Air transport’s commitment to tackling its environmental challenges has not diminished despite the Covid-19 crisis that has decimated the global aviation industry.  On the contrary, many airlines have pledged further action by targeting net-zero emissions; by purchasing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF); retiring aged aircraft, such as the iconic Boeing 747; and investing in the latest generation of fuel-efficient planes, including the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A350.
The development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is the biggest area of opportunity for long-term reductions in aviation emissions, according to IATA, the global body of airlines.
SAF has the capability to reduce emissions 80% on a “like-for-like” basis with Jet A-1 fuel.
Elevating the production capacity for SAF is therefore a priority for airlines. Current levels are too low, at around 0.02% of global demand, to significantly lessen emissions or to generate the economies of scale necessary to reduce costs to competitive levels. But production is beginning to increase dramatically.
In 2021, IATA estimates the production and use of between 100mn and 120mn litres of SAF — an increase of more than 50% on 2020.
SAF facilities commissioned some three to four years ago are now coming online, IATA noted. An example is the Fulcrum Sierra Biofuel plant in Reno, Nevada, in the United States, which converts solid municipal waste into SAF.
Numerous additional SAF production facilities will come online over the next four years, such that by 2025 approximately 5bn litres of SAF could be available. That, IATA says, will meet around 2% of global demand.
By 2030, projections are for SAF availability to increase to cover at least 5% of demand globally. Meeting and exceeding projections for SAF cannot be the responsibility of SAF producers and the aviation industry alone.
Governments need to set in place supportive policy frameworks, industry experts say.
The global air transport industry recently took a momentous decision to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and ensure that flying is sustainable.
To achieve that, cost-competitive sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) should fuel the majority of aviation’s global emissions mitigation in 2050.
The industry has set out the pathway to meet its 2050 goal using a mixture of new technology, efficient operations, and improved infrastructure.
The target of reducing net CO2 by half is feasible through the aggressive deployment of SAF.
Other proposed options include the accelerated development of small, zero-emissions aircraft for short-haul operations from 2035 and the use of offsets in the interim.
These and other measures could also make it possible for the industry to meet an even more ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
It is estimated that (under the industry’s trend setting initiative CORSIA or Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation — a global carbon offsetting scheme) aviation will have to offset 2.6bn tonnes of CO2 between 2021 and 2035.
Obviously, the aviation industry has pinned its hopes on sustainable aviation fuels, which it believes will help reduce airlines’ global emissions and industrial carbon footprint.
It is proven that SAF can cut CO2 lifecycle emissions up to 80% compared with conventional jet fuel. It uses sustainable fuel sources, which do not compete with food or water, or damage biodiversity.
Rather than being refined from petroleum, SAF is produced from sustainable resources such as waste oils from a biological origin, agri-residues, or non-fossil carbon dioxide (CO2).
Sustainable aviation fuels are currently certified by regulators for up to 50% use in commercial flights.
SAF has been around since 2008. And more than 300,000 flights have taken to the skies using SAF since 2016, according to the International Air Transport Association. More than 45 airlines now have experience with SAF.
These flights have used it blended with regular aviation — without the need for any modification of engines or aircraft — and production continues to grow.
The amount of SAF used by commercial aircraft rose 65% between 2019 and 2020, despite the devastating financial impact of Covid-19 on airlines.
IATA Director General Willie Walsh says governments must be active partners in achieving net zero by 2050. As with all other successful energy transitions, government policies have set the course and blazed a trail towards success.
“The costs and investment risks are too high otherwise. The focus must be on reducing carbon,” Walsh insists.

A landmark UN report warned on Monday that time had nearly run out to ensure a “liveable future” for all, detailing a horrifying “atlas of human suffering” and warning that far worse was to come.

Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, insect-borne disease, deadly heatwaves and megastorms, water shortages, reduced crop yields — all are measurably worse due to rising temperatures, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.

In the last year alone, the world has seen a cascade of unprecedented floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.

