The sigh of relief at the beginning of the week could be heard around the world: Since Brazil decided not to elect rainforest destroyer Jair Bolsonaro as president, hope is once again budding in the climate community. Whether his predecessor and successor Lula can save the Amazon rainforest, however, also depends on Europe, financial aid and supply chains without products from overexploitation, says Brazil’s most renowned climate researcher Carlos Nobre in our interview.
In the USA, on the other hand, many keep holding their breath. On November 8, the second day of COP27, the people will indirectly vote on Joe Biden’s ambitious climate agenda in the midterm elections. Our US colleague Bill Dawson explains the implications.
And then we will take a deep breath once the 27th Climate Change Conference begins next week in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. What was planned as a constructive “implementation COP” will once again be a stress test for international cooperation amid geopolitical tensions and for how genuine the promises of Paris were. We report on how the battle for more gas is already raging behind the COP scenes – despite all the promises of decarbonization. We look at the critical topic of loss and damage, and introduce the head of COP27 in today’s profile.
In any case, the Climate.Table team is looking forward to two breathless weeks. We will monitor the decisions and non-decisions every day and will stay tuned. And we will bring you all the information and behind-the-scenes stories that will make the turbulence at the conference easier to follow.
A sharp contrast emerges at the Sharm el Sheikh climate conference: Official negotiations on cutting carbon emissions of fossil fuels – and unofficial discussions on expanding gas production, especially in Africa.
In preparation for COP27, the African Union already pledged in July “to deploy all forms of its abundant energy resources including renewable and non-renewable energy to address energy demand.” African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy H.E Amani Abou-Zeid, said it was time for a “measure to push for favorable outcomes and tangible investments in energy and infrastructure at COP 27.”
The African Climate Negotiators Group (ANG), however, rejected this move, saying it was too controversial and distracted from more important negotiations, such as on finance. Egypt, as COP presidency, also did not want to burden the meeting with the issue. But voices for more African gas are growing louder – while climate and environmental groups warn against a “gas COP.”
Africa is a continent of energy poverty: around 600 million people, 43 percent of the African population, have no access to electricity, according to official figures. Some 970 million people lack the means to cook without burning wood and animal manure. Yet “modern energy” could be provided relatively affordably for all Africans by 2030: Investments of $25 billion a year, about one percent of global energy investments, would be enough to make this happen, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). And thus prevent 500,000 premature deaths annually from air pollution.
Africa has vast deposits of oil and gas, with many of them still untapped. 5,000 billion cubic meters of gas alone are currently known but have not yet been exploited. According to an IEA sustainability scenario, they could drive the industrialization of the continent via the fertilizer, cement and steel industries, as well as the desalination of seawater. By comparison, the EU consumed about 400 billion cubic meters in 2021.
Five countries hold the majority of the continent’s natural gas reserves: Nigeria and Algeria alone sit on more than half of the fossil resource. Meanwhile, Africa is a continent with high potential for renewable energy: Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy have “huge potential,” according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). At the same time, however, only two percent of global investments in this sector go to Africa.
The call for more African gas is not just raised by governments. In the run-up to COP:
Climate activists and think tanks are rallying against these plans. They also point out that Africa already suffers disproportionately as a result of climate change. Temperatures have risen faster than the global average, and agriculture has been hit hard. And in many cases, African victims of climate change barely appear in the global public eye: In 2022 alone, at least 4,000 people died on the continent due to climate-related extreme weather such as storms, droughts and floods.
Amos Wemanya of the Nairobi-based organization Powershift Africa fears, “This African COP, which is supposed to focus on the continent’s situation, could end up making Africa’s problems worse.” He warns about lower energy security, greater dependence on exports and more carbon emissions if these gas plans become a reality.
Other frequent arguments from opponents:
Critics of the African gas plans now organized themselves:
To solve Europe’s pressing gas woes, the International Energy Agency (IEA) points to a more efficient gas supply: “Reducing flaring and venting could quickly make at least 10 bcm of African gas available for export without the development of new supply and transport infrastructure,” says the Africa Energy Outlook 2022.
While COP27 will go into its second day in Egypt, US voters will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 34 out of 100 members of the Senate. Polls suggest that Republicans could take control of one or both houses currently owned by the Democrats.
That would also affect President Joe Biden’s climate and energy policies. He has dramatically corrected the anti-climate course of his predecessor, Donald Trump, since taking office in January 2021. During his first days in office, Biden signed three executive orders on the funding of the nation’s transition to clean energy.
