July 2023 was the globally hottest month ever recorded. For the first time, the average temperature was 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. This means that the 1.5-degree target has not yet been exceeded, but this record once again proves that it is time to act!
Jochen Flasbarth is quite optimistic in our big interview. He believes that Europe’s climate action is on the right track. The State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) spoke with Bernhard Pötter and Horand Knaup about what needs to be done better at COP28 than last year, Flasbarth’s hopes for climate financing and why Lindner’s cost-cutting measures will not curtail Germany’s contribution.
The transformation of deforestation and the steel sector is progressing far too slowly. At the Amazon Summit in Belém, Brazil, eight countries failed to agree on a real breakthrough, reports Daniela Chiaretti from the conference. An end to deforestation by 2030, as proposed by Lula, did not find broad approval. In the steel sector, billions in subsidies are promised for decarbonization. But China does not act fast enough. If the People’s Republic’s steel sector were a country, it would rank fifth among the world’s largest emitters – and the government’s climate plans for the sector have many loopholes.
In year eight after the Paris Climate Agreement, which you helped negotiate, temperatures continue to rise, we have floods and forest fires around the world like never before. Where do we stand, really?
Even if it may sound strange: Eight years after Paris, we are in a better position than I dared to hope back then. I would not have thought it possible in 2015 that the whole world would be talking about 2050 as a target for greenhouse gas neutrality. Yes, it is not agreed globally, but it is the consensus in the G7 and G20. And the fact that we are not talking about 2 degrees, but still about 1.5 degrees as a target, is also something I did not imagine in Paris.
Reality feels different, the 1.5 degrees can no longer be achieved.
There’s no denying that we’re still struggling with implementation. But with the Just Energy Transition Partnerships, for example, we have dropped important anchors on how we can bundle the financial resources of donors and the ambitions of partners, especially in important emerging countries – and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But it is clear that the next steps must follow.
There are record temperatures everywhere, on land and at sea. Science says very clearly: The current pace is not enough.
For me, that’s two levels. Yes, the situation is bad. But as a developed country in Europe, we have legally set the most ambitious climate neutrality target by 2045. And the course towards achieving this goal has been set. We are also doing well in the global comparison. Incidentally, the German Chancellor never leaves any doubt for even a second that we in Germany will reach the 2045 target. The whole system is geared towards maintaining Germany as an industrial location and its prosperity, while remaining climate neutral at the same time. None of this is easy, but there is an absolute will to achieve this goal.
Does climate have the status in this government that it should have?
Of course, there is always more that can be done. But we are taking a very, very strenuous path, also in order to gain the support of the population. The course has been set for the expansion of renewables, for which I also fought for a long time. The economy minister has continued this in a very difficult phase. Or the hydrogen strategy – for me, these are all proof that this government is taking the issue much more seriously than the last one.
Declarations of intent are one thing, but the government is simultaneously gutting the Climate Change Act. How credible is that?
What is crucial is that we make progress in expanding renewables and that we have enough green hydrogen for processes that cannot be converted to use electricity. All this is on the way. Besides: The Climate Change Act is no longer my responsibility, I fought for it in my previous position.
But international climate financing is one of your responsibilities. The Chancellor has pledged six billion euros a year between now and 2025, while the finance minister is forcing all departments to take tough budget cuts. How does Germany intend to keep its promises?
In 2021 we were at 5.34 billion. There is still a gap – but I am confident that the promised funding can be realized. From the BMZ’s side, climate action and adaptation are even stronger integrated into all programs. And the other ministries involved – the Ministry of Economics, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – also prioritize the issue. We will certainly not have to hide ourselves at the SDG Summit this fall and at COP in November.
What did the numbers look like in 2022?
There are no concrete figures yet. The evaluation is quite complex, we will probably know more by the end of August.
What is clear, however, is that there will have to be quite a leap upward between 2024 and 2025 to keep the Chancellor’s promise.
Why? We achieved well over five billion in 2021. The figures for the following year will be similar. For instance, we launched the PtX Fund at the end of 2022 with a total of 270 million euros to support green hydrogen. For instance, we have signed climate and development partnerships with South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kenya and Peru. This involves considerable additional funding. That is why the figures for 2022 will undoubtedly be higher than those for 2021. And then, we have to see how we close any remaining delta by 2025.
