In the realities of the climate crisis, issues that at first glance have nothing to do with each other sometimes collide as if by chance. But then they are somehow related: One day, the German government agrees on a building law that gives it more time and loopholes for climate action. And the next, it presents its new security strategy, which defines the 1.5-degree target as central to national security.
European researchers estimate that the EU could raise its climate target to minus 95 percent by 2040. Other experts, however, note that the developed countries are not doing enough to help poor countries adapt to climate change. At the same time, financial experts are calling on the European Central Bank to change course towards providing better financing for the energy transition.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s new old president, Lula, is making progress in conserving the Amazon forest. And, in parallel, forests in Canada are bursting into flames so early, so widespread and so rapidly as never before since record-keeping began. The UN states are considering at least tripling the expansion of renewables worldwide. And at the same time, they are blocking each other at the current conference in Bonn when it comes to the agenda.
What brings all these topics and many others together is that today’s Climate Table reports on them, provides background information and puts them in context. We hope you enjoy reading this issue.
The EU is capable of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 percent by 2040 – compared to 1990 levels. This is according to a report by the Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which was appointed in the wake of the European Climate Law. This Thursday, the panel’s 15 researchers publish their recommendations for the EU’s 2040 climate target and how it can be achieved.
In order to minimize climate risks and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, Europe is allowed a cumulative greenhouse gas budget of 11 to 14 gigatons of CO2-equivalents (CO2e) for the period 2030 to 2050. “To achieve this, the EU should reduce its emissions by 90-95 percent by 2040 compared to 1990 levels,” explains climate researcher Ottmar Edenhofer, chair of the panel. However, the report states that the basis for this is achieving the 55 percent reduction target for 2030.
The researchers analyzed more than 1000 possible emission reduction pathways, identifying 36 scenarios compatible with the 1.5-degree target and the EU’s 2050 net zero goal. These scenarios were then assessed for their feasibility, environmental risks and challenges related to the short-term ramp-up of technologies such as photovoltaics, wind power and hydrogen. Any scenarios with a scientifically unrealistically high reliance on carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) or nature-based removal methods such as carbon farming were not considered, Edenhofer confirms.
Thus, three “iconic” pathways to achieving the recommended 2040 climate target have crystallized. They have different cumulative emission levels and include a range of possible policy options.
However, most of the scenarios examined have common characteristics:
In the energy sector, the researchers – like the Greens in Germany and many emissions trading experts – expect a total coal phase-out well before 2038. The scenarios examined allow for “coal-fired power generation to be phased out by 2030,” the report states. The remaining share of coal in the electricity mix would be less than one to four percent, depending on the scenario.
Natural gas would only be used to generate electricity in power plants until 2040 (below one to six percent) – except in the scenarios that use CO2 capture in power plants. The report shows different scenarios for CCS capacities. In the mixed-approach pathway, there will be more than 200 million tons of CO2 annually in 2050.
Regarding European hydrogen production, it is striking that most scenarios expect relatively low production within the EU in the long term. While the Commission’s target of 10 million tons by 2030 is achievable under Repower-EU, the optimistic mixed approach assumes only an increase to about 25 million tons by 2050. But for 2050, the optimistic mixed approach only assumes an increase to about 25 million tonnes. Only individual scenarios assume that production can be increased to 70 million tons by mid-century.
The moderate outlook for hydrogen is probably one reason why this energy carrier does not play a role in the building sector from a scientific point of view. Here, the scientists expect an electrification rate of 53 to 71 percent by 2040. However, natural gas will continue to play a significant role with 5 to 20 percent. Wood, another controversial fuel, accounts for 6 to 9 percent.
The report leaves room for political decisions, Edenhofer commented on its publication. The scenarios examined all lead to achieving the goal of net zero by 2050. The report acknowledges a lack of economic data for all the scenarios considered. However, where data is available, the report states that annual investments in energy supply would amount to one to two percent of GDP in this decade. A peak of 1.1 to 2.1 percent of GDP would be reached in the early 2030s, and by 2050 spending would drop to about 1 percent. With Manuel Berkel
A global target for the expansion of renewables was also debated in the hallways of SB58. A joint global target is to help accelerate the expansion of renewables. High representatives of the EU Commission and COP28 President Al Jaber even seem to agree on the targets. According to Al Jaber, a global target to triple renewable energies will be agreed upon at COP28. The target has been agreed with the EU Commission. After a meeting with Al Jaber, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and climate Czar Frans Timmermans announced the same target of tripling current renewable capacity.