What happens next to US climate policy depends primarily on the new majorities in Congress. These key issues will be decisive:
The IRA drew the most criticism from Republicans during the election campaign, most of which directed against measures to increase tax revenues. Their biggest criticism: The recruitment of 87,000 new tax officials.
However, Republicans might pay less attention to the infrastructure and CHIPS laws. This is because both were passed with unusually high support from both parties. The infrastructure bill received 13 Republican votes in the House and 19 in the Senate; 17 Republican senators and 24 Republicans in the House voted in favor of the CHIPS law.
The fact that the IRA bill is a budget reconciliation bill makes it harder to oppose. Republican lawmakers recently told reporters that it would be “almost impossible” to rescind the funds allocated for the bill as long as Biden remains president, according to E&E News.
Republicans are talking about a more directed attack aimed at specific provisions of the legislation. One expected method is a wave of committee hearings that could slow or affect legislative implementation.
Some of the targets have already been announced. One is a $4.5 billion IRA rebate program to help low- and middle-income households switch from gas to electric heating.
The Republicans also announced their own proposal for climate legislation, albeit without greenhouse gas goals. Their traditional approach would promote domestic oil and gas alongside renewables, nuclear power, carbon capture, and hydrogen.
The Republicans face a strategic problem in their criticism: It is very likely that the massive climate funding provided by the IRA will gain popularity as more recipients benefit from it. The money flows to both Republican- and Democratic-ruled states. That makes it harder to oppose the law in Washington. However, numerous Republican state and local officials could reject applying for IRA grants. State and local elections across the country on Nov. 8 will also influence this issue.
The IRA “doesn’t do much by itself. It provides money,” said Amy Turner, a Senior Fellow at the Cities Climate Law Initiative at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in New York City. “Most of the implementation will not happen at the federal level,” she said. “It will be carried out by states, local governments, indigenous communities and private companies using the funds provided.”
One potential indication of how popular Washington’s cash injection is: Demand for funds provided by the infrastructure law for electric and other clean-energy school buses was so high that officials doubled the amount spent for the first of the program’s five years, to nearly $1 billion.
Dan Cohan, an expert on climate science and policy at Rice University in Houston, expects the Inflation Reduction Act to stick, even in a Republican Congress. “Clean energy incentives are popular, and implementing credit programs and other provisions is in the hands of the Biden administration.”
If the Republicans win control of one or both houses of Congress, it could also delay the Biden administration’s climate change plans. One possible target could be a new strategy to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants. The Obama administration’s original Clean Power Plan was blocked by litigation and subsequently scrapped by the Trump administration. A new initiative in this direction would now complement the IRA’s financial incentives for cleaner power generation. But it could end up in courts again. Bill Dawson from Houston
Mr. Nobre, Lula promised to bring the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest down to zero. Will things now be all right for the climate?
Lula has done a lot for the forest in the past. When he became president in 2003, Brazil had an exceedingly high rate of deforestation. Together with his then-environment minister Marina Silva, Lula then launched a very effective policy to tackle illegal deforestation. It led to a very sharp drop in deforestation between 2004 and 2012, the first year under Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, and remained at low levels until 2014. It was very courageous of Lula to not only announce plans to reduce deforestation – he wants to bring it to zero. That would be wonderful.
What makes them so optimistic that Lula can pull this off? Brazil’s environmental authorities are severely weakened, the opposition in parliament is influential, and organized crime reigns in many places in the Amazon rainforest.
I’m not saying it will be easy. No: It’s a big challenge. But Lula knows how to do it. And the people will support him. In polls, more than 80 or even 90 percent of Brazilians regularly say they are in favor of preserving the Amazon rainforest, Bolsonaro’s supporters included. The vast majority of deforestation in the Amazon is illegal. So it will come down to enforcing the laws. Lula must crack down on illegal prospectors, wildlife smuggling and land grabbing. He managed to do that once before. It will be a tough fight, but I’m confident.
The opposition in the Brazilian parliament is very strong. The representatives of agribusiness in particular are very influential here. How can Lula succeed against them?
The representatives of agribusiness will push for further expansion of arable and pasture land. But they have the population against them. Lula can use this to his advantage; he is quite good at it. Foreign countries can also support him.
In what way?
If, as planned, Europe passes a deforestation-free supply chain law that consistently bans any import of products originating from deforestation, no matter where they come from, it will give a lot of weight to President Lula’s forest protection policy. And it will strengthen the small faction of modern farmers in Brazil. If Europe no longer imports products from deforestation, and if the US, the UK and China follow suit, then sustainable agriculture on small plots of land in Brazil will become more economically and politically important.
