The global climate is not democratically decided. National interests and structures determine how many emissions we put into the atmosphere. The UN is not a world government. And rarely is its lack of power more apparent than at climate conferences. This will be no different in two weeks at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
This makes political decisions in individual countries all the more important. That is why we devote a large portion of our very first edition of Climate.Table to the question of how the course is set by climate superpowers.
In China, the head of state and party leader Xi Jinping recently secured a third term in office. Our colleague and China expert Nico Beckert has taken the opportunity to analyze Xi’s climate policy and dare to offer an outlook. His conclusion: Climate is becoming increasingly important, but traditional economic growth remains paramount.
A fateful election for the climate is on the horizon in Brazil: If the authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro wins a second term in office, writes our colleague Daniela Chiaretti from São Paulo, some experts see the end of the Amazon rainforest – with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global climate.
And in the EU, a surprise resignation suddenly left it unclear who will represent Europe’s interests at COP27, as our colleague Lukas Scheid writes.
Our mission is to provide you with background, news and analysis. Starting today, Climate.Table will bring you that every week. We will report on relevant developments on the climate crisis from around the world to help you get a better picture of what is happening in politics, business, science, and society.
At the COP in Egypt, we will do that every day for two weeks. So that you are even better informed about who makes the decisions about our future and for what reasons. We will stay on it.
We look forward to exciting times and to you as our audience, your reactions, suggestions and criticism. You can always reach us at climate@briefing.table.media.
A potential election victory for the candidate of the PT Workers’ Party would likely advance climate protection in the country. Before the election, Lula said: “Let’s govern this country by making the climate issue a priority.” Specifically, that means in the fight against the destruction of the rainforest:
With regard to rainforest protection, a recent analysis by the Carbon Brief trade portal suggests that a Lula victory could prevent the loss of nearly 76,000 square kilometers of forest by 2030 – provided he keeps his promises. Bolsonaro, on the other hand, would continue to weaken environmental controls and tolerate illegal deforestation, according to this analysis.
However, Lula would also encounter headwinds in his efforts to protect the forest. This is because a conservative majority has ruled Brazil’s parliament, the Congress, since the elections in early October, which is not sympathetic to the climate and environmental agenda and is closer to Bolsonaro. This will make it very difficult for Lula to deliver on his promise to stop illegal deforestation by 2030.
Bolsonaro’s commitment to climate protection is kept superficial and is considered questionable. The far-right politician has been elected as a climate change denier and promised not to designate “one more centimeter” of indigenous land. He did change his position on climate change in his speeches at international forums. Nevertheless, deforestation increased significantly in the Amazon region in recent years.
In the last days of the election race, the issue of deforestation is once again heavily debated. Bolsonaro’s supporters claim that the total area of destroyed forests in the first three years of Lula’s rule was twice that of the same period of Bolsonaro’s government. This is true, but only to some extent
In 2003, the first year of Lula’s term, the deforested area in the Amazon was 25,300 square kilometers, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research. In 2004, it increased to 27,700 square kilometers. However, after 2005, deforestation rates steadily decreased until they reached an area of 7,200 square kilometers in 2010. In eight years of Lula’s two terms in office, deforestation was cut by 67 percent.
Under the government of Dilma Rousseff, who also belonged to the PT, the number continued to fall, reaching its lowest level of 4,500 square kilometers in 2012.
In the years under Bolsonaro, deforestation increased sharply once again. In 2019, the deforested area was 10,100 square kilometers; in 2020, it was 10,800. In 2021, it reached 13,000 square kilometers, a rise of 73 percent compared to the last year of office of his predecessor, Michel Temer. Data for 2022 suggest a figure between 13,000 and 15,000 square kilometers. Today, 90 percent of deforestation in the Amazon is illegal and in violation of Brazilian law.
Lula reduced deforestation during his time in office by:
“Lula is now talking about seeing the standing forest as valuable, seeing it as a natural treasure,” says scientist and climatologist Carlos Nobre of the University of São Paulo. “He wants to revive the measures and policies of the past.”
Nobre does not expect that a second Bolsonaro government will change its “political practice of supporting mining on indigenous lands, legalization of illegally occupied public land, and expansion policies of agricultural and livestock areas.” If Bolsonaro wins the election, “Brazil will emerge in eight years as the world’s largest socio-environmental pariah, with enormous risk to the Amazon.”
Together with US scientist Thomas Lovejoy, Nobre devised the theory that if deforestation becomes too severe, the Amazon forest will reach a point of no return and will no longer be able to regenerate. According to Nobre, the Brazilian Amazon has already lost more than 21 percent of its original forest, or more than 830,000 square kilometers – an area almost as large as Germany and Spain combined.
Such a loss of the Amazon rainforest would be a disaster for the global climate and biodiversity in the medium and long term. Niklas Hoehne, Professor of Climate Protection at Wageningen University and Director of the New Climate Institute, is certain: “The Amazon represents one of the ten most important possible global tipping points, which – if crossed – would permanently change the climate throughout the world.”
Luciana Gatti, a researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), coordinated another alarming study. The study shows that deforestation and fires in the eastern part of the Amazon have caused the forest to lose its ability to sequester carbon in some regions and instead become a source of carbon emissions.