There is also no direct rejection from other regions of the world. For negotiation purposes, China remains skeptical, according to Petter Lydén, Head of International Climate Policy at Germanwatch. Lydén believes, however, that China would not block such a goal. “From the Chinese point of view, there would also be clear economic and strategic reasons to support such a goal,” says Lydén. Chinese suppliers would benefit from accelerated growth of the global market for renewables. China is already the global market leader in solar and will defend this position: According to recent figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global production capacity for photovoltaic components will double to about 1,000 gigawatts by the end of 2024, and China is projected to account for 90 percent of this increase. The United States is, in principle, not opposed to a global target for renewables either, says Lydén.
This means a global expansion target has supporters in the different “camps.” After all, it is not a ban, but a positive target. In March, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) warned that renewables’ expansion must be tripled to 1,000 gigawatts per year.
But will tripling be enough to achieve the global climate targets? And will this force fossil fuels out of the grid fast enough? NGOs and think tanks are urging to step up efforts.
According to a recent analysis by the think tank Climate Analytics, wind and solar energy expansion would have to increase to 1.5 terawatts per year by 2030 to meet the 1.5-degree target. According to Climate Analytics, that would be a fivefold increase from the current expansion rate of 0.3 terawatts per year. To achieve this, there would have to be a rapid annual increase in expansion rates over the next few years.
By 2030, ten terawatts of solar and wind energy capacity would have to be installed worldwide – at present, it is just over two terawatts. The climate think tank noted that to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees; renewables would need to account for 70 percent of global electricity demand by 2030. “We know wind and solar can scale quickly and undercut fossil fuels on price,” says Neil Grant, energy and climate analyst at Climate Analytics.
The Climate Action Network (CAN) also calls for a faster expansion than the one proposed by the EU Commission and Al Jaber. CAN’s reply to al Jaber: From 2030 onwards, an annual increase of at least 1.5 terawatts is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Apart from the numbers, many details still need to be resolved. Petter Lydén demands that the “global target for the expansion of renewable energies must be combined with a decision to exit fossil energies. Anything else would be a victory for the oil and gas producing states”. Otherwise, fossil fuel-producing countries could hope to continue producing oil and gas.
It is also uncertain how the global target is to be ultimately achieved. It is unrealistic that “a global target is distributed to the individual states via a top-down approach and then it is determined who has to make which contribution to the global target,” says Lydén. Instead, the countries would have to make their contribution voluntarily – the IEA or IRENA would indirectly create pressure through their observations on the expansion of renewables, which is already happening. It is doubtful if this will actually result in 1 or 1.5 terawatts. Other voluntary targets, such as the 100 billion pledge for climate financing by the Global North countries, have always been missed.
It also remains unclear to what extent a global renewables target will be tied to financial commitments. Many developing and emerging countries are currently struggling with high debt burdens. Due to rising international interest rates and capital flight to rich countries, the cost of capital for constructing wind and solar power plants has soared and expansion has stalled. New financing models are needed, for example, through concessionary loans from development banks, budget support or the transfer of risks to private investors, as experts told Table.Media.
Although Lydén is convinced that some states of the North will most likely make new financial pledges to countries of the Global South once a global target for renewables has been adopted, “it remains to be seen whether this will happen on a multilateral level and whether there will be a process for this or if it will be voluntary pledges like with the JETPs.”
After the first six months of his third term in office, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva begins to reap the first fruits of his environmental policy. Despite strong resistance in the opposition parliament and parts of the business community, the first results of the socialist environmental and climate policy are carefully positive:
However, there is also resistance and setbacks:
The Lula government launched one of the most eagerly awaited measures in recent years on June 5, World Environment Day: The fifth phase of the “Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon” (PPCDAm). The plan includes a strategic set of 150 measures to curb high deforestation rates, fight organized crime in the region and promote sustainable development based on the bioeconomy.
That is how Brazil intends to put an end to deforestation by 2030, as Lula has repeatedly emphasized. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation of the Amazon was reduced by 83 percent between 2004 and 2012 under the Workers’ Party PT governments. The PPCDAm action plan was instrumental in this.
