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U.N. EMISSIONS GAP REPORT IS OUT: The globe is hurtling toward 3 degrees Celsius warming, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, from pre-industrial levels through 2100 – even if current policies to bring down emissions are continued, according to United Nations’ climate experts.
In the group’s annual “Emissions Gap Report,” the report acknowledges previous analyses that landed on the same conclusion, but with different figures: that the world is largely off track from its goals to combat global warming.
The report lays out that a continuation of current climate change policies is estimated to limit global warming to 3 degrees celsius through the end of the century, with warming expected to increase further after 2100 since carbon emissions are not projected to reach net-zero levels. In the most optimistic scenario, in which all unconditional and net-zero pledges made under the Paris agreement were met, global warming is expected to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius. However, the report notes that these net-zero pledges remain “highly uncertain.”
“Predicted 2030 greenhouse gas emissions must fall by 28 per cent for the Paris Agreement 2°C pathway and 42 per cent for the 1.5°C pathway,” Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the U.N.’s Environment Programme, said in the report’s foreword.
Why it’s important: This year’s edition comes ahead of the world’s largest climate conference, COP28, where leaders are expected to negotiate new policies and compromises to help bring down emissions. Details in the newest report are expected to inform policymakers ahead of the summit in Dubai, which will take place at the end of this month.
Other notables: The report also notes that while some progress has been made, none of the G-20 countries (except Mexico, which hasn’t set net-zero targets) “are currently reducing emissions at a pace consistent with meeting their net-zero targets.”
A small sign of progress toward Paris goals: It seems like there has been some progress since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. At the time, GHG emissions were projected to increase by 16% by 2030. But now, they’re projected to increase by 3%, the report says. Read it here.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep) and Nancy Vu (@NancyVu99). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
U.S. TO OUTLINE NUCLEAR FUSION STRATEGY AT COP28: The U.S. is slated to outline the first global strategy for commercializing nuclear fusion power at this year’s COP28 summit in Dubai, capitalizing on recent momentum in scientists’ decades-long quest to achieve and deploy the carbon-free source of electricity at scale.
U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry plans to announce the news today during a tour of the Commonwealth Fusion System facility near Boston, according to Reuters.
Sources told the outlet that the COP28 summit, which kicks off Nov. 30, will serve as a “starting gun for international cooperation” on commercial-scale nuclear fusion, which Kerry will argue can be scaled up in a matter of years, rather than decades.
“I will have much more to say on the United States’ vision for international partnerships for an inclusive fusion energy future at COP28,” Kerry said in a statement ahead of his tour. He will be joined in Boston by Claudio Descalzi, the CEO of Italy’s Eni which is pursuing four fusion reactors of its own.
Bigger picture: Last year, scientists at DOE’s National Ignition Facility in California used fusion to achieve “net energy gain” for the first time ever— a major breakthrough that demonstrated that fusion ignition is indeed attainable in a controlled environment. (Scientists at the facility repeated the experiment in August.)
Unlike existing nuclear fission technology, which splits heavy atoms apart to create energy, nuclear fusion does the opposite—uniting the atoms through either internal confinement or magnetic confinement technology.
But hurdles remain: To scale up the technology, scientists must be able to use fusion to generate greater than 100% of the energy of the ignition reaction—a ratio known as the “Q” value. Scientists have achieved only scattered instances of fusion ignition to date, far from the many continuous ignitions per minute needed in order to generate sufficient commercial-scale fusion power. Read more from Breanne here.
A HIT ON CASSIDY’S FOREIGN POLLUTION FEE ACT: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board is going after Sen. Bill Cassidy’s Foreign Pollution Fee Act, likening the measure to efforts from liberal green groups and labor unions, and arguing that the legislation would raise costs for American consumers and businesses.
In an op-ed published on Sunday, the WSJ characterized the bill as a carbon tariff that would further expand the government’s regulatory control over goods produced in countries with higher carbon emissions – which they argue could prompt retaliatory duties from countries paying the fee. The bill, they said, “could well have been written by the Sierra Club and AFL-CIO.”
“Layering a carbon tax on top of sundry green-energy subsidies would raise U.S. manufacturers’ costs and create a Rube Goldberg contraption of economic distortions,” the op-ed reads.
What the bill does: Cassidy’s bill would impose a fee on products imported from high GHG-emitting countries – namely China – aimed at protecting domestic manufacturers from competing with Beijing and other states with more laxed environmental standards. The measure stands as the first Republican-led proposal to intertwine climate change policy with trade through carbon-adjustment fees. However, Cassidy has tried to distance his bill from being characterized as a carbon tax – going as far as to lead Senate Republicans in disapproving such measures.