Such events will accelerate in coming decades even if the fossil fuel pollution driving climate change is rapidly brought to heel, the 195-nation IPCC warned.

As nations struggle to bend the curve of carbon dioxide emissions downward, they must also prepare for a climate onslaught that in some cases can no longer be avoided, the report made clear.

For UN chief Antonio Guterres, it stands as a “damning indictment” of failed leadership that he described as nothing short of “criminal”.

“The world’s biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home,” he said.

Even Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cannot distract from the truths laid bare in the 3,600-page report and its summary for policymakers, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The international community must urgently continue to pursue ambitious climate action, even as we face other pressing global challenges,” he said in a written statement.

Svitlana Krakovska, who headed Ukraine’s delegation, spoke passionately at the conference’s final virtual plenary about the link between conflict and global warming.

‘Root’ of war and warming

“Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots — fossil fuels — and our dependence on them,” she said.

Among the report’s key takeaways was the intertwined fates of human and natural systems.

It stressed that climate change cannot be tamed unless degraded forests and oceans that stock carbon are restored and protected; and the ecosystems on which life forms depend for clean water, air and soil will not survive intact in a world of runaway warming.

The report made clear that a viable future rests on a knife’s edge.

Some dire impacts are already irreversible, such as the likely demise of nearly all shallow water corals.

Other points-of-no-return lie just beyond the Paris Agreement’s aspirational target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the report warned.

The 2015 treaty enjoins nations to hold the increase in temperatures to “well below” 2°C, but recent science has left no doubt that a 1.5°C threshold is far safer.

Even in optimistic scenarios of rapid reductions in carbon pollution, projections of climate impacts are sobering.

Up to 14 per cent of land species face a “very high” risk of extinction with only 1.5°C of warming, the IPCC said, bolstering calls for conservation of 30 to 50pc of the world’s land and ocean territory.

The threat grows with every fraction of a degree.

Adaptation

By 2050 there will be more than a billion people in coastal areas highly vulnerable to storm surges amplified by rising seas by 2050. Per usual, the poorest will often be the hardest hit.

An additional 410 million people will be exposed to water scarcity from severe drought at 2°C of warming, and up to 80m will be at risk of hunger by mid-century.

By 2100, around $10 trillion of assets will be in flood-prone coastal areas in a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, according to the report.

The IPCC assessment — the sixth since 1990 — highlights the need to cope with unavoidable climate impacts on almost every page.

Overall, the IPCC warns, global warming is outpacing our preparations for a climate-addled world.

“For people in Africa living on the front line of climate change, it is adapt or die,” said Peter Verkooijen, CEO of the Rotterdam-based Global Centre on Adaptation.

The report also spotlights irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes in the climate system known as tipping points, triggered at different thresholds of global heating.

These include the melting of ice sheets atop Greenland and the West Antarctic that could lift oceans 13 metres; the morphing of the Amazon basin from tropical forest to savannah; and the disruption of ocean currents that distribute heat across the globe.

“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and planetary health,” the report concluded.

Further delays in cutting carbon pollution and preparing for impacts already in the pipeline “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”.

Feb 25, 2022JASON FURMAN

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been rapid and dramatic, but the global economic consequences will be much slower to materialize and less spectacular. Yet, other than Ukraine, Russia will likely be the biggest long-term economic loser from the conflict.

CAMBRIDGE – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been rapid and dramatic, but the economic consequences will be much slower to materialize and less spectacular. The war itself is enormously tragic, first and foremost for the Ukrainian people, but also for the Russian people and the global order more generally. When something like this happens, we expect it to be like a morality play in which all the bad consequences play out equally dramatically in every dimension, including the economy. But the economy does not work that way.

True, financial markets reacted swiftly to news of Russia’s invasion. The MSCI All Country World Index, a leading global equity gauge, fell to its lowest level in almost a year. The price of oil rose above $100 a barrel, while European natural gas prices initially surged by almost 70%.