In the first five months of the new Lula government, deforestation declined by 31 percent compared to the same period last year. The Amazon Fund, which had been frozen under the Bolsonaro government, is back on track with donors Norway and Germany. New countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have promised to join.
In the Cerrado savannah region, on the other hand, the figures are less positive. Between January and May, the loss of vegetation increased by 35 percent compared to the same period in 2022.
The revision of Brazil’s climate commitment, the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), must be ready within 45 days, President Lula demanded a week ago. “We will correct Brazil’s contribution to the Paris Agreement accordingly in our NDC, which was amended twice in the last government,” Lula said at the ceremony at the Planalto government palace. “But it is necessary that rich countries also contribute. It is they who have destroyed the forests the most over the centuries. And it is they who today emit the most greenhouse gases,” he continued.
Furthermore, the government will soon present a proposal for creating a regulated carbon market based on the EU emissions trading model. The focus will be on plants with emissions of more than 25,000 tons of CO2-equivalents per year. This mainly concerns sectors such as iron and steel, cement, chemicals and aluminum. Like in the EU model, free allowances will be allocated during the initial trading phase.
The climate is a priority and a core policy for the Lula government. Climate action structures have been created in 19 of the 37 ministries.
But there are also significant difficulties. In the plan to combat deforestation in the Amazon, the problem is the implementation. Resources are scarce, and illegal structures have increased in the region during the Bolsonaro years. Organized crime has expanded the trafficking of drugs, gold, fauna, and even people. There is still no way to replace economic sectors focused on deforestation with sustainable approaches.
Another obstacle is political. Lula was elected with a broad front of parties; he does not have a majority in the opposition Congress. The Chamber of Deputies has a conservative majority and many deputies close to Bolsonarism and the agricultural lobby. There is no majority for respecting indigenous rights or environmental and climate protection.
All this led to a severe government crisis a few days ago. It jeopardized the retention of Lula’s most internationally known minister, Marina Silva (environment), and minister Sônia Guajajara at the head of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples established by Lula in January.
The background: The government structure must be approved by Congress. However, MPs have threatened not to vote on the measure for the first time in history. This would have resulted in Lula’s government having to revert to the government structure of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
The power struggle was only resolved after the Chamber of Deputies demanded changes, particularly in the ministries of the environment and indigenous affairs. In the former, Marina Silva lost the administration of water resources to another ministry. She also no longer manages the department responsible for potential environmental liabilities (due to illegal logging) of rural producers.
The blow to the Ministry of Native People was even worse. The ministry lost the authority to designate new indigenous territories. That task was transferred to the Ministry of Justice. The Chamber also approved a proposal that makes it virtually impossible to create new indigenous territories. The Senate must now approve or reject the measure, and the President could veto it.
Lula also fails to deliver on another promise: His promised climate authority, a kind of federal agency for sectoral monitoring of greenhouse gases in the country, has not yet been established. This authority also needs to be approved by Congress – and observers believe it will not be approved at this stage.
Lula’s government is also behaving inconsistently on the development of new oil wells in the sea, the Amazon, and the northeast of the country. In May, the licensing authority associated with the Environment Ministry denied a license to search for oil off the Amazon delta. But this decision is still controversial and has led to another crisis between the governors of the Amazon states, Petrobras and the Energy Ministry.
Apart from the photos of the smoky skies over New York City, initial statistics now show just how exceptional the current forest fires in Canada are. They show that CO2 emissions from the extremely dry and burning forests are rising much earlier this year and much more steeply than even in the extreme cases of the past – and in any event, they are far above the long-term average.
So far, roughly 4.7 million hectares have been consumed by fire – more than double the annual average of 2.1 million. Usually, the first large fires don’t occur until July, August and September. While fires are declining in the east, like in the province of Quebec, fires continue to rage in the western regions of British Columbia and Alberta.
Experts see a trend toward fewer but more intense wildfires in Canada. They also observe a trend that the fire season will become longer and cause more damage. The provinces of Nova Scotia, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia are currently particularly affected. Fire damage this season is fifty times the 25-year average in some cases. bpo
Lerber Dimas Vázquez is no longer safe in his home country of Colombia. That’s why the anthropologist currently lives in Germany. His research focuses on violence in his home region: The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range bordering Colombia’s Caribbean coast and the neighboring departments.