Are you not worried that the finance minister’s cost-cutting operation could widen the gap again?
No, I don’t see that. Because we don’t see development cooperation and climate action as alternatives, but rather we tie the two together. Even in crises, for example, in our support for Ukraine: We help with reconstruction and do so in a transformative manner at the same time. Or in food security: We increase soil fertility and develop new agricultural techniques to promote climate adaptation simultaneously. We don’t just want to provide food, we want to increase the resilience of countries so that the fight against hunger, agricultural production and climate adaptation go hand in hand.
Adding up hunger reduction, climate adaptation and hydrogen technology – is that the formula for achieving the 100 billion a year worldwide that the developed countries have promised the Global South?
This sounds to me like I should feel bad about it. Why? We exclusively promote green hydrogen in our development cooperation. Along with the expansion of renewables, this is one of the core technologies for climate action and, therefore, part of international climate financing for developing countries. Moreover, we are considered one of the countries that strictly adhere to the OECD criteria for climate financing. So why should promoting green hydrogen be anything other than climate action?
Because there is a feeling that the numbers are glossed over. The developed countries aimed to reach the 100 billion in 2023. So far, no one has confirmed that they will meet that target. Everywhere it is said that the OECD is still calculating.
We do not gloss over anything! Hydrogen can only be credited if it is regenerative, i.e., produced with renewable energies. And funds for the fight against hunger can only be credited if they include either adaptation or mitigation elements. A bag of rice shipped to Liberia does not count towards this. If we help reintroduce the half-moon technique in Niger with an increased water retention capacity of the soil and we save six tons of CO2 per hectare annually as a result, we will achieve several goals simultaneously. And I can say one thing for certain: We will not shy away from our responsibilities. Germany will contribute more than its mathematical fair share to international climate financing.
Do partner countries accept hydrogen technology as part of the 100 billion package?
You have to stand by your stance. And our stance is that hydrogen technology is, of course, part of our development cooperation with countries like Morocco or Namibia. We are committed to ensuring that new hydrogen supply chains also result in good, sustainable development on the ground. That the energy transition is simultaneously promoted locally and that the local population is supplied with electricity. If this is not accepted, we have to talk about why not. That doesn’t mean that we do less elsewhere.
Can you give any examples?
In South Africa, power outages are the biggest economic obstacle. If we help ensure that the country has an increasingly stable energy supply with a growing proportion of renewables, that is the best way also to create additional jobs. We want to focus our spending, after all. It is always part of the respective bilateral cooperation. And then it is also credited.
Does the COP in Dubai in November stand a chance of success if we don’t reach the 100 billion?
It would certainly not make the negotiations any easier. But the good thing about the OECD figures is that they can’t be glossed over. So if the figures show that we are on the right track, it would certainly be helpful. If they don’t do that, the negotiations will be more difficult.
The climate conference is held in one of the most fossil fuel-rich countries on the planet. Is there any hope of success?
Our message to the hosts is that we have expectations, especially regarding emission reductions. That is the blank spot that was left at the last COP. This needs to get better in Dubai.
Would it be conceivable for the developed countries to say that we will put more on the table after 2025 if other countries like China or South Korea, which have been very reluctant so far, also join in?
I would advise all current donors against making an additional financial commitment if not all who are in a position to contribute are involved. And, of course, all those who contribute to the climate problem. That was the big flaw of the last COP, that China dodged loss and damage financing. I would have preferred that we had included countries like China, the Arab states, Singapore and others back then.
And that also includes CO2 storage, i.e., CCS?
There is a debate about that, yes. But I’m not worried about that, because this technical path has no chance of becoming a winning issue in economic terms.
A bold statement!
Maybe, but that’s how I see it. Permanent production on a fossil basis in order to then capture and store the emissions from energy production has always been an economic pipe dream. But of course, some countries will not give up this option. And if these countries believe they have a business case, then all I can say is: go ahead!
But the question is more fundamental. If the decision to use CCS is taken somewhere now, it will rejuvenate the entire fossil fuel system. It would convey that we are continuing with coal, oil and gas. A new back door would open.