These energy-price increases will negatively affect the global economy. Europe is especially vulnerable, because it did little in recent years to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, and in some cases – notably, Germany, which abandoned nuclear power – even exacerbated it.

Oil-importing countries will experience a headwind from higher prices. The United States is more hedged: Because its oil production is equal to its oil consumption, more expensive oil is roughly neutral for GDP. But higher oil prices will hurt US consumers while helping a more limited segment of businesses and workers tied to the oil and gas industry. The price surge will also add to inflation, which is already at its highest levels in a generation in the US, Europe, and other advanced economies.

But some perspective on these immediate consequences is in order. At $100 a barrel, oil is about one-quarter below its inflation-adjusted price during 2011 to 2014. Moreover, prices for oil futures are lower than spot prices, suggesting that the market expects this increase to be temporary. Central banks may therefore largely look through events in Ukraine, neither holding off on tightening nor speeding it up in response to higher headline inflation. And global stock markets are still up over the last year.

Similarly, although the Russian stock market has fallen significantly since the start of the invasion, Western sanctions are unlikely to have immediate dramatic effects. Sanctions rarely do; they are simply not the economic equivalent of the bombs that Russia is currently dropping on Ukraine.

Moreover, Russia is better prepared than most countries to weather sanctions. The country has been running an enormous current-account surplus and has accumulated record foreign-exchange reserves of $630 billion – sufficient to cover nearly two years of imports. And while Russia is dependent on revenue from Europe, Europeans are dependent on Russia’s oil and gas – which may be even harder to replace in the short run.

But, in the longer term, Russia will likely be the biggest economic loser from the conflict (after Ukraine, whose losses will go well beyond what can be measured in the national accounts). Russia’s economy, and the well-being of its population, have been stagnant since the Kremlin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. The fallout from its current, large-scale invasion will almost certainly be more severe over time. Sanctions will increasingly take a toll, and Russia’s growing isolation, as well as heightened investor uncertainty, will weaken trade and other economic links. In addition, Europe can be expected to reduce its fossil-fuel dependence on Russia.

The longer-term economic consequences for the rest of the world will be far less severe than they are for Russia, but they will still be a persistent challenge for policymakers. There is a risk, albeit a relatively unlikely one, that higher short-run inflation will become embedded in increasingly unanchored inflation expectations, and thus persist. If that happens, central banks’ already difficult job will become even more complicated.

In addition, defense budgets are likely to rise in Europe, the US, and some other countries to reflect the increasingly dangerous global situation. This will not reduce GDP growth, but it will reduce people’s well-being, because resources dedicated to defense are resources that cannot go toward consumption or investment in education, health care, or infrastructure.

The medium- and long-term consequences for the global economy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will depend on choices. By invading, Russia has already made one terrible choice. The US, the European Union, and other governments have made initial choices on sanctions, but it remains to be seen how Russia will react to them or whether further penalties will be imposed. To the extent that sanctions and counter-responses escalate, the costs will be larger – first and foremost for Russia, but also to some degree for the rest of the global economy.

Global economic relations are positive-sum, and Russia’s growing isolation will remove a small positive. More broadly, uncertainty is never good for the economy.

But, as the world continues to respond to the Russian invasion, concerns about GDP seem minor by comparison. Far more important is a world where people and countries feel secure. And that is something worth paying for – even more than the world’s leaders have paid so far.

By John Kemp

LONDON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – Prominent business leaders in the U.S. shale industry have been proselytising about their newfound commitment to restricting output growth to protect prices and profit margins.

But the rate of new drilling and production is climbing in response to rising prices ― albeit more slowly than during the frenzied growth of the first (2009–2014) and second (2016–2019) shale booms.

Nearly 80 weeks after hitting a cyclical low, the number of rigs drilling for oil has risen by 348 (an average of 4.4 per week), according to data from oilfield services company Baker Hughes.

The rise compares with increases of 433 (5.5 per week) and 584 (7.4 per week) at the same point after the last two cyclical lows in 2016 and 2009 respectively.

