Away from coal – that’s the goal of a 20 billion dollars deal Indonesia has signed with partner countries from the Global North. The project focuses on coal but ignores forest destruction in the country, which is causing much greater climate damage. But the partnership could successfully continue the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) begun with South Africa. However, it is not yet clear whether many countries from the Global South will join in, as Bernhard Pötter reports.
Back to nuclear power – that is still the dream of some politicians and lobbyists in Germany. Whether it’s lifetime extensions, mini-nuclear power plants or even nuclear fusion – since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there have been some absurd proposals in Germany. Mycle Schneider explains in an interview why nuclear power will not contribute to reducing CO2 emissions worldwide. In short: Nuclear power plants are simply too expensive, they take too long to build, and small modular reactors are just “power point reactors,” according to the expert.
Things are starting to get busy at COP. The presidency presented a first draft of the final declaration on Tuesday. And some negotiators say they’ve never had such a bad feeling. Of particular interest: India’s proposal to phase down all fossil fuels is not in the draft. Emphasis is placed on the urgency of the energy transition, despite the current energy crisis. Meanwhile, the G77 and China have made a proposal for a loss and damage fund, the details of which, however, will not be clarified until 2023.
The international energy transition has a new giant project: With billions in aid from the G7 countries, Indonesia wants to generate its electricity without coal by 2050. On Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo signed a 20 billion dollars Just Energy Transition Partnership with representatives of the International Partners Group (IPG). The goal is for the country to phase out coal and move into renewable energies.
The agreement was announced at the G20 summit in Bali. It is part of a strategy to finance a just energy transition in key countries of the Global South with capital from the North. The IPG consists of the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, the EU, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany and Italy.
The partnership envisions that Indonesia will, among other things:
In return, the country will receive 20 billion dollars in financial assistance over the next “three to five years,” half from public and half from private sources. The capital is to consist of loans and grants. The IPG countries will share the costs. Germany’s share is “less than a billion,” it said; exact figures were not released. For the IPG, the US and Japan are leading the negotiations with Indonesia.
The private funds are supposed to be raised by banks and investors. The group includes Deutsche Bank, Citi and Bank of America. The financial institutions are united in the “Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero” (GFANZ), which was founded at COP26.
For German Climate Secretary Jennifer Morgan, the project shows how Germany is helping to “accelerate the global energy transition.” Exactly how Indonesia organizes its coal phase-out is up to the country itself. The country’s mining industry – Indonesia is a major coal exporter – is exempt from the JETP, as is the biggest source of greenhouse gases in Indonesia: forest destruction.
In any case, Indonesia is a special case: In addition to the approximately 620 million metric tons of CO2 from fossil fuels, the country causes another nearly 950 million metric tons of CO2 emissions through deforestation. The per capita emissions from fossil fuels are around 2.2 tons. If deforestation is included, the figure is about 7.2 metric tons.
The JETP with Indonesia follows the example of South Africa. The G7 agreed with this country at the Glasgow summit that it would decarbonize its energy sector over three to five years in return for 8.5 billion dollars in aid. In the meantime, the country has drawn up a plan for the transition – and also a preliminary bill: It amounts to around 100 billion dollars.
More JETP are planned, but are not really progressing at the moment:
Mr. Schneider, in the climate debate, some voices are hoping for a nuclear power renaissance and thus for low-CO2 electricity. Is that realistic in your view?
This is a fact-free debate. When people talk about renaissance, they get the impression that nuclear power plants are being built everywhere and increasingly. This would require indicators that point upward. But most indicators for the development of the nuclear industry point downward, as our report (World Nuclear Industry Status Report – editor’s note) shows every year.
So there is no nuclear renaissance at all?
The expansion of nuclear power can be summed up this way: China is building at home, Russia is building abroad. The share of nuclear power in global electricity generation has been falling for 25 years and in 2021 was below ten percent for the first time in 40 years. 20 years ago, most of the reactors were in operation. Since then, 105 nuclear plants have closed and only 98 have come online, including 50 in China. There is as de facto no renaissance of nuclear power, only a renaissance of rhetoric.