Not at all. In Europe, the course has been set for a world with 100 percent renewables. There will be some CCS for unavoidable industrial emissions, but that will be it. The reality is that without government support, there are no more fossil investments at the moment. Without the state taking on the risk, the BPs and Shells of this world will no longer invest in oil or gas.
And yet, that’s precisely what the EU – namely CCS – recently failed to rule out.
So? Who’s doing it? I don’t see anyone. All EU states must achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050. From a development perspective, it is clear that the EU will remain a pioneer and that the reality will be essentially a renewable one and, for a few member states, a nuclear one.
Will it not be the case that we get a global renewables target in Dubai that doesn’t hurt anyone? Including fossil energies that are allowed to continue operating if there is CCS?
I don’t consider the CCS debate to be that threatening. We only talk about the expansion of renewables with all our partner countries. There are no relevant CCS projects in other donor countries either, while renewables, including storage, are now a highly sophisticated technology. It may well be that the classic fossil countries want to keep a door open. And yet: When I recently visited Iraq, their biggest concern was that they might miss the opportunity for renewables, including hydrogen, because the Arab states, in particular, are making such massive progress in this area.
However, we first support gas production in Senegal. How does that fit together?
We have reached a very solid agreement with Senegal on a Just Energy Transition Partnership, which excludes the promotion of fossil energies. And I believe that the good result, namely to cover 40 percent of Senegal’s electricity generation capacities with renewables by 2030, would not have happened without us. It is only thanks to our convincing presentation that the President agreed to 40 percent in the end instead of the 35 percent initially envisaged. Considering the economic growth that Senegal aims for, this is very remarkable. Of course, the agreement does not require Senegal to abandon its gas completely.
So gas is a bridging technology there, too?
We also have gas as a bridging technology in Germany. It would be difficult to explain to others that we use something they are not allowed to use. We are currently having quite a discussion with our partners in Africa, who very openly accuse us of duplicity in many areas. To say that we promote renewables, but only if you agree not to use your gas – I don’t think that’s right.
How does a European donor country respond to accusations of duplicity?
It was not Europe that signed the Paris Agreement, but the whole world. And we take that as a yardstick. We cannot allow ourselves to be pushed into the corner of thinking that climate action is only a concern of the West or the North. But then we also have to deliver – on cooperation and in financing.
A new global political bloc formed at the Amazon Summit in Belém convened by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: the alliance of tropical rainforest countries. It has formed around the eight South American countries that belong to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OCTA). In addition to Brazil, these are Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Suriname and Guyana. The Belém Summit was their first meeting since 2009.
But the new alliance extends beyond the South American grouping: Together with Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo-Brazzaville, they form a new force in the international climate arena that is expected to make its debut at the next UN climate change conference, COP 28, in December in the United Arab Emirates. In their joint communiqué, which the Caribbean state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines also signed, the twelve states reaffirmed their commitment under the title “United For Our Forests.”
However, the final political declaration of the Amazon countries fell short of expectations. Although the OCTA states agreed in Belém on an alliance against deforestation in the Amazon region, they could not agree on the common goal of completely stopping rainforest deforestation. Lula has pledged to end deforestation in his country by 2030. But other OCTA countries, especially poorer countries in the region, did not feel ready to reach this goal. A consensus could not be achieved with them.
There was another conflict over oil exploration in the region. This dispute, too, could not be overcome at the summit. This was a source of tension between the Brazilian government and Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
Petro was blunt in his speech. He harshly criticized oil exploration in the forest and reproached what he called “progressive denialism.” Right-wing governments, said the Colombian, “have an easy escape, which is denialism.” It is a trap for progressives who “create another kind of denialism and talk about ecological transitions.” He continued: “We are on the verge of the extinction of life. And in this decade, we politicians have to make decisions.”
On Sunday, at the Amazon Dialogues – a pre-summit event involving society, local governments, indigenous peoples, scientists, traditional communities and social movements – Colombia’s Environment Minister Susana Muhamad advocated a progressive plan to end oil exploration in the region. Brazil, with intentions to explore for oil in the so-called Equatorial Margin, a wide swath that includes offshore wells and runs from the Amazon to the Northeast, blocked the Colombian idea.