The number of rigs is rising at roughly similar rates in the Permian Basin (2.4 per week) and the other oil-rich shale plays (2.0 per week).

As a result, onshore production from the Lower 48 states rose in six of the seven months between May 2021 and November 2021, the most recent month for which production statistics are available.

Onshore production was rising at an annual rate of roughly 630,000 barrels per day (bpd) at the end of 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The agency predicts a similar increase of 630,000 bpd by the end of 2022 and a slightly slower one of 470,000 bpd by the end of 2023 (“Short-term energy outlook”, EIA, Feb. 8).

Output is increasing much more slowly, only a quarter to a third as fast, as at height of the last boom in 2018, when onshore production was increasing by as much as 1.8 million bpd over twelve months.

In that sense, shale industry leaders are being true to their word, increasing the number of new wells and production more slowly than before to protect prices and profit margins and return capital to shareholders.

But the industry’s commitment to limiting investment is being tested as prices continue rising to levels that are well above the long-term average after adjusting for inflation.

Faster production increases look likely as a result of the continued escalation in oil prices since the start of the year.

DELAYED RESPONSE

Shale drilling has become much more efficient since horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques began to be widely applied to oil-rich plays at the start of the last decade.

In the short run, however, drilling exhibits diminishing marginal returns during an upswing; additional rigs add smaller increments to output as they are deployed to less promising sites with less experienced crews using older equipment.

Current rig counts cannot usefully be compared with those five let alone ten years ago, but short-term changes in the rig count can provide a useful directional indicator for output changes over the next 12 months.

Changes in oil futures prices generally filter through into changes in drilling activity with a lag of just under 20 weeks.

The explanation is that it takes four-to-five months for producers to see if price changes will be sustained before deciding to alter the drilling programme, contract with drilling firms, wait for rigs to arrive on site, set up and begin boring.

Current drilling rates therefore reflect prices in September–October 2021, when front-month futures were trading around $70–80 per barrel.

On average, it will take another six months for wells being drilled at present to be fractured, completed, hooked up to gathering systems and enter commercial production, which should keep output rising through at least August.

Since September–October, however, prices have risen by another $10–15 per barrel which will ensure the number of rigs keeps rising throughout the second quarter, and production climbs faster through the end of the year.

The rapid escalation in spot prices and severe backwardation in futures is signalling the urgent need for more crude to meet strong consumption growth as the economy rebounds after the pandemic-driven recession.

U.S. oil producers are starting to respond by increasing their drilling programmes in the core shale plays of Texas and more marginal ones elsewhere, which should improve oil availability later this year and especially in 2023.