The results of his research are also relevant to Germany’s energy transition. Because the region Dimas is observing includes La Guajira. The desert-like area in the country’s far northeast is considered ideal terrain for solar and wind power in Colombia – sparking enormous interest in Germany.
The German government is in talks with the Colombian government about a potential energy partnership. German companies like Nordex are already engaged in wind power activities in La Guajira, and only recently, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock praised the country’s “enormous potential” for renewable energies and green hydrogen. When Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro visits German Chancellor Olaf Scholz next Friday, the talks could include renewable energies from La Guajira.
40-year-old Dimas hasn’t been back to his house in the mountains for almost three years because it would be too dangerous for him. But he still keeps in touch with the people there. Dimas researches and writes about the criminal organizations that operate in the Sierra Nevada – drug gangs and former paramilitary groups that, although officially disbanded long ago, still terrorize the people. He researches the social causes of urban violence, and, as executive director of a regional platform, he and his colleagues document the human rights and environmental violations committed in the Sierra Nevada.
Dimas approves of the Colombian government’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis. But he looks at the renewables euphoria in La Guajira with skepticism. “La Guajira has several problems,” he says: “Mega gangs” are active there, which are controlled from the neighboring country via the porous border with Venezuela, as well as the ELN guerrillas and a splinter group of the former Farc guerrillas, who do not recognize their peace agreement with the government. In addition, there is the Gulf Clan, which continues the legacy of the old paramilitarism and is involved in drug trafficking and other armed groups.
La Guajira is also home to the indigenous Wayúu people. Colombia’s laws stipulate that they must give explicit consent before any mining or infrastructure projects are initiated on their land. But in reality, participation leaves much to be desired, Dimas says. Just a few days ago, Wayúu communities from the coast wrote a letter to President Petro complaining that they had not been included in existing offshore plans and demanding that their legally guaranteed rights be respected.
Coal mining, which has been practiced in vast open-pit mines in La Guajira and the neighboring department of Cesar for decades, has certainly not brought any positive development to the communities: To this day, La Guajira is one of the poorest departments in the country.
Coal mining has already brought conflict and violence – and the run on wind and solar power now holds new potential for conflict. Just at the end of May, the Italian energy company Enel abandoned a wind power project after Wayúu organizations protested for years. Due to “difficulties in the participation procedures and the awarding of environmental licenses,” several renewable energy projects in La Guajira have been on hold since 2019, Reuters reported.
Leber Dimas sees a lot of other problems for the renewables in the area: Drug gangs control the beaches to bring cocaine out of the country. “This has been a gigantic problem for a long time.” He says that Offshore wind power is a thorn in the side of organized crime; these gangs could try and stop projects from happening.
Far from the coast, he sees other difficulties: “Wind and solar power projects bring money,” says the researcher: The more, the greater the temptation for criminal gangs to pocket the financial gains, resulting in even more violence. “This will bring more killings, displacement, repression, and even more money for the armed groups.”
He has experienced firsthand how the gangs operate. He was actually used to threats. But after he publicly said he didn’t believe the peace promises of a former paramilitary leader, the messages became particularly clear. Men came to his home to film him. A little later, as Dimas was giving an online lecture, police officers rushed him out of his house: they feared for his life. He fled to Germany.
That was three years ago. Since then, Dimas has attempted several times to return to Colombia. But he didn’t dare go back to the Sierra Nevada. Most recently, his security situation deteriorated so much that he had to leave his home country again. Now, supported by a scholarship, he studies Anthropology of the Americas in Bonn.
From Germany, he says, he can pursue his work under far greater security. In the Sierra Nevada, he says, “I could never move as freely on foot as I do here. I would be traveling with two bodyguards in an armored car.” His contacts in Colombia keep him in the loop in the meantime. Even in Germany, he is not entirely unaffected by the violence. Even on the tranquil banks of the Rhine in Bonn, the researcher receives photos on his smartphone. One shows a man lying dead on the ground, with a pool of blood under his head.