In the end, the final declaration only made modest progress on the topic of oil. The document opens a dialog between Amazonian countries on the sustainability of mining and oil exploration.
On deforestation, the final text stresses the “urgency of agreeing on common goals to combat deforestation” and has zero deforestation in the region as an “ideal.” The declaration launches an alliance to fight deforestation in the Amazon, based on national targets such as Brazil’s zero deforestation by 2030. National legislation on forests differs between Amazonian countries, as do interests.
One of the main points of the final declaration is the citation – four times – that it is necessary to avoid the point of no return of the Amazon, a phase in which the forest can no longer regenerate due to excessive pressure from deforestation and fires, and becomes fragile, becoming a biome closer to a savannah.
It is a victory for science, especially for Brazilian researcher Carlos Nobre, who coined the term in studies with the North American Thomas Lovejoy in the 1990s. According to them, the point of no return for the Amazon will be reached when the forest is cleared by more than 20 to 25 percent. According to MapBiomas, a network of researchers, environmental groups and tech startups that measures the rainforest, Brazil has already cut down 21 percent of its forest, and the entire Amazon region has already lost 17 percent of its native cover.
The Belem Declaration is, however, comprehensive. It is an interesting starting point for cooperation between Amazon countries. It has more than 20 pages and 113 paragraphs dealing with Amazon cities, science and education, water resources, climate change, biome protection, police and intelligence cooperation, infrastructure and sustainable development, health, food security, human rights, indigenous peoples, cultural recognition, diplomatic cooperation and implementation.
In one of its opening paragraphs, the declaration condemns the “proliferation of unilateral trade measures that, based on environmental requirements and standards, result in trade barriers.” While the European Union is not explicitly mentioned, the passage likely refers to the negotiations between Mercosur and the EU – the latter is pushing for certain sustainability rules to be included in the planned trade agreement. The text says that these trade barriers “primarily affect small producers in developing countries, the pursuit of sustainable development, the promotion of Amazonian products and efforts to eradicate poverty and combat hunger, and threaten the integrity of the international trading system.”
The declaration “United for our Forests” contains a similarly veiled criticism: In it, the twelve signatory states condemn “unilateral measures” that constitutes a means of “arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination, or a disguised restriction on international trade”.
The text mentions indigenous peoples 64 times. It guarantees them and traditional communities the right to the territories they inhabit. It creates the Amazon Technical-Scientific Intergovernmental Panel with researchers from the region and the permanent participation of indigenous peoples and traditional communities.
Another important point is the creation of the Center for International Police Cooperation in the Amazon, based in Manaus – a kind of Interpol of the Amazon. The center is to help fight organized crime. In addition, an air traffic control system is intended to combat drug trafficking and the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the region. The background: Organized crime is rising in the Amazon region and is causing serious damage to the rainforest, for example, through coca cultivation and illegal gold mining. Experts such as Bram Ebus, a consultant for the International Crisis Group, say that anyone who wants to protect the Amazon must take action against organized crime there. Now the Amazon states want to coordinate their activities in this area as well.
Reducing emissions in industrial sectors such as steel and cement production is considered one of the biggest challenges of climate policy. But there is hope: “Steel has moved from inertia to progress,” a new Global Energy Monitor report says. Its conclusion: “The last year was pivotal for heavy industry decarbonization.” Now, 43 percent of new planned steel capacity is based on lower-emission electric arc furnaces. Although 57 percent of planned steel mills still use coal-based blast furnaces, the figure was 67 percent in 2022.
In Europe, three major subsidy packages recently made headlines:
“Coal-based steel production is on the decline, but not quickly enough,” concludes the Global Energy Monitor. Progress is particularly slow in China. As the largest steel producer, the country faces particularly big tasks:
So far, the climate goals for China’s steel sector are not particularly ambitious. By 2030, it is to achieve a (undefined) emission peak. However, emissions have been slowly decreasing for the past two years, according to Xinyi Shen, a steel expert at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). The cause is a reduced demand in the construction and infrastructure sectors, not stricter regulations.