They say the population wants to preserve the rainforest. But climate protection hardly played a role in the election campaign. Social and economic issues were more important.
The debate in Brazil tends to revolve more around the things that matter to the everyday lives of people: their well-being, their livelihoods, corruption, violence. Since the pandemic, 33 million people in the country are severely malnourished, and another 30 million live in food insecurity, so of course this is an important issue.
But even though the climate does not play a very big role in our election campaigns, a particularly large number of Brazilians say in surveys that they are concerned about the climate crisis, more than in comparable surveys in Germany, the USA, Japan, Australia or China. But I don’t think we are aware of what we could do politically or as consumers. The Brazilian education system does not lay the foundations for this.
What do you mean?
For example, if people here would stop consuming meat from deforested areas, they would accomplish a great deal. Three quarters of the meat produced in the Amazon is sold on the domestic market. Only a quarter goes to export, most of it to China. In Germany, I have seen female customers in the supermarket using QR codes to check whether chicken meat came from free-range animals. In Brazil, we are not there yet.
Lula has excellent connections to the oil industry. How does that fit in with his climate plans?
Tens of thousands of people are employed in the oil sector in our country, and there must be a future for them. I expect Lula to launch a debate on how to achieve the transition away from fossil fuels to renewables in 10 or 20 years. Because that’s the only way Brazil can really reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero, and that’s the only way to fight the global climate crisis. We have a huge potential for hydropower, wind and solar power. They create better jobs, better social well-being, and they’re cheaper. But it won’t be easy to make the transition.
You say that Brazil will need billions of dollars from other countries to save the rainforest. How can it be ensured that the money will actually be used for sustainable forest protection? That it does not flow into corrupt channels, or protect trees that are then cut down anyway?
Through satellites for monitoring the forest and full tracing of cash flows. Thanks to modern technology, we can now detect when the forest is burning or someone is cutting down trees, even from a great distance. This is essential. We also need a legal framework. The Amazon countries could form a partnership for the creation of a financing mechanism, and they would have to abide by strict rules. That would greatly reduce the risk of corruption.
What do you expect from COP27?
We need the support of wealthy countries, not only through financial contributions, but also through global trading of carbon allowances when article six of the Paris Agreement is finalized at COP27 and perhaps the following COP28.
I will be presenting a proposal for a huge forest conservation project at COP27 together with other scientists from the Science Panel for the Amazon, which I co-chair. Its goal will be to restore 100 million hectares of Amazon forest – including completely deforested areas, but also areas of degraded forest. This will allow us to take more than a billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year, for 30 years. We can do that very quickly. But we need tens of billions of dollars or euros to do it. This is an investment that is also worthwhile for donor countries: Not only to get these amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, but also to keep the Amazon rainforest from collapsing.
Carlos Nobre is an Earth System scientist and meteorologist from Brazil. His research focuses mainly on the Amazon rainforest and its influence on the Earth system. He is the Co-Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon and leads the project Amazônia 4.0, which aims for the sustainable use of the forest under consideration of the needs of the ecosystem.
We are rapidly approaching the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which will in fact be the first COP of the new era of loss and damage from human induced climate change.
The 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published earlier this year was a game changer because for the first time in thirty years they showed unequivocal evidence of impacts that could be attributed to the rise of global mean temperature above one Degree Centigrade due to emissions of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution over a century ago.
This means that every severe weather-related event such as floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires are no longer purely natural events, but rather have become more severe due to human-induced climate change.
Just to cite a few examples from the last weeks only: we saw devastating floods in Pakistan followed by Hurricane Ian hitting Florida in the US and then unprecedented floods in Nigeria as well as heatwaves in Europe. For many of those events, the scientists who calculate attribution to human-induced climate change were able to calculate the percentage of the damage that can be attributed to climate change.
In light of this new reality on the ground, the COP in 2022 must discuss finance for loss and damage if the UNFCCC is to remain relevant. The developing countries under the leadership of Pakistan have tabled an agenda item for finance for loss and damage in COP27 which has been accepted as a provisional agenda item. It can only be adopted as an agenda item if there is no objection from any other country, as all decisions in the UNFCCC have to be adopted by consensus. So if any group of countries objects, it won’t be adopted in the COP27 agenda.
If this were to happen then from my perspective COP27 would have failed even before it officially started.
On the other hand, if the agenda item to discuss finance for loss and damage is adopted then we can look forward to some informed discussion and debate about how best to deliver a good outcome. This will need to address the many legitimate questions regarding the issue such as how much funding is needed, where might the funds come from, who would manage the funds, who would receive the funds, etc.