The picture visibly shakes Dimas. The murdered man had demanded the return of land in the Cesar Department, he says. “If I were at home, the same thing could happen to me,” he says. For now, he wants to stay in Bonn and finish his master’s degree. Time will tell what will happen next. By Alexandra Endres
In the realities of the climate crisis, issues that at first glance have nothing to do with each other sometimes collide as if by chance. But then they are somehow related: One day, the German government agrees on a building law that gives it more time and loopholes for climate action. And the next, it presents its new security strategy, which defines the 1.5-degree target as central to national security.
European researchers estimate that the EU could raise its climate target to minus 95 percent by 2040. Other experts, however, note that the developed countries are not doing enough to help poor countries adapt to climate change. At the same time, financial experts are calling on the European Central Bank to change course towards providing better financing for the energy transition.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s new old president, Lula, is making progress in conserving the Amazon forest. And, in parallel, forests in Canada are bursting into flames so early, so widespread and so rapidly as never before since record-keeping began. The UN states are considering at least tripling the expansion of renewables worldwide. And at the same time, they are blocking each other at the current conference in Bonn when it comes to the agenda.
What brings all these topics and many others together is that today’s Climate Table reports on them, provides background information and puts them in context. We hope you enjoy reading this issue.
The EU is capable of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 percent by 2040 – compared to 1990 levels. This is according to a report by the Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which was appointed in the wake of the European Climate Law. This Thursday, the panel’s 15 researchers publish their recommendations for the EU’s 2040 climate target and how it can be achieved.
In order to minimize climate risks and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, Europe is allowed a cumulative greenhouse gas budget of 11 to 14 gigatons of CO2-equivalents (CO2e) for the period 2030 to 2050. “To achieve this, the EU should reduce its emissions by 90-95 percent by 2040 compared to 1990 levels,” explains climate researcher Ottmar Edenhofer, chair of the panel. However, the report states that the basis for this is achieving the 55 percent reduction target for 2030.
The researchers analyzed more than 1000 possible emission reduction pathways, identifying 36 scenarios compatible with the 1.5-degree target and the EU’s 2050 net zero goal. These scenarios were then assessed for their feasibility, environmental risks and challenges related to the short-term ramp-up of technologies such as photovoltaics, wind power and hydrogen. Any scenarios with a scientifically unrealistically high reliance on carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) or nature-based removal methods such as carbon farming were not considered, Edenhofer confirms.
Thus, three “iconic” pathways to achieving the recommended 2040 climate target have crystallized. They have different cumulative emission levels and include a range of possible policy options.
However, most of the scenarios examined have common characteristics:
In the energy sector, the researchers – like the Greens in Germany and many emissions trading experts – expect a total coal phase-out well before 2038. The scenarios examined allow for “coal-fired power generation to be phased out by 2030,” the report states. The remaining share of coal in the electricity mix would be less than one to four percent, depending on the scenario.
Natural gas would only be used to generate electricity in power plants until 2040 (below one to six percent) – except in the scenarios that use CO2 capture in power plants. The report shows different scenarios for CCS capacities. In the mixed-approach pathway, there will be more than 200 million tons of CO2 annually in 2050.
Regarding European hydrogen production, it is striking that most scenarios expect relatively low production within the EU in the long term. While the Commission’s target of 10 million tons by 2030 is achievable under Repower-EU, the optimistic mixed approach assumes only an increase to about 25 million tons by 2050. But for 2050, the optimistic mixed approach only assumes an increase to about 25 million tonnes. Only individual scenarios assume that production can be increased to 70 million tons by mid-century.
The moderate outlook for hydrogen is probably one reason why this energy carrier does not play a role in the building sector from a scientific point of view. Here, the scientists expect an electrification rate of 53 to 71 percent by 2040. However, natural gas will continue to play a significant role with 5 to 20 percent. Wood, another controversial fuel, accounts for 6 to 9 percent.
The report leaves room for political decisions, Edenhofer commented on its publication. The scenarios examined all lead to achieving the goal of net zero by 2050. The report acknowledges a lack of economic data for all the scenarios considered. However, where data is available, the report states that annual investments in energy supply would amount to one to two percent of GDP in this decade. A peak of 1.1 to 2.1 percent of GDP would be reached in the early 2030s, and by 2050 spending would drop to about 1 percent. With Manuel Berkel
A global target for the expansion of renewables was also debated in the hallways of SB58. A joint global target is to help accelerate the expansion of renewables. High representatives of the EU Commission and COP28 President Al Jaber even seem to agree on the targets. According to Al Jaber, a global target to triple renewable energies will be agreed upon at COP28. The target has been agreed with the EU Commission. After a meeting with Al Jaber, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and climate Czar Frans Timmermans announced the same target of tripling current renewable capacity.