China’s government has taken some steps to reduce the sector’s emissions in the medium term:
However, many of these measures have loopholes. Caitlin Swalec of Global Energy Monitor criticizes some companies for replacing already derelict steel mills with new capacity. In addition, there are illegally operated, unregistered steel mills that are not covered by such “replacement programs.” The government’s goal was to reduce production capacity to below one billion tons by 2020. However, 1.065 billion tons of steel were produced in the same year, according to expert Xinyi Shen, who estimates that the steel capacity is about 200 million tons higher than planned.
Nevertheless, there are signs of hope. According to Shen, since 2021, the focus of the exchange program has been on low-emission technologies. Between 2021 and the first half of 2023, there have been “promising advancements”. Since 2021, the share of lower-emission electric arc furnaces in the total new capacity has risen to 30 to 40 percent, according to a new CREA analysis.
The world’s first ironworks using hydrogen for direct reduction were built in China, and a hydrogen-based steel plant is currently under construction, with more in the pipeline, says Kevin Tu from Agora Energiewende China. Additionally, some provinces are leading the way with innovative approaches. In Fujian, 90 percent of the state’s revenue from electricity payments by iron and steel manufacturers is reinvested in the sector for electric arc furnaces, energy saving, or CO2 capture. In Sichuan, there are tax incentives for electric arc furnaces, which, unlike other steel plants, are allowed to continue production on days with high pollution, according to Tu.
However, critics say that the investments are insufficient. “Comparing the size of China’s steel industry to the scale of investments in research and development and technological transformation, China lags far behind Europe and the US,” says Caitlin Swalec from the Global Energy Monitor. Data confirms this: In the US and Germany, a similar number of lower-emission steel capacities are set to be created as in China, even though the steel sector in both states is much smaller.
Many Chinese steel companies are holding back from further investments because lower-emission technologies are not yet mature. Moreover, the demand for green steel is not sufficient to incentivize investments, says Shen. Tu adds that carbon capture and storage (CCS) in coal-based blast furnaces is progressing very slowly. Furthermore, in addition to a few major companies, there are numerous small steel producers that lack the necessary resources for investments due to overcapacity and low steel prices, making it difficult to implement climate protection measures.
Pressure could arise from existing energy efficiency requirements. Steel plants that do not meet the prescribed efficiency values by 2025 are to be shut down. According to Kevin Tu, the requirements should lead to 30 percent of current iron and steel capacity being shut down or modernized in the next two years. However, the shutdown of steel plants has not been strictly enforced in the past, says Bin Yan from consulting firm Sinolytics.
China also aims to reduce sector emissions by increased steel scrap recycling. The government plans to “increase the share of scrap-based steel production from ten percent in 2022 to 15 percent in 2025 and further to 20 percent in 2030,” says Kevin Tu. This will “significantly reduce” sector CO2 emissions. By using electric arc furnaces, emissions per ton of steel could be reduced by 70 percent, according to Shen from CREA. However, Caitlin Swalec from the Global Energy Monitor notes that concrete measures for achieving these targets are still lacking.
To curb foreign demand and thus reduce emissions, China’s government has increased export tariffs and reduced tax benefits since 2021. However, due to the weak yuan and low production costs, China’s exports are still highly competitive and recently reached a seven-year high, according to Shen.
“More decisive policy incentives are urgently needed” to lower emissions, says Tu. The high costs and lack of incentives are currently deterring companies from voluntary decarbonization, says Shen. The government needs to “set emission reduction goals, provide financial support and create market incentives to persuade steel manufacturers to change their production methods,” says CREA’s expert. The latter could be achieved by including the steel sector in China’s emissions trading scheme. From the outside, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism could also put pressure on Chinese producers, according to Swalec.
There is an infographic hanging in room 216 on the second floor of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in Manhattan. The piece is called “Anatomy of an AI System,” and it shows what it takes to bring Amazon’s smart speaker “Echo,” to life. It’s a map of the components of an AI: It is about geological earth processes and the extraction of raw materials, about the fabrication of chips, the wages of the workers involved, the training of the system with data, and the disposal of old devices.
Until a few years ago, life cycle assessments (LCAs), illuminating a product from the cradle to the grave, were only something for research laboratories. That is now a thing of the past. In connection with the global sustainability goals and the climate crisis, they are increasingly gaining the public’s attention. They have even arrived in museums.