The nuclear agency IAEA forecasts a doubling of capacity by 2050. Is it wrong?
We are not clairvoyants and do not make predictions. We look at what can be proven empirically. And the data say that to maintain the current installed capacity level, the new construction rate would have to be doubled. And that’s only true if all the projects go online, but so far, one in eight nuclear power plants has not been completed. And then you would have to assume that all power plants will run to the end of their license periods, but most will be shut down much sooner for safety or cost reasons.
So doubling the rate of new construction is unrealistic?
Current trends simply do not indicate that such a doubling of capacity would be possible. It also has to be said: The industry has announced a lot in the past that then did not materialize. In 2008, the world’s largest nuclear operator, the French power company EDF, presented a scenario that predicted a net addition of 110 gigawatts of nuclear capacity worldwide by 2020. What happened in real terms? Less capacity was in operation in 2020 than in 2008.
Nevertheless, some climate experts are betting on nuclear technology.
We are talking about “climate emergency”, so the time pressure is already included in the term. So we must strive to avoid as much greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible for every euro and dollar invested. Even if one wanted to bear the costs of nuclear technology, which are many times higher than those of renewable energies, the time factor makes this absurd as a climate strategy. It would take decades to build nuclear parks that could significantly affect CO2 emissions.
But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also assumes that the capacity of nuclear power will double by 2050. Are the experts wrong?
The IPCC does not make predictions but creates scenarios. The difference is crucial. Crystal ball statements are misleading. The future depends on what we do today and tomorrow. Scenarios try to show what different outcomes we can achieve with different courses of action. Among 23 actions to reduce emissions that the IPCC evaluated against a set of criteria, nuclear comes out worst. In half of the total 90 IPCC scenarios that meet the 1.5 °C target, the share of nuclear power in the energy mix decreases, and in some the number of nuclear power plants even decreases. The best-graded actions remain investments in energy sufficiency, efficiency, and renewables.
Nevertheless, many are pinning their hopes on smaller units: Small modular reactors (SMRs). Would they be a solution?
So far, these are mainly concept studies, power point reactors. There are very many of these on paper, but apart from two plants each in Russia and China, nothing has been built so far. There are no prototypes in the Western industrialized countries, no construction permits, and only a general, preliminary design certification in the United States. And this model is getting bigger – which is no accident, as the quest for economies of scale to improve questionable economics runs through the entire history of nuclear power. It is curious how SMRs are communicated: They are cheaper because they are smaller. Of course, the investment is lower because they also offer less power, but per megawatt they are much more expensive than the big reactors precisely because they lose the economy of scale.
So why is nuclear power always brought into play?
Countries are under a lot of pressure to develop a climate strategy. And when a government, such as in the UK, has never developed a backup plan beyond nuclear power, it’s very difficult. But governments don’t build nuclear power plants. That’s why, for private sector interests, renewables, such as offshore wind, are being expanded there much faster than is even possible with nuclear projects. In the meantime, Scotland is leading the way and is already at nearly 100 percent renewables in the electricity mix.
Are you surprised that the issue of nuclear safety is disregarded in these debates?
There has been a generational break in the culture of technology. Awareness of the complex problems of nuclear power has disappeared among the younger generation. A handful of very efficient nuclear propagandists are doing their part to create confusion. Above all, however, it is probably about what the physicist M.V. Ramana meant by his book title on India’s nuclear program, “The Power of Promise”: the power of promise is very seductive. Atom solves the climate crisis and all other energy problems besides – that sounds great.
Mycle Schneider is an international energy and nuclear policy analyst based primarily in Paris. He is coordinator and editor of the annual, renowned World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR). He was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize for his work in 1997.
The energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine and geopolitical factors are complicating the fight against the climate crisis. In their opening statements at COP27, leaders did condemn Putin’s actions and urged greater commitment to climate action and clean energy. But there is no doubt in my mind: Putin’s absence from the summit is a significant obstacle to the negotiations. At the same time, Russia’s war is exacerbating the climate crisis with each passing day. In the face of global sanctions, Putin refused to attend the COP27 talks.
