The day started with the gloomy release of the Global Carbon Project Report which concluded that 2022 was the highest ever emitting year, with increased coal use in India and increased airline use in the U.S. as the main culprits. UN projections are that global emissions must peak by 2025 and halve by 2030 if the world is to meet the 1.5 degree ambition agreed at the Paris COP in 2015 (emissions in 2022 are more than 5% higher than in 2015).Continue Reading Highlights from COP 27: Decarbonization Day
Highlights from COP 27: Youth and Science Day
Some frustrations emerged Thursday as it became clear that negotiations on the ‘Cover Text’ for COP27 would not begin until Saturday 12 November. In previous COPs, the text has been almost finalized in negotiations before the meetings started.Continue Reading Highlights from COP 27: Youth and Science Day
Highlights from COP 27: Finance Day
After the opening two days of COP27 – which were focused on the High Level Segment (HLS) dedicated to Heads of State and Government – today, November 9, was the first day of the ‘main COP’ with the opening of negotiations on official texts and agreements. Reports are that the opening phases of the talks are positive. Appropriately, given tensions earlier this week over financing for loss and damage, today was billed as Finance Day.Continue Reading Highlights from COP 27: Finance Day
Highlights from COP 27: Financing Takes Center Stage
Yesterday, November 8th, was the second day of the ‘High Level Segment for Heads of State and Government’ with a focus on their speeches and declarations. The real business of COP will begin in earnest today when most of the senior politicians have departed.
Financing for Climate Loss and Damage in Vulnerable Countries
Climate loss and damage is quickly emerging as the key point of contention at this COP and foreshadows a more tense meeting than last year’s in Glasgow. This issue has been moving up the agenda and recent extreme climate events have increased the perceived urgency around this topic, particularly for vulnerable countries. Continue Reading Highlights from COP 27: Financing Takes Center Stage
What to Expect from COP 27
COP 27 began in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, yesterday. It begins inauspiciously, set against the global impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting food and energy insecurity and dramatic price rises which have pushed climate change down domestic political agendas across the world and increased demand for new sources of fossil fuel to reduce reliance on Russian gas. By the same token, the Russian aggression creates a lever that presents COP 27 with a rare, perhaps unique, opportunity to accelerate the energy transition.
Furthermore, since the effects of climate change are non-discriminatory, the need to tackle it is a genuine global need: a visionary take on COP 27 is that it could offer a ‘safe haven’ for international dialogue and collaboration where world leaders can find effective pathways forward on food, energy, nature and security. However, the augurs are not positive . . .
Billed as the ‘Implementation COP’ it was designed to require countries to improve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to reducing climate-change inducing emissions. However, the tussle over the agenda, which began at 1300 on Saturday and did not conclude until midday on Sunday, suggests that the alternative name for this COP – The African COP – is more appropriate and that the focus and key to its success lies elsewhere.Continue Reading What to Expect from COP 27
EU Emergency Action on Energy
On 6 October 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a Regulation on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices (the “Regulation”). The Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 7 October. The Regulation has three main elements:
- A requirement to reduce electricity consumption by 5% in peak hours;
- A measure to return the excess revenues or profits of energy companies to the individual Member States; and
- The allocation of proceeds to customers to alleviate retail electricity prices and an extension to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of the categories of beneficiaries of a possible Member State intervention in the retail price.
The Regulation’s market intervention is exceptional (albeit in response to an extraordinary geopolitical market disruption). It will have widespread positive and negative impacts for energy market sellers and buyers. These circumstances may provoke a range of disputes, transaction (re)structurings or additional compliance obligations that will require expert advice and understanding of the details of the Regulation.Continue Reading EU Emergency Action on Energy
A Few Thoughts from Davos…
Like many governments around the world, UK politics currently appear somewhat unstable. And the UK’s problems are a reflection of the world, where established views and beliefs are suddenly no longer the unassailable certainties they have seemed to be for decades.
Davos met this week for the first time in two years against this very unsettled backdrop. A few thoughts and reflections on discussions there follow…Continue Reading A Few Thoughts from Davos…
The IPCC and The Ukraine Crisis
As the world struggles to adjust to the harsh new reality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the most recent instalment of the Sixth IPCC Report slipped out almost unnoticed. And that is worrying, since the assessment in this section of the Report is even starker than previous assessments – noting in particular that in order to avoid global temperatures increasing by greater than 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels, the world needs to halve its emissions this decade: a reduction that the world does not currently appear to be remotely on course to do.
However, whilst the IPCC Report and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are not linked, Russian aggression in Ukraine may serve as a catalyst to speed up the European energy transition and accelerate its retreat from dependency on Russian gas and exposure to volatile international oil markets, which could in turn deliver a more rapid reduction in European emissions. In the process, perhaps setting the world on a path to achieving an outcome that currently seems unattainable.Continue Reading The IPCC and The Ukraine Crisis
Gas and Nuclear Activities in the EU Taxonomy Regulation: Under What Conditions Does the Commission Deem Them Environmentally Sustainable?
On February 2, 2022, the European Commission adopted a Complementary Climate Delegated Act (the “CCDA”) listing specific gas and nuclear activities as “environmentally sustainable” for purposes of the EU Taxonomy Regulation, subject to strict criteria. Only certain activities that comply with strict emissions limits and other criteria detailed below may be so designated. Even so, the Commission’s decision to list nuclear and gas activities as “environmentally sustainable” is controversial and may still be blocked by EU Member States and the European Parliament through an upcoming scrutiny period, and may also be legally challenged before the EU Courts. Nevertheless there is a significant chance that the Commission’s criteria to consider the listed gas and nuclear activities as “environmentally sustainable” will enter into force by the beginning of 2023. This would allow such listed gas and nuclear activities to have access to green investors and ear-marked public funds under the EU’s Next Generation EU investment program.
Continue Reading Gas and Nuclear Activities in the EU Taxonomy Regulation: Under What Conditions Does the Commission Deem Them Environmentally Sustainable?
The Scottish Government’s Draft Hydrogen Action Plan
On the 10th of November 2021, the Scottish Government published its Draft Hydrogen Action Plan (the “Plan”), as a companion document to its December 2020 Hydrogen Policy Statement.
The Plan sets out the Scottish Government’s detailed proposals for the Hydrogen industry in Scotland across the next five years. The aim is for Scotland to have capacity to produce 5 GW of Hydrogen by 2030 and 25 GW of Hydrogen by 2045. This blog sets out the key takeaways from the Plan.Continue Reading The Scottish Government’s Draft Hydrogen Action Plan