These are all perfectly legitimate questions that should be discussed taking into account different options, including the Global Shield initiative by the G7 in cooperation with the V20 vulnerable developing countries as well as others. (Climate.Table reported)
The Global Shield being co-developed between the G7 and V20 can certainly offer help to the victims of loss and damage but it would need to get up and running as quickly as possible to help the victims of disasters that have already happened. At the same time, we hope that Germany will also support the proposal of the developing countries to set up a Finance Facility for loss and damage under the UNFCCC as well.
Thus, in my view, a good outcome at the end of COP27 would be an agreement by all Parties to establish a Finance Facility for loss and damage (FFLD) but to then take another year to discuss how best to make it work and come back in COP28 in Abu Dhabi to agree in the details of how it would work.
This is indeed how decisions are made and developed in the UNFCCC. A good example is the Santiago Network on loss and damage (SNLD) which was agreed upon at the last minutes of COP25 in Madrid, Spain in 2019. There were no details attached to that decision but during COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 we spent two weeks working out the details of how to operationalize it. The format for setting up the SNLD and its mandate were agreed and Germany offered 10 Million Euros to help set it up.
So a good outcome at the end of COP27 would be to agree to set up the FFLD and then work out the details at COP28 in Abu Dhabi in 2023.
Saleemul Huq is a climate scientist, advisor to governments and experienced participant in all previous UN climate summits. He serves as ICCCAD Director and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. His work focuses on the impacts of climate change on most vulnerable countries, adaptation to climate change, and loss and damage.
Just over a week before the start of the UN Climate Change Conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheihk, Sameh Hassan Shoukry takes a tour of the conference grounds. Press photos show the 70-year-old talking to workers. He wears a short-sleeved gray polo shirt, his left hand in his pants pocket, while he gestures with his right. He seems approachable, interested, open-minded. Like an architect visiting his construction site. “The Egyptian COP-27 presidency is ready to receive the global climate community in Sharm El Sheikh in November,” is his message following this visit.
The expectations resting on him these days are high. The slogan of the COP is “together for implementation”. But rarely have the circumstances been as bad for global cooperation against the climate crisis as they are today. Russia’s war against Ukraine, energy price inflation, food crisis, high post-pandemic debt and tensions between the US and China make joint and decisive action against climate threats difficult.
Before his appointment as COP president earlier this year, Shoukry had not been involved with climate issues. “Shoukry is a career diplomat with decades of experience,” says Lutz Weischer of Germanwatch. That’s not the worst possible prerequisite, though, he thinks.
The task of a COP president is to create a good negotiating atmosphere and facilitate compromises but also to ensure that the lowest common denominator is not all that remains at the end, according to Weischer. The experience of decades in the service of diplomacy can certainly be helpful here.
In the run-up to the climate conference, Shoukry is not sparing in his criticism of the industrialized countries, which have so far failed to meet their financial pledges for climate protection measures in developing countries. He has made adaptation to the effects of climate change his priority.
“This criticism is entirely justified,” says Lutz Weischer. But to be a successful COP president, he says, the focus should not be solely on the issues of adaptation to climate change and reparation for loss and damage. “Shoukry must be even more explicit about climate policy ambitions and formulate ambitious emission reduction targets,” says Weischer.
A year after graduating with a degree in law from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Shoukry began his career as an attaché to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo in 1976. After posts in London, Buenos Aires and Vienna, he was Egypt’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 2005 to 2008. Finally, in 2008, he becomes Egypt’s ambassador to the United States.
While in his homeland, the Arab Spring swept then-President Hosni Mubarak from office in 2011, Shoukry remained in Washington until 2012. “During the 2011 uprising, Shoukry was the epitome of calm, pragmatic thinking that supported demands for democracy. In the same breath, however, he advocated for the military’s involvement in politics to prevent chaos,” according to an article on Shoukry in “The Africa Report”. “However, his pragmatic nature and calm diplomatic approach did not help him win a seat in the short-lived post-Mubarak government of Mohammed Mursi,” it adds. Finally, in 2014, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi brought the experienced diplomat Shoukry into the Egyptian government as foreign minister after coming to power.
Little is known about Shoukry’s private life. According to press reports, his wife, Suzy Shoukry, is also active in diplomatic and charitable circles. Together they have two sons.