He left it to Russia’s climate envoy Ruslan Edelgeriev to assure that the country would stay true to its climate commitments. But when Russian politicians say they will honor the country’s commitments, it is unclear what commitments they are talking about.
Despite all the years Russia has participated in climate negotiations, there is still no climate policy in the country. The official Russian climate strategy even says that Russian emissions will increase. Instead, they will most likely decrease – but this is a direct result of the economic crisis in Russia and thus a consequence of the war. It has nothing to do with the country’s climate commitments, but with the consequences of the crisis for the Russian fossil energy industry.
At the same time, Russia’s vast forests are getting worse. Since the beginning of Putin’s war, forest fires have been getting more severe, and it’s only going to get worse. It is a great threat to Russians and people everywhere when the forests of the largest country in the world burn.
However, the official Russian delegation will not talk about this or any other of the many issues affecting people at home at the talks. Instead, it will blatantly haggle with Russia’s “appropriate” behavior and hope that the world will continue to pay dictatorships for fossil fuels. But that would lead to another disaster in the near future. The climate crisis would kill thousands of people and leave millions homeless.
Greenpeace Russia is regularly threatened with being banned or classified as a foreign agent by the authorities. The activists are persecuted mainly for their campaigns against laws that threaten the ecosystem of Lake Baikal.
Formally, such locally defined issues are not up for debate at COP27, and certainly the lives of these activists will not be counted. But the importance of this ecosystem to the world is undeniable. About 20 percent of the world’s freshwater is threatened by corruption and abuse of nature in Lake Baikal. Combined with the climate-related impacts on the drinking water supply of half the world’s population, the question arises as to why neither this nor the war is being addressed in these negotiations.
War is the elephant in the room at this conference. True, it was somewhat highlighted in the opening presentations. But even the unmistakable fact that, in my view, Putin’s war has set back all progress in negotiations by decades is not officially discussed. There is a long history of ignoring the messages of activists like me, our work, and the threats we face, especially in crisis years like this one. But it is difficult to ignore the enormous danger of not addressing the unmistakable reality now.
The world failed to act when Russia attacked Chechnya and Georgia, occupied Crimea, and bombed Syria – this war in Ukraine must not be used as another opportunity to turn a blind eye.
The current situation makes it clear: Authoritarian regimes like Russia can blackmail the entire world by blocking talks and remaining silent in order to protect their power and legitimize violence and human rights violations. It is not only climate policy that is increasingly affected by this but also everything else – whether in the authoritarian countries themselves or through the wars they wage against their neighbors.
In democracies, civil society can influence a country’s position and ensure that climate policy is adapted to the changing situation. It is true that this is happening in Russia at the moment. However, not because of greenhouse gas emissions, but because of the huge amount of petrodollars that have financed the regime in Russia so far, and because the previous buyer countries now feel the need to break away from Putin’s fossil blackmail.
In countries with authoritarian regimes, things are much more complicated than in democracies. My climate activism, for example, has resulted in my only citizenship being revoked. Activists of any kind are no longer allowed to protest in Russia. The war has wiped out all the progress we have made over the years. Now environmental policy in Russia is reduced to work assignments, with people picking up trash where and when they are told to.
The fact that the international talks at COP27 are unable to directly confront Russia’s warmongering ultimately means that Ruslan Edelgiriev, advisor to the president on climate issues, can advocate for the lifting of sanctions in areas of climate policy.
He has advocated this line in numerous speeches. However, it is obvious that he does not mean, for example, the climate-relevant area of renewable energies. Solar and wind power currently generate less than one percent of Russia’s electricity, and there are no plans to expand them further. Instead, he means something else, suggesting, for example, that Russia could achieve carbon neutrality sooner than 2060 if sanctions were relaxed.