There is also no direct rejection from other regions of the world. For negotiation purposes, China remains skeptical, according to Petter Lydén, Head of International Climate Policy at Germanwatch. Lydén believes, however, that China would not block such a goal. “From the Chinese point of view, there would also be clear economic and strategic reasons to support such a goal,” says Lydén. Chinese suppliers would benefit from accelerated growth of the global market for renewables. China is already the global market leader in solar and will defend this position: According to recent figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global production capacity for photovoltaic components will double to about 1,000 gigawatts by the end of 2024, and China is projected to account for 90 percent of this increase. The United States is, in principle, not opposed to a global target for renewables either, says Lydén.
This means a global expansion target has supporters in the different “camps.” After all, it is not a ban, but a positive target. In March, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) warned that renewables’ expansion must be tripled to 1,000 gigawatts per year.
But will tripling be enough to achieve the global climate targets? And will this force fossil fuels out of the grid fast enough? NGOs and think tanks are urging to step up efforts.
According to a recent analysis by the think tank Climate Analytics, wind and solar energy expansion would have to increase to 1.5 terawatts per year by 2030 to meet the 1.5-degree target. According to Climate Analytics, that would be a fivefold increase from the current expansion rate of 0.3 terawatts per year. To achieve this, there would have to be a rapid annual increase in expansion rates over the next few years.
By 2030, ten terawatts of solar and wind energy capacity would have to be installed worldwide – at present, it is just over two terawatts. The climate think tank noted that to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees; renewables would need to account for 70 percent of global electricity demand by 2030. “We know wind and solar can scale quickly and undercut fossil fuels on price,” says Neil Grant, energy and climate analyst at Climate Analytics.
The Climate Action Network (CAN) also calls for a faster expansion than the one proposed by the EU Commission and Al Jaber. CAN’s reply to al Jaber: From 2030 onwards, an annual increase of at least 1.5 terawatts is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Apart from the numbers, many details still need to be resolved. Petter Lydén demands that the “global target for the expansion of renewable energies must be combined with a decision to exit fossil energies. Anything else would be a victory for the oil and gas producing states”. Otherwise, fossil fuel-producing countries could hope to continue producing oil and gas.
It is also uncertain how the global target is to be ultimately achieved. It is unrealistic that “a global target is distributed to the individual states via a top-down approach and then it is determined who has to make which contribution to the global target,” says Lydén. Instead, the countries would have to make their contribution voluntarily – the IEA or IRENA would indirectly create pressure through their observations on the expansion of renewables, which is already happening. It is doubtful if this will actually result in 1 or 1.5 terawatts. Other voluntary targets, such as the 100 billion pledge for climate financing by the Global North countries, have always been missed.
It also remains unclear to what extent a global renewables target will be tied to financial commitments. Many developing and emerging countries are currently struggling with high debt burdens. Due to rising international interest rates and capital flight to rich countries, the cost of capital for constructing wind and solar power plants has soared and expansion has stalled. New financing models are needed, for example, through concessionary loans from development banks, budget support or the transfer of risks to private investors, as experts told Table.Media.
Although Lydén is convinced that some states of the North will most likely make new financial pledges to countries of the Global South once a global target for renewables has been adopted, “it remains to be seen whether this will happen on a multilateral level and whether there will be a process for this or if it will be voluntary pledges like with the JETPs.”
After the first six months of his third term in office, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva begins to reap the first fruits of his environmental policy. Despite strong resistance in the opposition parliament and parts of the business community, the first results of the socialist environmental and climate policy are carefully positive:
However, there is also resistance and setbacks:
The Lula government launched one of the most eagerly awaited measures in recent years on June 5, World Environment Day: The fifth phase of the “Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon” (PPCDAm). The plan includes a strategic set of 150 measures to curb high deforestation rates, fight organized crime in the region and promote sustainable development based on the bioeconomy.
That is how Brazil intends to put an end to deforestation by 2030, as Lula has repeatedly emphasized. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation of the Amazon was reduced by 83 percent between 2004 and 2012 under the Workers’ Party PT governments. The PPCDAm action plan was instrumental in this.