The weak point of the climate policy of a potential President Lula could be the search for new oil deposits off the Brazilian coast. The country increased its oil production in recent years and reached far into the deep sea to do so. Brazil currently produces around three million barrels of oil a day.
“It’s a big challenge,” Nobre agrees. According to data from the oil and gas sector, Brazilian emissions from the burning of fossil fuels amount to 18 to 20 percent of Brazil’s total emissions. This puts Brazil’s per capita emissions, when calculated on fossil fuels alone, at just 2.2 metric tons per year. This is slightly higher than India’s emissions (1.8 tons) and far lower than China (7.4 tons per capita per year), the European Union (5.84 tons) or the United States (14.24 tons). However, neither Lula nor Bolsonaro speak of an energy transition from oil and gas. The sector employs over 150,000 people.
At any rate, there is international praise for Brazil’s previous climate course: Lula and Dilma Rousseff’s former environment minister, Izabella Teixeira, has been invited by the Egyptian COP presidency to join the “Friends of COP” and help assist with the complex negotiations at the conference. Daniela Chiaretti from São Paulo
At first glance, the climate track record of China’s new and old CP General Secretary Xi Jinping looks highly successful. In his nine and a half years as head of state, China:
But experts warn against overestimating the green ambitions of the new old ruler. They believe that China’s environmental and climate policy under Xi serves to maintain the Communist Party’s hold on power; the decline in carbon emissions is partly due to the Covid crisis; and the economy’s compulsion to grow continues unabated. The coal lobby is still strong. And at the upcoming UN climate summit (COP27), no decisive action is expected to come from China.
Cutting carbon emissions and phasing out coal in the long term “are definitely among the most important items on Xi’s political agenda,” says Nis Gruenberg, an analyst at China think tank Merics. “Xi sees climate change mitigation and adaptation as a condition for the Party’s long-term retention of power and the current form of government.”
Still, since Xi took office in 2013, carbon emissions increased less sharply than in previous years. In the last four quarters, they even decreased slightly (China.Table reported). Coal consumption stabilized – at a high level. And renewable energies are being expanded at a rapid pace.
However, these are all relative achievements. China’s emissions were still nearly 12.2 billion metric tons of CO2 in March 2022, according to calculations by Carbon Brief. In two of the last four quarters, the decline was minimal (see chart). Per capita emissions have been above the EU average since 2018. China is now also historically the world’s second-largest polluter. The tanker has been slowed down but still moves in the wrong direction.
The success of declining carbon emissions is also due in part to the real estate crisis and regular Covid lockdowns. Whether the decrease will continue remains to be seen.
Lauri Myllyvirta and Xing Zhang, China experts at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), are convinced that the rapid expansion of renewables offers a great opportunity. The expansion of renewables could happen at such a fast pace that additional demand for energy over the next few years could be entirely met by clean energy. For this to happen, however, electricity demand must not grow by more than 4 percent per year.
Internally, China considers climate policy to be important. Since the announcement of the climate targets, the central government and the provinces issued more than 60 action plans for the individual sectors. At the international level and COP27, however, there will probably be no new major pledges. Special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua recently said that the implementation and realization of existing climate targets must be the focus at COP (China.Table reported).
So far, Xi Jinping himself does not seek the COP as a big stage. He announced his big climate plans – the 2030/60 targets and the phase-out of coal overseas – before the UN General Assembly. China does not want to be pushed by other countries at the COP, but rather to be perceived as an independent player in front of its domestic audience.
The climate issue must also subordinate itself to Xi’s geopolitical strategy. At COP26 in Glasgow, Chinese delegation leader Xie announced that the People’s Republic would continue climate talks with the United States despite all geopolitical tensions. Six months later, after the controversial Taiwan visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China suspended those talks. They could only now possibly be resumed at COP27.
However, China plans to unveil a methane emissions reduction strategy later this year. “This is China’s additional contribution beyond our NDCs,” Xie said in a recent interview. Methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, as well as agriculture and waste disposal, will be “controlled,” Xie said. He did not mention the coal sector, which accounted for the bulk of methane emissions.
Analysts are not overly optimistic that China will move more quickly toward Paris compliance during Xi’s third term in office, either. Renewable energies will probably be expanded even faster. But coal will remain an important part of the energy supply in the medium term. Whether there will be any new momentum in climate protection, however, “will also be driven by realpolitik factors, be it economic crises or international tensions,” Gruenberg says. “The more uncertain the overall situation is, the more uncertain the green transition will be.”
The growing conflicts between China and the USA and the EU could hardly have worse timing. After all, internal debates on China’s next Five-Year Plan will already begin next year. If geopolitical tensions and the Covid and economic crisis in China continue, Beijing’s climate ambitions for the next Five-Year Plan could be low. If China then still fails to name specific figures for the emissions peak by 2030 to preserve climate and industrial policy leeway, the path from 2030 toward carbon neutrality will become even steeper than it is already.
Xi may be China’s most powerful man and has concentrated more and more power on himself over the past decade. But when it comes to climate protection, he cannot and will not dictate. The People’s Republic is still too dependent on coal. Yet the country does have the will, the technical capabilities and the support of its leaders to advance the energy transition faster, Gruenberg said. “This is also one of the goals that are important to Xi Jinping personally,” says the Merics researcher. “But the coal lobby manages to push coal as the safest basis of the energy system every time there is a crisis, whether it’s the heat wave this year or the power crisis in 2021, further delaying the phase-out.”