The teenage girls of Bhadla, near one of the world’s largest solar parks, store their books in tattered briefcases and their dreams in the essays they write between household chores.
Their remote pastoral community lost the land their animals grazed on until about a decade ago to the solar power plant in the northwestern state of Rajasthan — as well as the opportunity to work at the park due to a lack of education and skills.
Once resentful, these days Bhadla’s young women say they want to get jobs at the solar facility, reflecting emerging aspirations as India expands its renewable power capacity amid a global shift to clean energy.
“I could work in the solar park if I was educated — I could manage files in the office or do their accounts,” said Hira Bano, 18, who finished tenth grade two years ago.
“I have to study or I will be stuck in household work all my life,” said Bano, taking her books out of a briefcase gathering dust since the only village school shut more than two years ago.
Bhadla is home to one of the 52 solar parks India had approved across 14 states as of last year, in a drive to wean itself off planet-heating coal and meet a renewable energy goal of 500 gigawatts by 2030.
Sunny Rajasthan is a preferred state for building large new solar installations as it has available barren desert land that is sparsely populated, said state officials.
At 2,300 megawatts, Bhadla has the world’s largest solar farm capacity — and more parks are in the offing in Rajasthan, according to officials at the state-run Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Limited (RRECL).
That is creating opportunities in a region with previously few jobs due to its extreme natural conditions and lack of water, said RRECL chairman and managing director Subodh Agarwal.
Nonetheless, Bhadla locals — pastoralists who for generations kept animals on state land they treated as their own — feel left out of the development frenzy in their backyard.
“We have lost land and livestock, so it is only education that can give us a livelihood,” said village elder Mohamed Sujawal Mehr.
“Now big companies surround us, but only a few of our men got jobs there,” he said, noting that even a security guard position requires tenth-grade schooling. “How can they hire us if we can’t read or write?”
Bhadla’s school was once an unused village accessory, as education was not seen as a priority, until the arrival of the solar park infused new life into it.
The park’s biggest operator, Saurya Urja, a joint venture of the state and infrastructure firm IL&FS, started sending two teachers to the school to hold regular classes.
One of them, Andaram Meghwal, said that when he first came to the village in 2017, the children climbed to the tops of the trees they were so afraid.
“We got students (to come in) from nearby towns to give them exposure to the world outside,” he said. “We shared stories of women achievers, the challenges they overcame.”
Bano — who had previously spent her time grazing cattle, working on the farm and fetching firewood — fell in love with science, school games and the idea of pursuing a career.
Girls were more inspired to study than boys as they had lost their main activity of grazing animals, while men could find work at the solar park, Meghwal said.
This was between 2015 and 2020, when 900,000 blue solar panels were erected on 12,000 acres, 5,500 jobs were created, and eateries and tea shops opened along a new highway.
But as the park neared completion, jobs for unqualified workers began to shrink. The plant has created about 1,100 long-term jobs to operate and maintain it over 25 years — but locals lack the technical skills needed, said Saurya Urja officials.
Sarthak Shukla, a sustainability policy consultant, said clean energy provides fewer direct jobs than thermal coal power, which employs 800 to 900 people for a 1GW plant compared with 25 to 30 at a similar-sized solar park.
In Bhadla, Ayub Khan Chooda, 35, is among those who have benefited, crediting his contract to wash 400 solar panels daily to his three tractors — which pull small water tankers along the rows — despite having studied only up to first grade.
Dadda Khatoon, 32, was also happy when her husband returned from Dubai, after six years of milking and grazing camels, and got a security guard job at the solar park for Rs8,000 ($106.30) a month.
“He is happy, healthy and we are also able to save some money,” said Khatoon, sitting with village women in the winter sun. “But I don’t seem to have a role anymore apart from cooking and feeding my family. I think I had more respect then.”
With no land left to graze their animals, Bhadla residents sold their livestock whose fodder, a bitter yellow fruit called “tumba”, now lies uneaten on the vine between the solar panels.
Women from this conservative community no longer venture out, fearing the busy highway and “the new people from cities”.
Local health workers said hypertension and diabetes have become quite common owing to the new sedentary lifestyles.
Shukla said that with a better understanding of the social and cultural impacts and the right policies, the solar sector could offer opportunities for Indian women, including training and other incentives such as health and education programmes.
Globally, women make up 32% of the renewable energy workforce compared with 22% in the oil and gas industry, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Local elder Mehr loves to recall the celebrations two years ago when three girls, including Bano, passed their tenth grade, the first to do so in this village of 250 households.
“We banged plates, clapped,” he said.
But their school, which had about 100 students, shut down soon after when a disgruntled teacher submitted a report showing zero attendance — a claim disputed by villagers.
The solar firm also stopped supporting classes and shifted to a broader community focus running mobile health and veterinary clinics, according to Saurya Urja CEO Keshav Prasad.
He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the company backed the villagers’ demand to reopen the school, pointing to rising demand for education across villages near the solar park.
Manphool Singh, the education official overseeing Bhadla school, said he had received the requests and a government decision was pending.
“We are trying our best to open it so children can study again,” he said.
Meanwhile, the girls cook, clean and stitch together colourful pieces of cloth to make rugs for their dowries.
Drawing water from a well, Asma Khatoon, 15, said her only desire was for the school to reopen so she could sit her tenth-grade exam.
In a short Hindi essay, she wrote: “This village has too many restrictions… I want to study, become a working woman.” — Thomson Reuters Foundation

Several key OPEC+ members see no need to accelerate output increases even as oil heads toward US$100 a barrel amid worsening tension over Ukraine.