In the first five months of the new Lula government, deforestation declined by 31 percent compared to the same period last year. The Amazon Fund, which had been frozen under the Bolsonaro government, is back on track with donors Norway and Germany. New countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have promised to join.
In the Cerrado savannah region, on the other hand, the figures are less positive. Between January and May, the loss of vegetation increased by 35 percent compared to the same period in 2022.
The revision of Brazil’s climate commitment, the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), must be ready within 45 days, President Lula demanded a week ago. “We will correct Brazil’s contribution to the Paris Agreement accordingly in our NDC, which was amended twice in the last government,” Lula said at the ceremony at the Planalto government palace. “But it is necessary that rich countries also contribute. It is they who have destroyed the forests the most over the centuries. And it is they who today emit the most greenhouse gases,” he continued.
Furthermore, the government will soon present a proposal for creating a regulated carbon market based on the EU emissions trading model. The focus will be on plants with emissions of more than 25,000 tons of CO2-equivalents per year. This mainly concerns sectors such as iron and steel, cement, chemicals and aluminum. Like in the EU model, free allowances will be allocated during the initial trading phase.
The climate is a priority and a core policy for the Lula government. Climate action structures have been created in 19 of the 37 ministries.
But there are also significant difficulties. In the plan to combat deforestation in the Amazon, the problem is the implementation. Resources are scarce, and illegal structures have increased in the region during the Bolsonaro years. Organized crime has expanded the trafficking of drugs, gold, fauna, and even people. There is still no way to replace economic sectors focused on deforestation with sustainable approaches.
Another obstacle is political. Lula was elected with a broad front of parties; he does not have a majority in the opposition Congress. The Chamber of Deputies has a conservative majority and many deputies close to Bolsonarism and the agricultural lobby. There is no majority for respecting indigenous rights or environmental and climate protection.
All this led to a severe government crisis a few days ago. It jeopardized the retention of Lula’s most internationally known minister, Marina Silva (environment), and minister Sônia Guajajara at the head of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples established by Lula in January.
The background: The government structure must be approved by Congress. However, MPs have threatened not to vote on the measure for the first time in history. This would have resulted in Lula’s government having to revert to the government structure of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
The power struggle was only resolved after the Chamber of Deputies demanded changes, particularly in the ministries of the environment and indigenous affairs. In the former, Marina Silva lost the administration of water resources to another ministry. She also no longer manages the department responsible for potential environmental liabilities (due to illegal logging) of rural producers.
The blow to the Ministry of Native People was even worse. The ministry lost the authority to designate new indigenous territories. That task was transferred to the Ministry of Justice. The Chamber also approved a proposal that makes it virtually impossible to create new indigenous territories. The Senate must now approve or reject the measure, and the President could veto it.
Lula also fails to deliver on another promise: His promised climate authority, a kind of federal agency for sectoral monitoring of greenhouse gases in the country, has not yet been established. This authority also needs to be approved by Congress – and observers believe it will not be approved at this stage.
Lula’s government is also behaving inconsistently on the development of new oil wells in the sea, the Amazon, and the northeast of the country. In May, the licensing authority associated with the Environment Ministry denied a license to search for oil off the Amazon delta. But this decision is still controversial and has led to another crisis between the governors of the Amazon states, Petrobras and the Energy Ministry.
Apart from the photos of the smoky skies over New York City, initial statistics now show just how exceptional the current forest fires in Canada are. They show that CO2 emissions from the extremely dry and burning forests are rising much earlier this year and much more steeply than even in the extreme cases of the past – and in any event, they are far above the long-term average.
So far, roughly 4.7 million hectares have been consumed by fire – more than double the annual average of 2.1 million. Usually, the first large fires don’t occur until July, August and September. While fires are declining in the east, like in the province of Quebec, fires continue to rage in the western regions of British Columbia and Alberta.
Experts see a trend toward fewer but more intense wildfires in Canada. They also observe a trend that the fire season will become longer and cause more damage. The provinces of Nova Scotia, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia are currently particularly affected. Fire damage this season is fifty times the 25-year average in some cases. bpo
Lerber Dimas Vázquez is no longer safe in his home country of Colombia. That’s why the anthropologist currently lives in Germany. His research focuses on violence in his home region: The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range bordering Colombia’s Caribbean coast and the neighboring departments.
