’s hard to know, and there’s a wide range of forecasts. The Deep Decarbonization Pathway Project, a research effort backed in part by a United Nations group, estimates that for 16 leading countries, meeting their Paris targets would require investments amounting to 0.8 percent of gross domestic product a year by 2020 and 1.3 percent by 2050. The International Finance Corporation has estimated that the Paris accord opened up $23 trillion in investment opportunities for government and private industry by 2030. BNEF projects that half that much will actually be spent. Developed nations have committed to boost climate-related aid to poorer countries to $100 billion a year by 2020, including money from both public and private sources.

7. What are the stakes?

Because the warming process is cumulative, if by some magic all greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow, researchers predict we may still be in for 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming this century — three times as much as we’ve seen since the mid-1990s. Climate Interactive, a research non-profit, calculates that even if the Paris pledges are met, we’d blow past the target of holding warming to 2 degrees above mid-19th century levels. If current emissions levels aren’t reduced, warming could gallop past 4 degrees. Studies have projected changes ranging from more kidney stones, smaller goats and less sex in the short run, to swamped cities and widespread extinction of species in the decades ahead.