For more than 20 years, Russian policy and action on the climate crisis have been totally inadequate, despite all COPs. I myself would not have known about the climate crisis or the existence of climate negotiations without Greta Thunberg’s climate strike.
In Russia, no one is seriously concerned with this issue. Putin-controlled state television spreads world conspiracy theories and misleads the Russian people. And therefore it is only logical that Ruslan Edelgeriev does not take the climate crisis seriously, although it threatens millions of people in Russia. At COP25 in Madrid three years ago, he told me that activists did nothing but shout. Now we are not even allowed to do that.
Still, Edelgeriev is serious about some things, such as lifting sanctions, returning to Russia’s huge gains from fossil fuels, and promoting nuclear power to regain more influence over other countries’ energy systems. In Russia, the development of a plan to implement the long-term strategy for low-carbon development has been postponed until 2023, while global negotiations at COP27 continue. In other words, climate action in Russia will come tomorrow and only tomorrow – but tomorrow never comes.
Three years ago it seemed to me that Russia would not give up, that we would take to the streets until something really changed. After everything that has happened to me and my country since then, I can no longer have that confidence. That is why I ask the international community for hope.
For war, as for the climate crisis, there are no easy solutions, and we have difficult years ahead. But the longer we delay real and direct action, the higher the cost. Let’s not put more of the world’s progress at risk because of people like Putin.
Arshak Makichyan is a well-known climate activist from Russia. He staged a solo strike in Moscow every Friday from 2019 for the climate and organized the Russian Fridays-for-Future movement. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he protested the war from day one. To avoid imprisonment, he traveled to Berlin in March, where he currently lives. Because of his involvement, his Russian citizenship – his only one – was recently revoked.
The start for COP27 went wrong before: When the environment ministers of the G20 group met in Bali at the end of August, the meeting ended with a minor scandal: The politicians were unable to agree on a final declaration that was supposed to build momentum just three months before the climate conference. Arguments over Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as climate issues, had blown up the group. And the host, Indonesia’s Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar, had nothing to counter the momentum. Participants were disappointed – also by the minister’s weak conduct of the negotiations.
At the COP, Indonesia and its minister are once again in the spotlight. She is there as a representative of the G20 – and has something to show for it. Once again, the heads of the G20 countries have met in Bali – and this time they have achieved a breakthrough: Indonesia will say goodbye to coal in power generation with the “Partnership for a Just Energy Transition” (JETP). To this end, it will receive 20 billion dollars in aid from the industrialized nations (as you can read in today’s Feature).
Bakar can also take credit for this success. The 66-year-old represents the NasDem party in the government of Indonesian President Joko Widodo (also known as Jokowi). She was first elected to parliament in 2014 and took over the environment ministry that same year. Bakar studied agricultural sciences at the University of Bogor, is married and has two children.
She is responsible for environmental policy in Indonesia, which this year became one of only 21 countries to raise its climate change target (NDC). “Our enhanced NDC is more ambitious, accelerating towards net zero emissions by 2050, and is more directed towards 1.5°C,” Bakar said in late September.
However, the improvements are relatively small: Without financial support from industrialized countries, the new NDC projects emissions to fall by 32 percent by 2030, instead of 29 percent compared to the continue-as-is emissions scenario. Now, with the JETP, Indonesia aims to reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2030 and be at zero emissions from energy supply by 2050 with the coal phase-out.
For Bakar, however, the new climate targets are only an interim step towards a more fundamental revision of the targets, which is to take place by 2024: “We will submit our second NDC in 2024, and we will include a coal phase-down in it,” Bakar announced. This plan has now been brought forward.
As G20 Chair at Environment Ministers, Bakar has been pushing the “G20 Partnership on Ocean-Based Climate Action.” These measures are also known as “blue carbon,” and the topic will be explored further at a workshop in Sharm el-Sheikh. Bakar also hopes that better management of Indonesia’s vast marine areas can help achieve climate goals. “Blue carbon resources will later become one of Indonesia’s most potent tools in its second NDC,” Bakar said. Christian Mihatsch
Away from coal – that’s the goal of a 20 billion dollars deal Indonesia has signed with partner countries from the Global North. The project focuses on coal but ignores forest destruction in the country, which is causing much greater climate damage. But the partnership could successfully continue the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) begun with South Africa. However, it is not yet clear whether many countries from the Global South will join in, as Bernhard Pötter reports.