Reforms to the electricity market have also been too slow, he said. “In this area, China could have achieved a great deal in cutting carbon emissions,” Gruenberg said. Coal has had priority in China’s energy system for years. This is also due to the powerful interests of the coal industry and the provinces. The latter act as a link between the central government and the local level, where climate policy is often implemented. The provinces also pursue their own goals and can, for example, slow down the coal phase-out.
And Xi also must reconcile different goals: Economic growth is the core legitimization of his government and the Communist Party. A secure power supply for industry and climate protection are similarly high on his agenda. In times of crisis, however, growth and energy security take precedence. More than 60 million people are employed in the carbon-heavy sectors of coal, construction and heavy industry (China.Table reported). Xi repeatedly urges cautious change in political speeches. “The new must be created before the old is discarded,” he said at the recent Party Congress regarding China’s energy supply.
Climate change has long been a reality in Bangladesh. Temperatures are rising every year, and dams are no longer able to cope with the increasing number of cyclones and floods. Entire villages are swept away, paddy fields become salinated and remain barren. Roads become impassable, schools have to close or serve as shelters. More and more people lose all their possessions, their homes and livelihoods from one day to the next. Without help, many are left with nothing.
Bangladesh is not the only case. Extreme weather events like floods and droughts are increasing worldwide. The effects of climate change hit developing countries particularly hard. Here, many people already suffer from poverty, and governments have fewer options to protect the population from such disasters and their consequences. The accelerating climate change destroys important development progress and more and more people are facing poverty.
It is all the more bitter considering that most developing countries have contributed only a fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. The bulk of emissions are caused by the industrialized countries – and to an increasing extent also by the large emerging economies.
That is why it is high time for the governments of these countries to live up to their responsibility and protect the people in developing countries from the impacts of climate change. This includes stepping up climate protection to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed in Paris. But the wheel of time cannot be turned back – and the climate crisis is already causing severe damage in many countries. That is why the industrialized countries and, in the long term, the major emerging economies must help poor and particularly vulnerable countries adapt to climate change.
Climate-related losses (such as crop failures caused by droughts) and damage (e.g. to houses and roads during storms) can no longer be averted entirely. However, they must be limited to the best of our ability. If we strengthen the resilience of the people affected, a great deal of suffering can be avoided. I am convinced that it is within our power as an international community to better protect poor and vulnerable people and countries from climate risks and to offer them swift help and prospects after catastrophic weather events!
At international climate conferences, the German Development Ministry negotiates the issue of loss and damage on behalf of the German government. At the next conference in Egypt, we want to reach an agreement on how support for poor and vulnerable countries can be strengthened and effectively shaped. Lengthy and ultimately unpromising debates over international law are of little help here. As we know very well from past experience, the positions of various countries can very quickly spiral into an impossible tangle. Therefore, my goal is to act effectively, comprehensively and in a forward-looking manner.
I see three approaches for this task to succeed:
This is precisely why the German government has advocated a global shield against climate risks during its G7 presidency. The G7 partners developed this concept in cooperation with the Vulnerable Twenty Group (V20), an association of countries most affected by climate change. The G7 and V20 agreed on it in mid-October on the sidelines of the World Bank Conference in Washington.
The climate risk shield is intended to help people from the Global South better cope with climate-related disasters and limit their damage. It supports vulnerable countries even before a crisis strikes:
Then, once the damage is done, the money is already on hand. The government can respond quickly and support affected individuals. In the event of a drought, for example, it can provide grants to small farmers to allow them to buy seeds and fertilizer for the next sowing season. This helps them and their families get through tough times better.
This global shield aims to prevent people and governments from falling into debt or having to wait a long time for humanitarian aid. With it, the government can start rebuilding immediately after a storm or flood and quickly restore bridges, roads, hospitals and schools, for example.
By enabling rapid relief, the global shield helps reduce the cost of climate disasters. The faster affected people can get back on their feet, the sooner they can be prevented from slipping into poverty. The faster public utilities are restored, the better famine and outbreaks of disease can be avoided.
The climate risk shield will benefit especially the most vulnerable and poorest countries. The V20 selected several pilot countries, so-called pathfinder countries. They include Bangladesh, Ghana, Senegal, Costa Rica, the Philippines and Fiji. Other countries are to follow. The first protection packages will be prepared in these countries before the end of the year. The participating countries are thereby using existing instruments for dealing with climate risks, bundling them and developing them further.
The German government will continue to support the launch of the global shield against climate risks, including a substantial financial contribution in the double-digit million range. In this way, Germany shows its solidarity with countries and people who cannot protect themselves against the consequences of climate change on their own.
At the COP 27 world climate conference in Egypt in November, the G7 and V20 will present the climate risk shield and campaign for further support. Because as an international community, we must take responsibility together. This is the only way we can limit climate-related loss and damage and save as many lives and livelihoods as possible.
Never before have the G20 countries paid more subsidies to producers of oil, gas and coal than in 2021: $64 billion. In total, the 20 largest countries, which are responsible for about 75 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, supported the production and consumption of fossil raw materials with $190 billion this year. That was revealed by the “Climate Transparency Report” of an international cooperation of 16 think tanks and environmental groups, based on data from the OECD and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In absolute numbers, China, Indonesia and the United Kingdom lead the list. However, if the share of government aid in relation to the economic output of the respective countries is examined, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina lead the list. No comparable data is available for Saudi Arabia. However, an IEA calculation puts state aid for the fossil fuel sector there at around $17 billion.