Why it’s important: The criticism by the WSJ underlines the large hill the bill will have to climb among conservatives that have been generally against carbon tax measures, arguing it would increase prices and contradict Republican messaging on inflation. GOP Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi withdrew his support after being one of the measure’s original co-sponsors, reasoning that a staffer had “explained the bill poorly.”
A spokesperson for Cassidy’s office told the Washington Examiner the WSJ op-ed misinterpreted the bill.
“They clearly don’t understand how the Foreign Pollution Fee was designed,” the spokesperson told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “Why does the WSJ Editorial Board prefer to give Chinese and Russian industries a free pass over supporting American workers?”
REUTERS REPORTS CLIMATE DISCLOSURE RULE EXPECTED TO BE WATERED DOWN: Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission have told lobbyists and corporate executives in recent days that they expect that the final climate disclosure rule will scale back requirements related to Scope 3 emissions, Reuters reported this morning.
Why it matters: Scope 3 emissions, of course, account for emissions generated by a company’s supply chain and in the use of its products, meaning that Scope 3 is the whole ballgame for oil and gas companies. The SEC’s proposed rule, put out last year, would require Scope 3 disclosures when they would be “material” to investors.
Weakening Scope 3 disclosures would mean blowback from the left: Prominent liberal members of Congress, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have joined with environmental groups to pressure SEC Chairman Gary Gensler not to back off stricter Scope 3 disclosure requirements.
Yet a major consideration for Gensler is the possibility that mandating Scope 3 disclosures could increase the risk that the final rule would not withstand the inevitable legal challenges.
METHANE REPORTING ISSUES ARE A MAJOR PROBLEM FOR U.S. BANKS: A new report found that methane emissions from U.S. oil and gas projects are “significantly underreported,” posing a significant risk to the biggest banks that are financing the projects, and threatening to undermine their broader decarbonization targets.
According to the report, published today by the Environmental Defense Fund, no major U.S. bank is currently providing sufficient disclosure on the strategies to achieve targets and address methane risk in their portfolios—due primarily to a lack of transparency from their clients. Among the report’s findings:
The disparity between estimated and real-world measurements of methane emissions is large: The EDF estimates that U.S. methane emissions are roughly 60% higher than oil and gas companies report to the EPA.
Failing to directly measure methane could prompt some oil and gas companies to put off more aggressive reduction efforts, despite the fact that roughly 75% of methane emissions can be brought down with current technology and at little additional cost, in EDF’s estimation.
This poses a risk to banks: As measurement methods improve, clients will inevitably start reporting higher numbers—thus increasing their own portfolio emissions and making their climate targets that much harder to achieve.
According to the EDF analysis, banks’ financed Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions could increase by roughly 50% if direct methane measurements were used in place of current emissions measurements.
“It’s critical to think about the better satellite-based monitoring that is going to be coming into place as time goes on,” Andrew Howell, EDF’s director of sustainable finance and co-author of the report, told Breanne in an interview. “And so there are an increasing number of tools, which will be available to expose where aspects of the supply chain are not very rigorously controlling methane emissions.”
“It’s going to be harder to hide from that as time goes on,” Howell added.
The EDF report includes a number of recommendations for how major U.S. banks should manage financed methane emissions and take steps towards abatement. It also includes a landscape analysis taking stock of the Big Six banks’ target transparency and performance to date. Read it in full here.
A POSSIBLE DEAL BETWEEN VENEZUELA, TRINIDAD, & SHELL: Venezuela is nearing approval of a license for Shell and the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago to build an offshore natural gas field and export its production to the Caribbean country, sources tell Reuters.
The license could catalyze a long-standing effort by Trinidad to beef up its gas processing and petrochemical exports, while providing Venezuela with much-needed revenue.
Both nations are discussing a 25-year exploration and production license for the Dragon gas field, which contains up to 4.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and lies in Venezuelan waters between the two countries.
If all goes well, a deal could be signed in the coming days, according to Reuters’ reporting. Shell would control the project with a 70% stake, and Trinidad’s NGC would hold the remaining 30% under proposed terms.
The proposed license would allow for an initial volume of 300 million cubic feet per day (mcfd) of Venezuelan gas to be transported to Trinidad for LNG production – beginning in late 2026 – and an additional 50 mcfd to petrochemical plants, according to sources. Read more on that here.
The Rundown
E&E News Hydrogen for heating is gaining steam. Is it safe?
The Hill El Niño-induced wet winter could begin inundating California next month
Politico EU They’re talking, but a climate divide between Beijing and Washington remains