The results of his research are also relevant to Germany’s energy transition. Because the region Dimas is observing includes La Guajira. The desert-like area in the country’s far northeast is considered ideal terrain for solar and wind power in Colombia – sparking enormous interest in Germany.
The German government is in talks with the Colombian government about a potential energy partnership. German companies like Nordex are already engaged in wind power activities in La Guajira, and only recently, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock praised the country’s “enormous potential” for renewable energies and green hydrogen. When Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro visits German Chancellor Olaf Scholz next Friday, the talks could include renewable energies from La Guajira.
40-year-old Dimas hasn’t been back to his house in the mountains for almost three years because it would be too dangerous for him. But he still keeps in touch with the people there. Dimas researches and writes about the criminal organizations that operate in the Sierra Nevada – drug gangs and former paramilitary groups that, although officially disbanded long ago, still terrorize the people. He researches the social causes of urban violence, and, as executive director of a regional platform, he and his colleagues document the human rights and environmental violations committed in the Sierra Nevada.
Dimas approves of the Colombian government’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis. But he looks at the renewables euphoria in La Guajira with skepticism. “La Guajira has several problems,” he says: “Mega gangs” are active there, which are controlled from the neighboring country via the porous border with Venezuela, as well as the ELN guerrillas and a splinter group of the former Farc guerrillas, who do not recognize their peace agreement with the government. In addition, there is the Gulf Clan, which continues the legacy of the old paramilitarism and is involved in drug trafficking and other armed groups.
La Guajira is also home to the indigenous Wayúu people. Colombia’s laws stipulate that they must give explicit consent before any mining or infrastructure projects are initiated on their land. But in reality, participation leaves much to be desired, Dimas says. Just a few days ago, Wayúu communities from the coast wrote a letter to President Petro complaining that they had not been included in existing offshore plans and demanding that their legally guaranteed rights be respected.
Coal mining, which has been practiced in vast open-pit mines in La Guajira and the neighboring department of Cesar for decades, has certainly not brought any positive development to the communities: To this day, La Guajira is one of the poorest departments in the country.
Coal mining has already brought conflict and violence – and the run on wind and solar power now holds new potential for conflict. Just at the end of May, the Italian energy company Enel abandoned a wind power project after Wayúu organizations protested for years. Due to “difficulties in the participation procedures and the awarding of environmental licenses,” several renewable energy projects in La Guajira have been on hold since 2019, Reuters reported.
Leber Dimas sees a lot of other problems for the renewables in the area: Drug gangs control the beaches to bring cocaine out of the country. “This has been a gigantic problem for a long time.” He says that Offshore wind power is a thorn in the side of organized crime; these gangs could try and stop projects from happening.
Far from the coast, he sees other difficulties: “Wind and solar power projects bring money,” says the researcher: The more, the greater the temptation for criminal gangs to pocket the financial gains, resulting in even more violence. “This will bring more killings, displacement, repression, and even more money for the armed groups.”
He has experienced firsthand how the gangs operate. He was actually used to threats. But after he publicly said he didn’t believe the peace promises of a former paramilitary leader, the messages became particularly clear. Men came to his home to film him. A little later, as Dimas was giving an online lecture, police officers rushed him out of his house: they feared for his life. He fled to Germany.
That was three years ago. Since then, Dimas has attempted several times to return to Colombia. But he didn’t dare go back to the Sierra Nevada. Most recently, his security situation deteriorated so much that he had to leave his home country again. Now, supported by a scholarship, he studies Anthropology of the Americas in Bonn.
From Germany, he says, he can pursue his work under far greater security. In the Sierra Nevada, he says, “I could never move as freely on foot as I do here. I would be traveling with two bodyguards in an armored car.” His contacts in Colombia keep him in the loop in the meantime. Even in Germany, he is not entirely unaffected by the violence. Even on the tranquil banks of the Rhine in Bonn, the researcher receives photos on his smartphone. One shows a man lying dead on the ground, with a pool of blood under his head.
The picture visibly shakes Dimas. The murdered man had demanded the return of land in the Cesar Department, he says. “If I were at home, the same thing could happen to me,” he says. For now, he wants to stay in Bonn and finish his master’s degree. Time will tell what will happen next. By Alexandra Endres