Back to nuclear power – that is still the dream of some politicians and lobbyists in Germany. Whether it’s lifetime extensions, mini-nuclear power plants or even nuclear fusion – since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there have been some absurd proposals in Germany. Mycle Schneider explains in an interview why nuclear power will not contribute to reducing CO2 emissions worldwide. In short: Nuclear power plants are simply too expensive, they take too long to build, and small modular reactors are just “power point reactors,” according to the expert.
Things are starting to get busy at COP. The presidency presented a first draft of the final declaration on Tuesday. And some negotiators say they’ve never had such a bad feeling. Of particular interest: India’s proposal to phase down all fossil fuels is not in the draft. Emphasis is placed on the urgency of the energy transition, despite the current energy crisis. Meanwhile, the G77 and China have made a proposal for a loss and damage fund, the details of which, however, will not be clarified until 2023.
The international energy transition has a new giant project: With billions in aid from the G7 countries, Indonesia wants to generate its electricity without coal by 2050. On Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo signed a 20 billion dollars Just Energy Transition Partnership with representatives of the International Partners Group (IPG). The goal is for the country to phase out coal and move into renewable energies.
The agreement was announced at the G20 summit in Bali. It is part of a strategy to finance a just energy transition in key countries of the Global South with capital from the North. The IPG consists of the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, the EU, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany and Italy.
The partnership envisions that Indonesia will, among other things:
In return, the country will receive 20 billion dollars in financial assistance over the next “three to five years,” half from public and half from private sources. The capital is to consist of loans and grants. The IPG countries will share the costs. Germany’s share is “less than a billion,” it said; exact figures were not released. For the IPG, the US and Japan are leading the negotiations with Indonesia.
The private funds are supposed to be raised by banks and investors. The group includes Deutsche Bank, Citi and Bank of America. The financial institutions are united in the “Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero” (GFANZ), which was founded at COP26.
For German Climate Secretary Jennifer Morgan, the project shows how Germany is helping to “accelerate the global energy transition.” Exactly how Indonesia organizes its coal phase-out is up to the country itself. The country’s mining industry – Indonesia is a major coal exporter – is exempt from the JETP, as is the biggest source of greenhouse gases in Indonesia: forest destruction.
In any case, Indonesia is a special case: In addition to the approximately 620 million metric tons of CO2 from fossil fuels, the country causes another nearly 950 million metric tons of CO2 emissions through deforestation. The per capita emissions from fossil fuels are around 2.2 tons. If deforestation is included, the figure is about 7.2 metric tons.
The JETP with Indonesia follows the example of South Africa. The G7 agreed with this country at the Glasgow summit that it would decarbonize its energy sector over three to five years in return for 8.5 billion dollars in aid. In the meantime, the country has drawn up a plan for the transition – and also a preliminary bill: It amounts to around 100 billion dollars.
More JETP are planned, but are not really progressing at the moment:
Mr. Schneider, in the climate debate, some voices are hoping for a nuclear power renaissance and thus for low-CO2 electricity. Is that realistic in your view?
This is a fact-free debate. When people talk about renaissance, they get the impression that nuclear power plants are being built everywhere and increasingly. This would require indicators that point upward. But most indicators for the development of the nuclear industry point downward, as our report (World Nuclear Industry Status Report – editor’s note) shows every year.
So there is no nuclear renaissance at all?
The expansion of nuclear power can be summed up this way: China is building at home, Russia is building abroad. The share of nuclear power in global electricity generation has been falling for 25 years and in 2021 was below ten percent for the first time in 40 years. 20 years ago, most of the reactors were in operation. Since then, 105 nuclear plants have closed and only 98 have come online, including 50 in China. There is as de facto no renaissance of nuclear power, only a renaissance of rhetoric.