Shoukry does not have to manage COP 27 alone. In his demanding task, he can rely on the experience of Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad, who is assisting him as Ministerial Coordinator and Envoy. She has more than 18 years of experience in the fields of environment and international cooperation. Ulrike Christl
The sigh of relief at the beginning of the week could be heard around the world: Since Brazil decided not to elect rainforest destroyer Jair Bolsonaro as president, hope is once again budding in the climate community. Whether his predecessor and successor Lula can save the Amazon rainforest, however, also depends on Europe, financial aid and supply chains without products from overexploitation, says Brazil’s most renowned climate researcher Carlos Nobre in our interview.
In the USA, on the other hand, many keep holding their breath. On November 8, the second day of COP27, the people will indirectly vote on Joe Biden’s ambitious climate agenda in the midterm elections. Our US colleague Bill Dawson explains the implications.
And then we will take a deep breath once the 27th Climate Change Conference begins next week in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. What was planned as a constructive “implementation COP” will once again be a stress test for international cooperation amid geopolitical tensions and for how genuine the promises of Paris were. We report on how the battle for more gas is already raging behind the COP scenes – despite all the promises of decarbonization. We look at the critical topic of loss and damage, and introduce the head of COP27 in today’s profile.
In any case, the Climate.Table team is looking forward to two breathless weeks. We will monitor the decisions and non-decisions every day and will stay tuned. And we will bring you all the information and behind-the-scenes stories that will make the turbulence at the conference easier to follow.
A sharp contrast emerges at the Sharm el Sheikh climate conference: Official negotiations on cutting carbon emissions of fossil fuels – and unofficial discussions on expanding gas production, especially in Africa.
In preparation for COP27, the African Union already pledged in July “to deploy all forms of its abundant energy resources including renewable and non-renewable energy to address energy demand.” African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy H.E Amani Abou-Zeid, said it was time for a “measure to push for favorable outcomes and tangible investments in energy and infrastructure at COP 27.”
The African Climate Negotiators Group (ANG), however, rejected this move, saying it was too controversial and distracted from more important negotiations, such as on finance. Egypt, as COP presidency, also did not want to burden the meeting with the issue. But voices for more African gas are growing louder – while climate and environmental groups warn against a “gas COP.”
Africa is a continent of energy poverty: around 600 million people, 43 percent of the African population, have no access to electricity, according to official figures. Some 970 million people lack the means to cook without burning wood and animal manure. Yet “modern energy” could be provided relatively affordably for all Africans by 2030: Investments of $25 billion a year, about one percent of global energy investments, would be enough to make this happen, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). And thus prevent 500,000 premature deaths annually from air pollution.
Africa has vast deposits of oil and gas, with many of them still untapped. 5,000 billion cubic meters of gas alone are currently known but have not yet been exploited. According to an IEA sustainability scenario, they could drive the industrialization of the continent via the fertilizer, cement and steel industries, as well as the desalination of seawater. By comparison, the EU consumed about 400 billion cubic meters in 2021.
Five countries hold the majority of the continent’s natural gas reserves: Nigeria and Algeria alone sit on more than half of the fossil resource. Meanwhile, Africa is a continent with high potential for renewable energy: Wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy have “huge potential,” according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). At the same time, however, only two percent of global investments in this sector go to Africa.
The call for more African gas is not just raised by governments. In the run-up to COP:
Climate activists and think tanks are rallying against these plans. They also point out that Africa already suffers disproportionately as a result of climate change. Temperatures have risen faster than the global average, and agriculture has been hit hard. And in many cases, African victims of climate change barely appear in the global public eye: In 2022 alone, at least 4,000 people died on the continent due to climate-related extreme weather such as storms, droughts and floods.
Amos Wemanya of the Nairobi-based organization Powershift Africa fears, “This African COP, which is supposed to focus on the continent’s situation, could end up making Africa’s problems worse.” He warns about lower energy security, greater dependence on exports and more carbon emissions if these gas plans become a reality.
Other frequent arguments from opponents:
Critics of the African gas plans now organized themselves:
To solve Europe’s pressing gas woes, the International Energy Agency (IEA) points to a more efficient gas supply: “Reducing flaring and venting could quickly make at least 10 bcm of African gas available for export without the development of new supply and transport infrastructure,” says the Africa Energy Outlook 2022.
While COP27 will go into its second day in Egypt, US voters will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 34 out of 100 members of the Senate. Polls suggest that Republicans could take control of one or both houses currently owned by the Democrats.
That would also affect President Joe Biden’s climate and energy policies. He has dramatically corrected the anti-climate course of his predecessor, Donald Trump, since taking office in January 2021. During his first days in office, Biden signed three executive orders on the funding of the nation’s transition to clean energy.