The extensive subsidies should also be seen as support for the fossil industries in and after the Covid pandemic and the subsequent sales downturn, the report says. For 2022, the authors expect that the high level of subsidies is likely to remain as European countries, for example, seek to shield their citizens from high energy prices. In 2009, the G20 countries decided to “phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that lead to wasteful consumption in the medium term.”
The G20 public spending, which are not subsidies, also showed a clear preference for fossil energies. With budget money, tax expenditures, and loans and grants from public banks, they mainly supported the oil and gas sector in 2019 and 2020 with about $62 billion each. At the top of the list were Japan, South Korea and China.
63 percent of all public spending by G20 countries in the energy sector went to fossil industries. Of the total amount of $100 billion, 20 percent went to renewable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal energy, while 18 percent went to infrastructure sectors such as power lines, large dams or the nuclear industry.
In 2021, many countries declared plans to curb these payments to fossil fuel industries. The G7 and South Korea decided that their development banks would no longer support coal without carbon storage. China, too, no longer wants to finance coal-fired power plants abroad. At the climate conference in Glasgow, 39 countries and financial institutions declared to completely withdraw from the financing of fossil infrastructure abroad.
The Climate Transparency Report criticizes that governments have so far “not made it sufficiently clear” under which “exceptional circumstances” they intend to continue investing in gas production, for example. Such exceptions have “expanded considerably” in light of the energy crisis. bpo
The UN Climate Change Conference is one of the highlights in Frans Timmermans’ political calendar. Climate protection rarely receives so much global spotlight, and the Executive Vice President of the EU Commission is in his element on the big diplomatic stage. The EU’s climate czar wants to shine at COP27 as a self-proclaimed bridge builder between industrialized and developing countries.
And new bridges are urgently needed, Timmermans knows. There have been setbacks, many unfulfilled expectations, especially in developing countries, regarding climate adaptation and the issue of loss and damage, the Dutch politician said on Monday, when EU states adopted their negotiating mandate for COP27.
In the end, the 61-year-old described the negotiating mandate as merely “acceptable” – a side blow against the ministers of the EU Environment Council. After all, the industrialized countries still have not fulfilled their 100-billion-dollar climate financing pledge. The EU member states do not expect this to happen until 2023. Furthermore, Timmermans was probably also disappointed by the fact that the EU member states did not present any concrete solutions to the demands of the developing countries for more help in the event of climate damage (“loss and damage”). The EU mandate states that the intention is to engage in a constructive exchange on the issue to learn more about the needs of the global South.
Actually, the needs of the Global South have been known for a long time. The developing countries call for a financing instrument for loss and damage and for the industrialized nations, as the main perpetrators of climate change, to accept financial responsibility. The USA and some EU countries hesitate to take this step, because they fear that they could be held liable for future losses and damage caused by climate change.
The EU member states are also reluctant to raise the climate targets at the UN, known in the jargon as NDC. For the time being, the EU’s target remains 55 percent fewer carbon emissions by 2030 compared to 1990. Timmermans would gladly travel to Egypt with a new NDC, because he always emphasizes the EU’s exemplary role in climate protection and hardly misses an opportunity to call on other countries to set higher targets.
So Timmermans wants to impress in Sharm el-Sheikh with progress on the Fit-for-55 package, the legislative proposals to implement Europe’s climate targets. These include:
At present, the three legislative proposals are still in the trilogue, the final round of negotiations between the EU Commission, Parliament and member states. But the three negotiating parties already agreed to speed up the process of these three dossiers to clarify the main outstanding issues by the time of the COP. If this were to succeed, it would be possible to prove with concrete measures that we are on the right track, said Timmermans.
“The world is looking at us,” stresses Timmermans, who was born in Maastricht in 1961 as the son of a diplomat. He studied French literature and European law in the Netherlands and in Nancy, France. He became, among other things, State Secretary for European Affairs in The Hague, then Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, and finally moved to Brussels in 2014 to join the EU Commission, at that time under Jean-Claude Juncker.
Now Timmermans is number two in the EU Commission after President Ursula von der Leyen. Actually, he would have preferred to have had the job at the head of the Brussels authority himself. He was the top candidate for the European Social Democrats in the 2019 European elections and believed he had a good chance, partly because the conservative winner, Manfred Weber, did not receive a majority in the EU Parliament. But the heads of state and government ignored the top candidates and pulled Ursula von der Leyen out of a hat.
His disappointment was high, and Timmermans needed some time to regain his footing and accept the role under von der Leyen. Nevertheless, as First Vice President and Commissioner for Climate Protection, von der Leyen entrusted him with her most important project, the Green Deal. The workaholic knows his way around the jungle of legislative proposals. Timmermans is fluent in seven languages and is considered a rhetorical super talent.