The nuclear agency IAEA forecasts a doubling of capacity by 2050. Is it wrong?
We are not clairvoyants and do not make predictions. We look at what can be proven empirically. And the data say that to maintain the current installed capacity level, the new construction rate would have to be doubled. And that’s only true if all the projects go online, but so far, one in eight nuclear power plants has not been completed. And then you would have to assume that all power plants will run to the end of their license periods, but most will be shut down much sooner for safety or cost reasons.
So doubling the rate of new construction is unrealistic?
Current trends simply do not indicate that such a doubling of capacity would be possible. It also has to be said: The industry has announced a lot in the past that then did not materialize. In 2008, the world’s largest nuclear operator, the French power company EDF, presented a scenario that predicted a net addition of 110 gigawatts of nuclear capacity worldwide by 2020. What happened in real terms? Less capacity was in operation in 2020 than in 2008.
Nevertheless, some climate experts are betting on nuclear technology.
We are talking about “climate emergency”, so the time pressure is already included in the term. So we must strive to avoid as much greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible for every euro and dollar invested. Even if one wanted to bear the costs of nuclear technology, which are many times higher than those of renewable energies, the time factor makes this absurd as a climate strategy. It would take decades to build nuclear parks that could significantly affect CO2 emissions.
But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also assumes that the capacity of nuclear power will double by 2050. Are the experts wrong?
The IPCC does not make predictions but creates scenarios. The difference is crucial. Crystal ball statements are misleading. The future depends on what we do today and tomorrow. Scenarios try to show what different outcomes we can achieve with different courses of action. Among 23 actions to reduce emissions that the IPCC evaluated against a set of criteria, nuclear comes out worst. In half of the total 90 IPCC scenarios that meet the 1.5 °C target, the share of nuclear power in the energy mix decreases, and in some the number of nuclear power plants even decreases. The best-graded actions remain investments in energy sufficiency, efficiency, and renewables.
Nevertheless, many are pinning their hopes on smaller units: Small modular reactors (SMRs). Would they be a solution?
So far, these are mainly concept studies, power point reactors. There are very many of these on paper, but apart from two plants each in Russia and China, nothing has been built so far. There are no prototypes in the Western industrialized countries, no construction permits, and only a general, preliminary design certification in the United States. And this model is getting bigger – which is no accident, as the quest for economies of scale to improve questionable economics runs through the entire history of nuclear power. It is curious how SMRs are communicated: They are cheaper because they are smaller. Of course, the investment is lower because they also offer less power, but per megawatt they are much more expensive than the big reactors precisely because they lose the economy of scale.
So why is nuclear power always brought into play?
Countries are under a lot of pressure to develop a climate strategy. And when a government, such as in the UK, has never developed a backup plan beyond nuclear power, it’s very difficult. But governments don’t build nuclear power plants. That’s why, for private sector interests, renewables, such as offshore wind, are being expanded there much faster than is even possible with nuclear projects. In the meantime, Scotland is leading the way and is already at nearly 100 percent renewables in the electricity mix.
Are you surprised that the issue of nuclear safety is disregarded in these debates?
There has been a generational break in the culture of technology. Awareness of the complex problems of nuclear power has disappeared among the younger generation. A handful of very efficient nuclear propagandists are doing their part to create confusion. Above all, however, it is probably about what the physicist M.V. Ramana meant by his book title on India’s nuclear program, “The Power of Promise”: the power of promise is very seductive. Atom solves the climate crisis and all other energy problems besides – that sounds great.
Mycle Schneider is an international energy and nuclear policy analyst based primarily in Paris. He is coordinator and editor of the annual, renowned World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR). He was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize for his work in 1997.
The energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine and geopolitical factors are complicating the fight against the climate crisis. In their opening statements at COP27, leaders did condemn Putin’s actions and urged greater commitment to climate action and clean energy. But there is no doubt in my mind: Putin’s absence from the summit is a significant obstacle to the negotiations. At the same time, Russia’s war is exacerbating the climate crisis with each passing day. In the face of global sanctions, Putin refused to attend the COP27 talks.