What happens next to US climate policy depends primarily on the new majorities in Congress. These key issues will be decisive:
The IRA drew the most criticism from Republicans during the election campaign, most of which directed against measures to increase tax revenues. Their biggest criticism: The recruitment of 87,000 new tax officials.
However, Republicans might pay less attention to the infrastructure and CHIPS laws. This is because both were passed with unusually high support from both parties. The infrastructure bill received 13 Republican votes in the House and 19 in the Senate; 17 Republican senators and 24 Republicans in the House voted in favor of the CHIPS law.
The fact that the IRA bill is a budget reconciliation bill makes it harder to oppose. Republican lawmakers recently told reporters that it would be “almost impossible” to rescind the funds allocated for the bill as long as Biden remains president, according to E&E News.
Republicans are talking about a more directed attack aimed at specific provisions of the legislation. One expected method is a wave of committee hearings that could slow or affect legislative implementation.
Some of the targets have already been announced. One is a $4.5 billion IRA rebate program to help low- and middle-income households switch from gas to electric heating.
The Republicans also announced their own proposal for climate legislation, albeit without greenhouse gas goals. Their traditional approach would promote domestic oil and gas alongside renewables, nuclear power, carbon capture, and hydrogen.
The Republicans face a strategic problem in their criticism: It is very likely that the massive climate funding provided by the IRA will gain popularity as more recipients benefit from it. The money flows to both Republican- and Democratic-ruled states. That makes it harder to oppose the law in Washington. However, numerous Republican state and local officials could reject applying for IRA grants. State and local elections across the country on Nov. 8 will also influence this issue.
The IRA “doesn’t do much by itself. It provides money,” said Amy Turner, a Senior Fellow at the Cities Climate Law Initiative at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law in New York City. “Most of the implementation will not happen at the federal level,” she said. “It will be carried out by states, local governments, indigenous communities and private companies using the funds provided.”
One potential indication of how popular Washington’s cash injection is: Demand for funds provided by the infrastructure law for electric and other clean-energy school buses was so high that officials doubled the amount spent for the first of the program’s five years, to nearly $1 billion.
Dan Cohan, an expert on climate science and policy at Rice University in Houston, expects the Inflation Reduction Act to stick, even in a Republican Congress. “Clean energy incentives are popular, and implementing credit programs and other provisions is in the hands of the Biden administration.”
If the Republicans win control of one or both houses of Congress, it could also delay the Biden administration’s climate change plans. One possible target could be a new strategy to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants. The Obama administration’s original Clean Power Plan was blocked by litigation and subsequently scrapped by the Trump administration. A new initiative in this direction would now complement the IRA’s financial incentives for cleaner power generation. But it could end up in courts again. Bill Dawson from Houston
Mr. Nobre, Lula promised to bring the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest down to zero. Will things now be all right for the climate?
Lula has done a lot for the forest in the past. When he became president in 2003, Brazil had an exceedingly high rate of deforestation. Together with his then-environment minister Marina Silva, Lula then launched a very effective policy to tackle illegal deforestation. It led to a very sharp drop in deforestation between 2004 and 2012, the first year under Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, and remained at low levels until 2014. It was very courageous of Lula to not only announce plans to reduce deforestation – he wants to bring it to zero. That would be wonderful.
What makes them so optimistic that Lula can pull this off? Brazil’s environmental authorities are severely weakened, the opposition in parliament is influential, and organized crime reigns in many places in the Amazon rainforest.
I’m not saying it will be easy. No: It’s a big challenge. But Lula knows how to do it. And the people will support him. In polls, more than 80 or even 90 percent of Brazilians regularly say they are in favor of preserving the Amazon rainforest, Bolsonaro’s supporters included. The vast majority of deforestation in the Amazon is illegal. So it will come down to enforcing the laws. Lula must crack down on illegal prospectors, wildlife smuggling and land grabbing. He managed to do that once before. It will be a tough fight, but I’m confident.
The opposition in the Brazilian parliament is very strong. The representatives of agribusiness in particular are very influential here. How can Lula succeed against them?
The representatives of agribusiness will push for further expansion of arable and pasture land. But they have the population against them. Lula can use this to his advantage; he is quite good at it. Foreign countries can also support him.
In what way?
If, as planned, Europe passes a deforestation-free supply chain law that consistently bans any import of products originating from deforestation, no matter where they come from, it will give a lot of weight to President Lula’s forest protection policy. And it will strengthen the small faction of modern farmers in Brazil. If Europe no longer imports products from deforestation, and if the US, the UK and China follow suit, then sustainable agriculture on small plots of land in Brazil will become more economically and politically important.
