Berlin, London British Prime Minister Boris Johnson loves simple slogans. The host also came up with a catchy motto for the World Climate Conference in Glasgow: “Coal, Cars, Cash and Trees”. He wants to achieve presentable successes in these four fields – the coal phase-out, e-mobility, financial aid and forests.
But how specific is the progress made so far? In the second week of COP26, negotiations are still in full swing. However, an interim balance can already be drawn three days before the end.
At the World Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009, the industrialized nations committed themselves to increasing climate aid to poorer countries to 100 billion dollars by 2020. This goal was missed by Glasgow – and should instead be achieved by 2023. At least there were some new commitments, including from Great Britain, Denmark and Japan. Germany is already one of the biggest payers.
A group of African countries, supported by large emerging economies such as China and India, has already set their sights on a new goal: by 2030, climate aid should increase to 1.3 trillion dollars a year, they called in Glasgow. Reliable financing is the basic requirement for poorer countries to be able to transform their economies.
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However, the industrialized nations do not want to commit themselves to such a sum. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also considers annual expenditure in the trillions to be essential in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times.
In addition to the states, the private sector is also increasingly relying on the combination of finance and climate protection: In Glasgow, 450 of the largest banks, asset managers and insurers promised to use their capital of 130 trillion dollars in an increasingly climate-neutral way. Climate activists complain, however, that the reallocation is happening far too slowly and that there is no clear definition of sustainable investments.
2. Coal phase-out
40 other countries – including Poland, Ukraine, Indonesia, Vietnam and South Korea – joined the so-called “Coal-to-Clean Statement” in Glasgow. This means that 190 countries now want to forego coal-fired power generation in the long term. It sounds like the end of the coal is a done deal, but question marks remain.
One sees the need to “urgently promote the spread of clean energy”, it says in the declaration of the 40 states. This includes stopping investing in new coal-fired power plants and gradually shutting down old power plants. In the 2030s, the industrialized countries want to get out of coal, in the 2040s also the developing countries, which at the same time, however, are demanding additional help in switching to clean energies.
Big flaw in the declaration: countries like China, India and the US have not signed it. But it is precisely these states that are responsible for a significant proportion of the CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, and China in particular is building a number of new coal-fired power plants in its own country. And Poland immediately made it clear that it would not phase out coal until the end of the 2040s.
Nevertheless, experts rate the progress made in phasing out coal as a success. “Of course we expect more from China,” says Nick Mabey, head of the E3G think tank. But at least the financing of coal-fired power plants outside of China has now been completely stopped. “This is a huge success.”
Last Thursday, 25 countries and several banks announced that they would end the financing of fossil fuels abroad by the end of 2022 and instead want to invest in green energies. Germany did not initially join this alliance. The federal government joined the initiative on Tuesday.
A pact was also announced in Glasgow between Germany, Great Britain, the USA, France and the EU with South Africa to support the country in the energy transition. South Africa currently still gets almost 90 percent of its electricity from burning coal – coal is the most harmful of all energy sources. Among the countries that generate electricity from coal, South Africa ranks sixth in the world. There are still around 90,000 miners there.
South Africa gets around 90 percent of its electricity from coal.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
The partnership supports the decarbonization of South African electricity production and the entry into renewable energies. The hope: that a successful coal phase-out in South Africa will become a blueprint for other regions. Without a global coal phase-out, the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees in a pre-industrial comparison cannot be achieved.
A total of US $ 8.5 billion is planned for the next five years, much of it in the form of loans. The partners also want to mobilize private funds and World Bank funds to promote the use of new clean technologies, including green hydrogen, in South Africa. Germany is contributing 700 million euros, 670 of which are from the German Development Ministry.
Environmental and development organizations praised the agreement. “Such transformative Paris partnerships are accelerating the global decline of coal. Germany should soon expand the initiative to other coal-dependent emerging countries such as India and Indonesia, ”said Christoph Bals, political director of Germanwatch.
3. Forests
Forests absorb a third of the CO2 emissions emitted by humans each year. But they are shrinking worryingly: every minute an area equivalent to around 27 football fields is lost.
In Glasgow, more than a hundred countries committed to ending deforestation by 2030 – an announcement that is correct in principle, but that, in the opinion of environmental experts, pulls the ripcord far too late. Above all, there was criticism that clearing would still be possible in the next nine years. In addition, it is said that a similar statement from 2014 has proven to be completely ineffective.
The participating countries have 85 percent of the world’s forest area, or around 34 million square kilometers. Canada, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and China are also included.
4. E-mobility
Johnson’s fourth COP target, traffic, won’t be on the agenda in Glasgow until Wednesday. According to the “Financial Times”, a declaration is planned to ban new vehicles with internal combustion engines from 2040 – and in the main markets as early as 2035.
According to “FT”, car manufacturers such as VW and BMW do not want to get involved. The governments of the largest automobile markets, the USA, China and Germany, do not want to sign either.
Individual governments have long since passed the ban: The British government is setting the pace with the ban on the internal combustion engine from 2030. Norway is even stricter, where the engine will no longer be allowed to be sold from 2025. The EU Commission has proposed 2035, but individual countries want to postpone the date.
5. methane
In addition to the actual COP negotiations, there were also a number of side deals in Glasgow. One of the most important agreements concerns the reduction of methane emissions. At the initiative of the EU and the USA, one hundred countries have agreed to inject at least 30 percent less fossil methane into the atmosphere by 2030.
However, according to climate protectionists, not all of the hundred countries that together account for 30 percent of global methane emissions have actually signed the agreement. Fossil methane is methane that is released during the production of natural gas and crude oil or that escapes due to leaks in the natural gas pipeline system.
The US and the EU celebrate the understanding as a milestone. In fact, the climate-damaging effect of methane is 28 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. According to the EU Commission, around half of global warming to date is due to methane emissions. And: The output continues to rise. Compared to pre-industrial times, methane levels in the atmosphere have tripled.
The previous announcements of the COP26 exceed the partly low expectations of the meeting. However, the environmental organizations in Glasgow emphasize that it depends on the implementation. “There are a lot of announcements,” says Viviane Raddatz, head of the German WWF. “But it is not yet clear what will be implemented before 2030.”
Climate protection activists demand that the implementation of the goals be reviewed annually. A control mechanism is still being debated. It is also still a matter of dispute whether there will be a political declaration in which all states undertake to accelerate their climate action.
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