He will certainly use this talent again in Sharm el-Sheikh and leave no doubt about who is in charge in Europe when it comes to climate policy. After all, the UN Climate Change Conference is his big stage. Lukas Scheid and Stephan Israel
The global climate is not democratically decided. National interests and structures determine how many emissions we put into the atmosphere. The UN is not a world government. And rarely is its lack of power more apparent than at climate conferences. This will be no different in two weeks at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
This makes political decisions in individual countries all the more important. That is why we devote a large portion of our very first edition of Climate.Table to the question of how the course is set by climate superpowers.
In China, the head of state and party leader Xi Jinping recently secured a third term in office. Our colleague and China expert Nico Beckert has taken the opportunity to analyze Xi’s climate policy and dare to offer an outlook. His conclusion: Climate is becoming increasingly important, but traditional economic growth remains paramount.
A fateful election for the climate is on the horizon in Brazil: If the authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro wins a second term in office, writes our colleague Daniela Chiaretti from São Paulo, some experts see the end of the Amazon rainforest – with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global climate.
And in the EU, a surprise resignation suddenly left it unclear who will represent Europe’s interests at COP27, as our colleague Lukas Scheid writes.
Our mission is to provide you with background, news and analysis. Starting today, Climate.Table will bring you that every week. We will report on relevant developments on the climate crisis from around the world to help you get a better picture of what is happening in politics, business, science, and society.
At the COP in Egypt, we will do that every day for two weeks. So that you are even better informed about who makes the decisions about our future and for what reasons. We will stay on it.
We look forward to exciting times and to you as our audience, your reactions, suggestions and criticism. You can always reach us at climate@briefing.table.media.
A potential election victory for the candidate of the PT Workers’ Party would likely advance climate protection in the country. Before the election, Lula said: “Let’s govern this country by making the climate issue a priority.” Specifically, that means in the fight against the destruction of the rainforest:
With regard to rainforest protection, a recent analysis by the Carbon Brief trade portal suggests that a Lula victory could prevent the loss of nearly 76,000 square kilometers of forest by 2030 – provided he keeps his promises. Bolsonaro, on the other hand, would continue to weaken environmental controls and tolerate illegal deforestation, according to this analysis.
However, Lula would also encounter headwinds in his efforts to protect the forest. This is because a conservative majority has ruled Brazil’s parliament, the Congress, since the elections in early October, which is not sympathetic to the climate and environmental agenda and is closer to Bolsonaro. This will make it very difficult for Lula to deliver on his promise to stop illegal deforestation by 2030.
Bolsonaro’s commitment to climate protection is kept superficial and is considered questionable. The far-right politician has been elected as a climate change denier and promised not to designate “one more centimeter” of indigenous land. He did change his position on climate change in his speeches at international forums. Nevertheless, deforestation increased significantly in the Amazon region in recent years.
In the last days of the election race, the issue of deforestation is once again heavily debated. Bolsonaro’s supporters claim that the total area of destroyed forests in the first three years of Lula’s rule was twice that of the same period of Bolsonaro’s government. This is true, but only to some extent
In 2003, the first year of Lula’s term, the deforested area in the Amazon was 25,300 square kilometers, according to data from the National Institute for Space Research. In 2004, it increased to 27,700 square kilometers. However, after 2005, deforestation rates steadily decreased until they reached an area of 7,200 square kilometers in 2010. In eight years of Lula’s two terms in office, deforestation was cut by 67 percent.
Under the government of Dilma Rousseff, who also belonged to the PT, the number continued to fall, reaching its lowest level of 4,500 square kilometers in 2012.
In the years under Bolsonaro, deforestation increased sharply once again. In 2019, the deforested area was 10,100 square kilometers; in 2020, it was 10,800. In 2021, it reached 13,000 square kilometers, a rise of 73 percent compared to the last year of office of his predecessor, Michel Temer. Data for 2022 suggest a figure between 13,000 and 15,000 square kilometers. Today, 90 percent of deforestation in the Amazon is illegal and in violation of Brazilian law.
Lula reduced deforestation during his time in office by:
“Lula is now talking about seeing the standing forest as valuable, seeing it as a natural treasure,” says scientist and climatologist Carlos Nobre of the University of São Paulo. “He wants to revive the measures and policies of the past.”
Nobre does not expect that a second Bolsonaro government will change its “political practice of supporting mining on indigenous lands, legalization of illegally occupied public land, and expansion policies of agricultural and livestock areas.” If Bolsonaro wins the election, “Brazil will emerge in eight years as the world’s largest socio-environmental pariah, with enormous risk to the Amazon.”
Together with US scientist Thomas Lovejoy, Nobre devised the theory that if deforestation becomes too severe, the Amazon forest will reach a point of no return and will no longer be able to regenerate. According to Nobre, the Brazilian Amazon has already lost more than 21 percent of its original forest, or more than 830,000 square kilometers – an area almost as large as Germany and Spain combined.
Such a loss of the Amazon rainforest would be a disaster for the global climate and biodiversity in the medium and long term. Niklas Hoehne, Professor of Climate Protection at Wageningen University and Director of the New Climate Institute, is certain: “The Amazon represents one of the ten most important possible global tipping points, which – if crossed – would permanently change the climate throughout the world.”
Luciana Gatti, a researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), coordinated another alarming study. The study shows that deforestation and fires in the eastern part of the Amazon have caused the forest to lose its ability to sequester carbon in some regions and instead become a source of carbon emissions.