They say the population wants to preserve the rainforest. But climate protection hardly played a role in the election campaign. Social and economic issues were more important.
The debate in Brazil tends to revolve more around the things that matter to the everyday lives of people: their well-being, their livelihoods, corruption, violence. Since the pandemic, 33 million people in the country are severely malnourished, and another 30 million live in food insecurity, so of course this is an important issue.
But even though the climate does not play a very big role in our election campaigns, a particularly large number of Brazilians say in surveys that they are concerned about the climate crisis, more than in comparable surveys in Germany, the USA, Japan, Australia or China. But I don’t think we are aware of what we could do politically or as consumers. The Brazilian education system does not lay the foundations for this.
What do you mean?
For example, if people here would stop consuming meat from deforested areas, they would accomplish a great deal. Three quarters of the meat produced in the Amazon is sold on the domestic market. Only a quarter goes to export, most of it to China. In Germany, I have seen female customers in the supermarket using QR codes to check whether chicken meat came from free-range animals. In Brazil, we are not there yet.
Lula has excellent connections to the oil industry. How does that fit in with his climate plans?
Tens of thousands of people are employed in the oil sector in our country, and there must be a future for them. I expect Lula to launch a debate on how to achieve the transition away from fossil fuels to renewables in 10 or 20 years. Because that’s the only way Brazil can really reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero, and that’s the only way to fight the global climate crisis. We have a huge potential for hydropower, wind and solar power. They create better jobs, better social well-being, and they’re cheaper. But it won’t be easy to make the transition.
You say that Brazil will need billions of dollars from other countries to save the rainforest. How can it be ensured that the money will actually be used for sustainable forest protection? That it does not flow into corrupt channels, or protect trees that are then cut down anyway?
Through satellites for monitoring the forest and full tracing of cash flows. Thanks to modern technology, we can now detect when the forest is burning or someone is cutting down trees, even from a great distance. This is essential. We also need a legal framework. The Amazon countries could form a partnership for the creation of a financing mechanism, and they would have to abide by strict rules. That would greatly reduce the risk of corruption.
What do you expect from COP27?
We need the support of wealthy countries, not only through financial contributions, but also through global trading of carbon allowances when article six of the Paris Agreement is finalized at COP27 and perhaps the following COP28.
I will be presenting a proposal for a huge forest conservation project at COP27 together with other scientists from the Science Panel for the Amazon, which I co-chair. Its goal will be to restore 100 million hectares of Amazon forest – including completely deforested areas, but also areas of degraded forest. This will allow us to take more than a billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year, for 30 years. We can do that very quickly. But we need tens of billions of dollars or euros to do it. This is an investment that is also worthwhile for donor countries: Not only to get these amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, but also to keep the Amazon rainforest from collapsing.
Carlos Nobre is an Earth System scientist and meteorologist from Brazil. His research focuses mainly on the Amazon rainforest and its influence on the Earth system. He is the Co-Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon and leads the project Amazônia 4.0, which aims for the sustainable use of the forest under consideration of the needs of the ecosystem.
We are rapidly approaching the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which will in fact be the first COP of the new era of loss and damage from human induced climate change.
The 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published earlier this year was a game changer because for the first time in thirty years they showed unequivocal evidence of impacts that could be attributed to the rise of global mean temperature above one Degree Centigrade due to emissions of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution over a century ago.
This means that every severe weather-related event such as floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires are no longer purely natural events, but rather have become more severe due to human-induced climate change.
Just to cite a few examples from the last weeks only: we saw devastating floods in Pakistan followed by Hurricane Ian hitting Florida in the US and then unprecedented floods in Nigeria as well as heatwaves in Europe. For many of those events, the scientists who calculate attribution to human-induced climate change were able to calculate the percentage of the damage that can be attributed to climate change.
In light of this new reality on the ground, the COP in 2022 must discuss finance for loss and damage if the UNFCCC is to remain relevant. The developing countries under the leadership of Pakistan have tabled an agenda item for finance for loss and damage in COP27 which has been accepted as a provisional agenda item. It can only be adopted as an agenda item if there is no objection from any other country, as all decisions in the UNFCCC have to be adopted by consensus. So if any group of countries objects, it won’t be adopted in the COP27 agenda.
If this were to happen then from my perspective COP27 would have failed even before it officially started.
On the other hand, if the agenda item to discuss finance for loss and damage is adopted then we can look forward to some informed discussion and debate about how best to deliver a good outcome. This will need to address the many legitimate questions regarding the issue such as how much funding is needed, where might the funds come from, who would manage the funds, who would receive the funds, etc.