Iraq and Nigeria said the group’s strategy of gradually raising production is enough to balance the market and the group has no need to be more aggressive.

Many delegates echoed that view privately on Tuesday, saying it wouldn’t make a difference if crude did hit triple digits.

The 23-nation alliance, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, next meets on March 2. It is factoring in growth in output from non-OPEC+ members such as Brazil and Canada and doesn’t want to see any increase in commercially-stored oil around the world, according to Iraq’s Energy Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar.

“The market will have more and more oil so we think there’s no need” to diverge from today’s strategy, he said in an interview in Qatar, where he’s attending a natural gas conference. “We will not create any growth to the commercial storage. We will secure all the demand by making the required supply.”

KEEP STEADY

Nigeria’s energy minister, Timipre Sylva, backed Jabbar’s comments.

“We won’t do anything extraordinary at this time because we are expecting at lot of production” from outside of OPEC+, Sylva told reporters at the same event. There’s “no need at all to bring on more barrels than the current plan.”

Several of OPEC+’s biggest producers want to continue to add 400,000 barrels a day of crude to the market each month, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Iraq’s Jabbar said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners will make their decision for April at the March meeting, after reviewing fresh data on supply and demand.

Some major oil importers have called on OPEC+ to pump faster and put pressure on the likes of Saudi Arabia to use up some of their spare capacity.

Read more: OPEC+ Must Fix Its Million-Barrel Supply Gap, IEA Says

Jabbar said it would be “unfair” for any OPEC+ state to raise output beyond its quota, despite many members struggling to reach theirs. Last week, the International Agency Energy Agency, which advises rich countries, said OPEC+ was pumping almost 1 million barrels a day below its target.

“We have come from the recovery from COVID,” the Iraqi minister said. “It is not fair that you will give the increase just for some countries.”

Iraq undershot its output target last month because of bad weather at ports, Jabbar said. The country should meet its quota for February of around 4.3 million barrels a day, he said.

Doha: United Arab Emirates’ Minister of Energy and Infrastructure HE Suhail bin Mohamed Al Mazrouei praised Qatar’s decision to pump new investments to enhance its production capacity of liquefied natural gas.
In a speech at the opening session of the 6th Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Summit in Doha today, he congratulated Qatar on its brave decision to make new investments to enhance its production capacity of liquefied natural gas, which will enhance its role and the role of the region and the forum countries in supplying the world with resources needed by the global economy.
He pointed out that this decision comes in a circumstance characterized by the lack of investments in previous years in developing new sources of natural gas, especially liquefied gas, due to the low prices witnessed in the world.
The new global trend towards limiting climate change and carbon neutrality should be an encouraging factor for natural gas to occupy a key place in the transition towards energies that are less polluting to the environment, the minister explained, stressing that natural gas is one of the best sources of fossil energy the world will heavily rely on in the coming years during the transition period.
He added that the regional countries represent the majority of natural gas reserves and they bear the responsibility of producing and supplying the world with this wealth, which will be in great demand.
The Minister said that the UAE is working to integrate the role of natural gas with renewable energy and peaceful nuclear energy to achieve its Energy Strategy 2050, in which green energies will represent 50 percent of the energy mix.
He clarified that the UAE’s hosting of the COP 28 on Climate Change in 2023 will be an incentive and an opportunity to cooperate with the GECF to enhance the role of natural gas in the transition period and to work in the interest of member states.
In 2019, Qatar announced its intention to raise its production capacity of liquefied natural gas from 77 million tons per year currently to 126 million tons per year by 2027 through production expansion projects from the North Field, which include huge investments in environmentally friendly technologies.