The weak point of the climate policy of a potential President Lula could be the search for new oil deposits off the Brazilian coast. The country increased its oil production in recent years and reached far into the deep sea to do so. Brazil currently produces around three million barrels of oil a day.
“It’s a big challenge,” Nobre agrees. According to data from the oil and gas sector, Brazilian emissions from the burning of fossil fuels amount to 18 to 20 percent of Brazil’s total emissions. This puts Brazil’s per capita emissions, when calculated on fossil fuels alone, at just 2.2 metric tons per year. This is slightly higher than India’s emissions (1.8 tons) and far lower than China (7.4 tons per capita per year), the European Union (5.84 tons) or the United States (14.24 tons). However, neither Lula nor Bolsonaro speak of an energy transition from oil and gas. The sector employs over 150,000 people.
At any rate, there is international praise for Brazil’s previous climate course: Lula and Dilma Rousseff’s former environment minister, Izabella Teixeira, has been invited by the Egyptian COP presidency to join the “Friends of COP” and help assist with the complex negotiations at the conference. Daniela Chiaretti from São Paulo
At first glance, the climate track record of China’s new and old CP General Secretary Xi Jinping looks highly successful. In his nine and a half years as head of state, China:
But experts warn against overestimating the green ambitions of the new old ruler. They believe that China’s environmental and climate policy under Xi serves to maintain the Communist Party’s hold on power; the decline in carbon emissions is partly due to the Covid crisis; and the economy’s compulsion to grow continues unabated. The coal lobby is still strong. And at the upcoming UN climate summit (COP27), no decisive action is expected to come from China.
Cutting carbon emissions and phasing out coal in the long term “are definitely among the most important items on Xi’s political agenda,” says Nis Gruenberg, an analyst at China think tank Merics. “Xi sees climate change mitigation and adaptation as a condition for the Party’s long-term retention of power and the current form of government.”
Still, since Xi took office in 2013, carbon emissions increased less sharply than in previous years. In the last four quarters, they even decreased slightly (China.Table reported). Coal consumption stabilized – at a high level. And renewable energies are being expanded at a rapid pace.
However, these are all relative achievements. China’s emissions were still nearly 12.2 billion metric tons of CO2 in March 2022, according to calculations by Carbon Brief. In two of the last four quarters, the decline was minimal (see chart). Per capita emissions have been above the EU average since 2018. China is now also historically the world’s second-largest polluter. The tanker has been slowed down but still moves in the wrong direction.
The success of declining carbon emissions is also due in part to the real estate crisis and regular Covid lockdowns. Whether the decrease will continue remains to be seen.
Lauri Myllyvirta and Xing Zhang, China experts at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), are convinced that the rapid expansion of renewables offers a great opportunity. The expansion of renewables could happen at such a fast pace that additional demand for energy over the next few years could be entirely met by clean energy. For this to happen, however, electricity demand must not grow by more than 4 percent per year.
Internally, China considers climate policy to be important. Since the announcement of the climate targets, the central government and the provinces issued more than 60 action plans for the individual sectors. At the international level and COP27, however, there will probably be no new major pledges. Special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua recently said that the implementation and realization of existing climate targets must be the focus at COP (China.Table reported).
So far, Xi Jinping himself does not seek the COP as a big stage. He announced his big climate plans – the 2030/60 targets and the phase-out of coal overseas – before the UN General Assembly. China does not want to be pushed by other countries at the COP, but rather to be perceived as an independent player in front of its domestic audience.
The climate issue must also subordinate itself to Xi’s geopolitical strategy. At COP26 in Glasgow, Chinese delegation leader Xie announced that the People’s Republic would continue climate talks with the United States despite all geopolitical tensions. Six months later, after the controversial Taiwan visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China suspended those talks. They could only now possibly be resumed at COP27.
However, China plans to unveil a methane emissions reduction strategy later this year. “This is China’s additional contribution beyond our NDCs,” Xie said in a recent interview. Methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, as well as agriculture and waste disposal, will be “controlled,” Xie said. He did not mention the coal sector, which accounted for the bulk of methane emissions.
Analysts are not overly optimistic that China will move more quickly toward Paris compliance during Xi’s third term in office, either. Renewable energies will probably be expanded even faster. But coal will remain an important part of the energy supply in the medium term. Whether there will be any new momentum in climate protection, however, “will also be driven by realpolitik factors, be it economic crises or international tensions,” Gruenberg says. “The more uncertain the overall situation is, the more uncertain the green transition will be.”
The growing conflicts between China and the USA and the EU could hardly have worse timing. After all, internal debates on China’s next Five-Year Plan will already begin next year. If geopolitical tensions and the Covid and economic crisis in China continue, Beijing’s climate ambitions for the next Five-Year Plan could be low. If China then still fails to name specific figures for the emissions peak by 2030 to preserve climate and industrial policy leeway, the path from 2030 toward carbon neutrality will become even steeper than it is already.
Xi may be China’s most powerful man and has concentrated more and more power on himself over the past decade. But when it comes to climate protection, he cannot and will not dictate. The People’s Republic is still too dependent on coal. Yet the country does have the will, the technical capabilities and the support of its leaders to advance the energy transition faster, Gruenberg said. “This is also one of the goals that are important to Xi Jinping personally,” says the Merics researcher. “But the coal lobby manages to push coal as the safest basis of the energy system every time there is a crisis, whether it’s the heat wave this year or the power crisis in 2021, further delaying the phase-out.”