He left it to Russia’s climate envoy Ruslan Edelgeriev to assure that the country would stay true to its climate commitments. But when Russian politicians say they will honor the country’s commitments, it is unclear what commitments they are talking about.
Despite all the years Russia has participated in climate negotiations, there is still no climate policy in the country. The official Russian climate strategy even says that Russian emissions will increase. Instead, they will most likely decrease – but this is a direct result of the economic crisis in Russia and thus a consequence of the war. It has nothing to do with the country’s climate commitments, but with the consequences of the crisis for the Russian fossil energy industry.
At the same time, Russia’s vast forests are getting worse. Since the beginning of Putin’s war, forest fires have been getting more severe, and it’s only going to get worse. It is a great threat to Russians and people everywhere when the forests of the largest country in the world burn.
However, the official Russian delegation will not talk about this or any other of the many issues affecting people at home at the talks. Instead, it will blatantly haggle with Russia’s “appropriate” behavior and hope that the world will continue to pay dictatorships for fossil fuels. But that would lead to another disaster in the near future. The climate crisis would kill thousands of people and leave millions homeless.
Greenpeace Russia is regularly threatened with being banned or classified as a foreign agent by the authorities. The activists are persecuted mainly for their campaigns against laws that threaten the ecosystem of Lake Baikal.
Formally, such locally defined issues are not up for debate at COP27, and certainly the lives of these activists will not be counted. But the importance of this ecosystem to the world is undeniable. About 20 percent of the world’s freshwater is threatened by corruption and abuse of nature in Lake Baikal. Combined with the climate-related impacts on the drinking water supply of half the world’s population, the question arises as to why neither this nor the war is being addressed in these negotiations.
War is the elephant in the room at this conference. True, it was somewhat highlighted in the opening presentations. But even the unmistakable fact that, in my view, Putin’s war has set back all progress in negotiations by decades is not officially discussed. There is a long history of ignoring the messages of activists like me, our work, and the threats we face, especially in crisis years like this one. But it is difficult to ignore the enormous danger of not addressing the unmistakable reality now.
The world failed to act when Russia attacked Chechnya and Georgia, occupied Crimea, and bombed Syria – this war in Ukraine must not be used as another opportunity to turn a blind eye.
The current situation makes it clear: Authoritarian regimes like Russia can blackmail the entire world by blocking talks and remaining silent in order to protect their power and legitimize violence and human rights violations. It is not only climate policy that is increasingly affected by this but also everything else – whether in the authoritarian countries themselves or through the wars they wage against their neighbors.
In democracies, civil society can influence a country’s position and ensure that climate policy is adapted to the changing situation. It is true that this is happening in Russia at the moment. However, not because of greenhouse gas emissions, but because of the huge amount of petrodollars that have financed the regime in Russia so far, and because the previous buyer countries now feel the need to break away from Putin’s fossil blackmail.
In countries with authoritarian regimes, things are much more complicated than in democracies. My climate activism, for example, has resulted in my only citizenship being revoked. Activists of any kind are no longer allowed to protest in Russia. The war has wiped out all the progress we have made over the years. Now environmental policy in Russia is reduced to work assignments, with people picking up trash where and when they are told to.
The fact that the international talks at COP27 are unable to directly confront Russia’s warmongering ultimately means that Ruslan Edelgiriev, advisor to the president on climate issues, can advocate for the lifting of sanctions in areas of climate policy.
He has advocated this line in numerous speeches. However, it is obvious that he does not mean, for example, the climate-relevant area of renewable energies. Solar and wind power currently generate less than one percent of Russia’s electricity, and there are no plans to expand them further. Instead, he means something else, suggesting, for example, that Russia could achieve carbon neutrality sooner than 2060 if sanctions were relaxed.