These are all perfectly legitimate questions that should be discussed taking into account different options, including the Global Shield initiative by the G7 in cooperation with the V20 vulnerable developing countries as well as others. (Climate.Table reported)
The Global Shield being co-developed between the G7 and V20 can certainly offer help to the victims of loss and damage but it would need to get up and running as quickly as possible to help the victims of disasters that have already happened. At the same time, we hope that Germany will also support the proposal of the developing countries to set up a Finance Facility for loss and damage under the UNFCCC as well.
Thus, in my view, a good outcome at the end of COP27 would be an agreement by all Parties to establish a Finance Facility for loss and damage (FFLD) but to then take another year to discuss how best to make it work and come back in COP28 in Abu Dhabi to agree in the details of how it would work.
This is indeed how decisions are made and developed in the UNFCCC. A good example is the Santiago Network on loss and damage (SNLD) which was agreed upon at the last minutes of COP25 in Madrid, Spain in 2019. There were no details attached to that decision but during COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 we spent two weeks working out the details of how to operationalize it. The format for setting up the SNLD and its mandate were agreed and Germany offered 10 Million Euros to help set it up.
So a good outcome at the end of COP27 would be to agree to set up the FFLD and then work out the details at COP28 in Abu Dhabi in 2023.
Saleemul Huq is a climate scientist, advisor to governments and experienced participant in all previous UN climate summits. He serves as ICCCAD Director and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. His work focuses on the impacts of climate change on most vulnerable countries, adaptation to climate change, and loss and damage.
Just over a week before the start of the UN Climate Change Conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheihk, Sameh Hassan Shoukry takes a tour of the conference grounds. Press photos show the 70-year-old talking to workers. He wears a short-sleeved gray polo shirt, his left hand in his pants pocket, while he gestures with his right. He seems approachable, interested, open-minded. Like an architect visiting his construction site. “The Egyptian COP-27 presidency is ready to receive the global climate community in Sharm El Sheikh in November,” is his message following this visit.
The expectations resting on him these days are high. The slogan of the COP is “together for implementation”. But rarely have the circumstances been as bad for global cooperation against the climate crisis as they are today. Russia’s war against Ukraine, energy price inflation, food crisis, high post-pandemic debt and tensions between the US and China make joint and decisive action against climate threats difficult.
Before his appointment as COP president earlier this year, Shoukry had not been involved with climate issues. “Shoukry is a career diplomat with decades of experience,” says Lutz Weischer of Germanwatch. That’s not the worst possible prerequisite, though, he thinks.
The task of a COP president is to create a good negotiating atmosphere and facilitate compromises but also to ensure that the lowest common denominator is not all that remains at the end, according to Weischer. The experience of decades in the service of diplomacy can certainly be helpful here.
In the run-up to the climate conference, Shoukry is not sparing in his criticism of the industrialized countries, which have so far failed to meet their financial pledges for climate protection measures in developing countries. He has made adaptation to the effects of climate change his priority.
“This criticism is entirely justified,” says Lutz Weischer. But to be a successful COP president, he says, the focus should not be solely on the issues of adaptation to climate change and reparation for loss and damage. “Shoukry must be even more explicit about climate policy ambitions and formulate ambitious emission reduction targets,” says Weischer.
A year after graduating with a degree in law from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Shoukry began his career as an attaché to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo in 1976. After posts in London, Buenos Aires and Vienna, he was Egypt’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 2005 to 2008. Finally, in 2008, he becomes Egypt’s ambassador to the United States.
While in his homeland, the Arab Spring swept then-President Hosni Mubarak from office in 2011, Shoukry remained in Washington until 2012. “During the 2011 uprising, Shoukry was the epitome of calm, pragmatic thinking that supported demands for democracy. In the same breath, however, he advocated for the military’s involvement in politics to prevent chaos,” according to an article on Shoukry in “The Africa Report”. “However, his pragmatic nature and calm diplomatic approach did not help him win a seat in the short-lived post-Mubarak government of Mohammed Mursi,” it adds. Finally, in 2014, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi brought the experienced diplomat Shoukry into the Egyptian government as foreign minister after coming to power.
Little is known about Shoukry’s private life. According to press reports, his wife, Suzy Shoukry, is also active in diplomatic and charitable circles. Together they have two sons.
Shoukry does not have to manage COP 27 alone. In his demanding task, he can rely on the experience of Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad, who is assisting him as Ministerial Coordinator and Envoy. She has more than 18 years of experience in the fields of environment and international cooperation. Ulrike Christl