Reforms to the electricity market have also been too slow, he said. “In this area, China could have achieved a great deal in cutting carbon emissions,” Gruenberg said. Coal has had priority in China’s energy system for years. This is also due to the powerful interests of the coal industry and the provinces. The latter act as a link between the central government and the local level, where climate policy is often implemented. The provinces also pursue their own goals and can, for example, slow down the coal phase-out.
And Xi also must reconcile different goals: Economic growth is the core legitimization of his government and the Communist Party. A secure power supply for industry and climate protection are similarly high on his agenda. In times of crisis, however, growth and energy security take precedence. More than 60 million people are employed in the carbon-heavy sectors of coal, construction and heavy industry (China.Table reported). Xi repeatedly urges cautious change in political speeches. “The new must be created before the old is discarded,” he said at the recent Party Congress regarding China’s energy supply.
Climate change has long been a reality in Bangladesh. Temperatures are rising every year, and dams are no longer able to cope with the increasing number of cyclones and floods. Entire villages are swept away, paddy fields become salinated and remain barren. Roads become impassable, schools have to close or serve as shelters. More and more people lose all their possessions, their homes and livelihoods from one day to the next. Without help, many are left with nothing.
Bangladesh is not the only case. Extreme weather events like floods and droughts are increasing worldwide. The effects of climate change hit developing countries particularly hard. Here, many people already suffer from poverty, and governments have fewer options to protect the population from such disasters and their consequences. The accelerating climate change destroys important development progress and more and more people are facing poverty.
It is all the more bitter considering that most developing countries have contributed only a fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. The bulk of emissions are caused by the industrialized countries – and to an increasing extent also by the large emerging economies.
That is why it is high time for the governments of these countries to live up to their responsibility and protect the people in developing countries from the impacts of climate change. This includes stepping up climate protection to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed in Paris. But the wheel of time cannot be turned back – and the climate crisis is already causing severe damage in many countries. That is why the industrialized countries and, in the long term, the major emerging economies must help poor and particularly vulnerable countries adapt to climate change.
Climate-related losses (such as crop failures caused by droughts) and damage (e.g. to houses and roads during storms) can no longer be averted entirely. However, they must be limited to the best of our ability. If we strengthen the resilience of the people affected, a great deal of suffering can be avoided. I am convinced that it is within our power as an international community to better protect poor and vulnerable people and countries from climate risks and to offer them swift help and prospects after catastrophic weather events!
At international climate conferences, the German Development Ministry negotiates the issue of loss and damage on behalf of the German government. At the next conference in Egypt, we want to reach an agreement on how support for poor and vulnerable countries can be strengthened and effectively shaped. Lengthy and ultimately unpromising debates over international law are of little help here. As we know very well from past experience, the positions of various countries can very quickly spiral into an impossible tangle. Therefore, my goal is to act effectively, comprehensively and in a forward-looking manner.
I see three approaches for this task to succeed:
This is precisely why the German government has advocated a global shield against climate risks during its G7 presidency. The G7 partners developed this concept in cooperation with the Vulnerable Twenty Group (V20), an association of countries most affected by climate change. The G7 and V20 agreed on it in mid-October on the sidelines of the World Bank Conference in Washington.
The climate risk shield is intended to help people from the Global South better cope with climate-related disasters and limit their damage. It supports vulnerable countries even before a crisis strikes:
Then, once the damage is done, the money is already on hand. The government can respond quickly and support affected individuals. In the event of a drought, for example, it can provide grants to small farmers to allow them to buy seeds and fertilizer for the next sowing season. This helps them and their families get through tough times better.
This global shield aims to prevent people and governments from falling into debt or having to wait a long time for humanitarian aid. With it, the government can start rebuilding immediately after a storm or flood and quickly restore bridges, roads, hospitals and schools, for example.
By enabling rapid relief, the global shield helps reduce the cost of climate disasters. The faster affected people can get back on their feet, the sooner they can be prevented from slipping into poverty. The faster public utilities are restored, the better famine and outbreaks of disease can be avoided.
The climate risk shield will benefit especially the most vulnerable and poorest countries. The V20 selected several pilot countries, so-called pathfinder countries. They include Bangladesh, Ghana, Senegal, Costa Rica, the Philippines and Fiji. Other countries are to follow. The first protection packages will be prepared in these countries before the end of the year. The participating countries are thereby using existing instruments for dealing with climate risks, bundling them and developing them further.
The German government will continue to support the launch of the global shield against climate risks, including a substantial financial contribution in the double-digit million range. In this way, Germany shows its solidarity with countries and people who cannot protect themselves against the consequences of climate change on their own.
At the COP 27 world climate conference in Egypt in November, the G7 and V20 will present the climate risk shield and campaign for further support. Because as an international community, we must take responsibility together. This is the only way we can limit climate-related loss and damage and save as many lives and livelihoods as possible.