For more than 20 years, Russian policy and action on the climate crisis have been totally inadequate, despite all COPs. I myself would not have known about the climate crisis or the existence of climate negotiations without Greta Thunberg’s climate strike.
In Russia, no one is seriously concerned with this issue. Putin-controlled state television spreads world conspiracy theories and misleads the Russian people. And therefore it is only logical that Ruslan Edelgeriev does not take the climate crisis seriously, although it threatens millions of people in Russia. At COP25 in Madrid three years ago, he told me that activists did nothing but shout. Now we are not even allowed to do that.
Still, Edelgeriev is serious about some things, such as lifting sanctions, returning to Russia’s huge gains from fossil fuels, and promoting nuclear power to regain more influence over other countries’ energy systems. In Russia, the development of a plan to implement the long-term strategy for low-carbon development has been postponed until 2023, while global negotiations at COP27 continue. In other words, climate action in Russia will come tomorrow and only tomorrow – but tomorrow never comes.
Three years ago it seemed to me that Russia would not give up, that we would take to the streets until something really changed. After everything that has happened to me and my country since then, I can no longer have that confidence. That is why I ask the international community for hope.
For war, as for the climate crisis, there are no easy solutions, and we have difficult years ahead. But the longer we delay real and direct action, the higher the cost. Let’s not put more of the world’s progress at risk because of people like Putin.
Arshak Makichyan is a well-known climate activist from Russia. He staged a solo strike in Moscow every Friday from 2019 for the climate and organized the Russian Fridays-for-Future movement. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he protested the war from day one. To avoid imprisonment, he traveled to Berlin in March, where he currently lives. Because of his involvement, his Russian citizenship – his only one – was recently revoked.
The start for COP27 went wrong before: When the environment ministers of the G20 group met in Bali at the end of August, the meeting ended with a minor scandal: The politicians were unable to agree on a final declaration that was supposed to build momentum just three months before the climate conference. Arguments over Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as climate issues, had blown up the group. And the host, Indonesia’s Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar, had nothing to counter the momentum. Participants were disappointed – also by the minister’s weak conduct of the negotiations.
At the COP, Indonesia and its minister are once again in the spotlight. She is there as a representative of the G20 – and has something to show for it. Once again, the heads of the G20 countries have met in Bali – and this time they have achieved a breakthrough: Indonesia will say goodbye to coal in power generation with the “Partnership for a Just Energy Transition” (JETP). To this end, it will receive 20 billion dollars in aid from the industrialized nations (as you can read in today’s Feature).
Bakar can also take credit for this success. The 66-year-old represents the NasDem party in the government of Indonesian President Joko Widodo (also known as Jokowi). She was first elected to parliament in 2014 and took over the environment ministry that same year. Bakar studied agricultural sciences at the University of Bogor, is married and has two children.
She is responsible for environmental policy in Indonesia, which this year became one of only 21 countries to raise its climate change target (NDC). “Our enhanced NDC is more ambitious, accelerating towards net zero emissions by 2050, and is more directed towards 1.5°C,” Bakar said in late September.
However, the improvements are relatively small: Without financial support from industrialized countries, the new NDC projects emissions to fall by 32 percent by 2030, instead of 29 percent compared to the continue-as-is emissions scenario. Now, with the JETP, Indonesia aims to reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2030 and be at zero emissions from energy supply by 2050 with the coal phase-out.
For Bakar, however, the new climate targets are only an interim step towards a more fundamental revision of the targets, which is to take place by 2024: “We will submit our second NDC in 2024, and we will include a coal phase-down in it,” Bakar announced. This plan has now been brought forward.
As G20 Chair at Environment Ministers, Bakar has been pushing the “G20 Partnership on Ocean-Based Climate Action.” These measures are also known as “blue carbon,” and the topic will be explored further at a workshop in Sharm el-Sheikh. Bakar also hopes that better management of Indonesia’s vast marine areas can help achieve climate goals. “Blue carbon resources will later become one of Indonesia’s most potent tools in its second NDC,” Bakar said. Christian Mihatsch