Never before have the G20 countries paid more subsidies to producers of oil, gas and coal than in 2021: $64 billion. In total, the 20 largest countries, which are responsible for about 75 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, supported the production and consumption of fossil raw materials with $190 billion this year. That was revealed by the “Climate Transparency Report” of an international cooperation of 16 think tanks and environmental groups, based on data from the OECD and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In absolute numbers, China, Indonesia and the United Kingdom lead the list. However, if the share of government aid in relation to the economic output of the respective countries is examined, Indonesia, Mexico and Argentina lead the list. No comparable data is available for Saudi Arabia. However, an IEA calculation puts state aid for the fossil fuel sector there at around $17 billion.
The extensive subsidies should also be seen as support for the fossil industries in and after the Covid pandemic and the subsequent sales downturn, the report says. For 2022, the authors expect that the high level of subsidies is likely to remain as European countries, for example, seek to shield their citizens from high energy prices. In 2009, the G20 countries decided to “phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that lead to wasteful consumption in the medium term.”
The G20 public spending, which are not subsidies, also showed a clear preference for fossil energies. With budget money, tax expenditures, and loans and grants from public banks, they mainly supported the oil and gas sector in 2019 and 2020 with about $62 billion each. At the top of the list were Japan, South Korea and China.
63 percent of all public spending by G20 countries in the energy sector went to fossil industries. Of the total amount of $100 billion, 20 percent went to renewable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal energy, while 18 percent went to infrastructure sectors such as power lines, large dams or the nuclear industry.
In 2021, many countries declared plans to curb these payments to fossil fuel industries. The G7 and South Korea decided that their development banks would no longer support coal without carbon storage. China, too, no longer wants to finance coal-fired power plants abroad. At the climate conference in Glasgow, 39 countries and financial institutions declared to completely withdraw from the financing of fossil infrastructure abroad.
The Climate Transparency Report criticizes that governments have so far “not made it sufficiently clear” under which “exceptional circumstances” they intend to continue investing in gas production, for example. Such exceptions have “expanded considerably” in light of the energy crisis. bpo
The UN Climate Change Conference is one of the highlights in Frans Timmermans’ political calendar. Climate protection rarely receives so much global spotlight, and the Executive Vice President of the EU Commission is in his element on the big diplomatic stage. The EU’s climate czar wants to shine at COP27 as a self-proclaimed bridge builder between industrialized and developing countries.
And new bridges are urgently needed, Timmermans knows. There have been setbacks, many unfulfilled expectations, especially in developing countries, regarding climate adaptation and the issue of loss and damage, the Dutch politician said on Monday, when EU states adopted their negotiating mandate for COP27.
In the end, the 61-year-old described the negotiating mandate as merely “acceptable” – a side blow against the ministers of the EU Environment Council. After all, the industrialized countries still have not fulfilled their 100-billion-dollar climate financing pledge. The EU member states do not expect this to happen until 2023. Furthermore, Timmermans was probably also disappointed by the fact that the EU member states did not present any concrete solutions to the demands of the developing countries for more help in the event of climate damage (“loss and damage”). The EU mandate states that the intention is to engage in a constructive exchange on the issue to learn more about the needs of the global South.
Actually, the needs of the Global South have been known for a long time. The developing countries call for a financing instrument for loss and damage and for the industrialized nations, as the main perpetrators of climate change, to accept financial responsibility. The USA and some EU countries hesitate to take this step, because they fear that they could be held liable for future losses and damage caused by climate change.
The EU member states are also reluctant to raise the climate targets at the UN, known in the jargon as NDC. For the time being, the EU’s target remains 55 percent fewer carbon emissions by 2030 compared to 1990. Timmermans would gladly travel to Egypt with a new NDC, because he always emphasizes the EU’s exemplary role in climate protection and hardly misses an opportunity to call on other countries to set higher targets.
So Timmermans wants to impress in Sharm el-Sheikh with progress on the Fit-for-55 package, the legislative proposals to implement Europe’s climate targets. These include:
At present, the three legislative proposals are still in the trilogue, the final round of negotiations between the EU Commission, Parliament and member states. But the three negotiating parties already agreed to speed up the process of these three dossiers to clarify the main outstanding issues by the time of the COP. If this were to succeed, it would be possible to prove with concrete measures that we are on the right track, said Timmermans.
“The world is looking at us,” stresses Timmermans, who was born in Maastricht in 1961 as the son of a diplomat. He studied French literature and European law in the Netherlands and in Nancy, France. He became, among other things, State Secretary for European Affairs in The Hague, then Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, and finally moved to Brussels in 2014 to join the EU Commission, at that time under Jean-Claude Juncker.
Now Timmermans is number two in the EU Commission after President Ursula von der Leyen. Actually, he would have preferred to have had the job at the head of the Brussels authority himself. He was the top candidate for the European Social Democrats in the 2019 European elections and believed he had a good chance, partly because the conservative winner, Manfred Weber, did not receive a majority in the EU Parliament. But the heads of state and government ignored the top candidates and pulled Ursula von der Leyen out of a hat.
His disappointment was high, and Timmermans needed some time to regain his footing and accept the role under von der Leyen. Nevertheless, as First Vice President and Commissioner for Climate Protection, von der Leyen entrusted him with her most important project, the Green Deal. The workaholic knows his way around the jungle of legislative proposals. Timmermans is fluent in seven languages and is considered a rhetorical super talent.
He will certainly use this talent again in Sharm el-Sheikh and leave no doubt about who is in charge in Europe when it comes to climate policy. After all, the UN Climate Change Conference is his big stage. Lukas Scheid and Stephan Israel