While there is now precise data on the socio-economic impact of a pair of jeans or a commercial flight, information about artificial intelligence is still scarce. This is for several reasons: Data centers and tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and ChatGPT inventor OpenAI rarely disclose numbers, companies and researchers use different measurement methods, and in the global material, data and energy flow, it is difficult to distinguish AI applications from one another. Moreover, the technology is evolving dynamically. Power consumption figures can become outdated after only a short time because they do not take into account the efficiency gains of newer devices.
What is known leads experts – as of yet – to a rather pessimistic interim conclusion. “AI systems can have serious environmental impacts,” says the AI Index Report 2023, Stanford University’s highly regarded annual trend report.
The chosen design and infrastructure can indeed influence the result. For example, the training runs of GPT-3, a ChatGPT precursor, were developed with 175 billion parameters – meaning the connections between artificial neurons. They generated 502 tons of CO2. The open-source Bloom language model with 176 billion parameters, on the other hand, produces just 25 tons of CO2.
However, there is concern that the numbers will rise. Spurred by interest in the ChatGPT platform, which was released in late November 2022, the industry is in a frenzy. The number of applied training data and resulting computing operations is growing exponentially, more and more companies are programming AI applications for smartphone apps, computers or cars – and both companies and consumers are using these applications millions or even billions of times a day.
The global information and telecommunications sector emitted around 700 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020, accounting for 1.4 percent of global emissions. Compared to the transport or construction sectors, this is modest. But AI is unlikely to stop there. According to Sasha Luccioni, who works at the intersection of climate change and AI at US company Hugging Face, new generations of language models are producing thousands of times more carbon dioxide than previous generations.
The water footprint is another pressing challenge as temperatures rise and water tables fall. According to the University of California, Riverside, 20 to 50 requests on ChatGPT consume about half a liter of water. It is needed in two interrelated processes: First, to cool power plants that generate electricity – second, to cool data centers that use the produced electricity to run their machines. Thirty percent of all data centers are located in the United States; Google’s facilities alone consumed nearly 13 billion liters of clean water in 2021. And the stock continues to grow: The number of servers worldwide increased by more than 37 percent between 2017 and 2022 to 85.6 billion units.
Some companies boast that they are taking responsibility. Manufacturer Nvidia claimed to use self-learning AI models to make the production of its chips, which are essential for artificial intelligence, more energy efficient. Google claimed to have trained its PaLM language model using a data center in Oklahoma, which is 89 percent CO2-free thanks to renewable energy. But so far, that’s the exception. Globally, the majority of AI developers rely on fossil fuel grids.
Scientist Kate Crawford says artificial intelligence can’t be called artificial or intelligent, given the numerous problems the technology poses. The Australian scientist worked together with an artist to design the infographic on display at New York’s MoMa and also mapped the AI landscape in her book “Atlas of AI.” In it, she points out – in addition to the impact on nature and the environment – that humans are being exploited. This happens, for example, when they have to process raw data at low wages in “digital sweatshops” so that companies like OpenAI and their platform ChatGPT can use it as training data.
Crawford doesn’t deny that AI can advance medicine, help build “smart” energy grids and control autonomous vehicles. But part of the truth is that AI is in many ways an “extractive” industry, as she writes, So far, it’s hardly sustainable.
High hopes rest on green hydrogen: It is expected to help reduce emissions in the steel sector, find use in power plants, make shipping and – some hope – passenger transport more climate-friendly. But to meet future demand, electrolysis capacity will have to grow faster than the wind and solar industries have managed during their periods of highest percentage growth. This is revealed by a study published in Nature Energy, in which authors from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) were particularly involved.
The EU aims to produce ten million tons of green hydrogen by 2030 and import the same amount from abroad. To achieve this, electrolysis capacity would have to double every year from 2024, according to the study’s authors. Such growth rates are “unprecedented” for energy technologies, they write. They believe a “breakthrough” toward high capacity will not occur before 2038. They add that it takes time for high growth rates to lead to a high installed capacity of electrolyzers. The authors warn that governments “urgently need to develop business models for investing in green hydrogen,” for example, through financial incentives or green hydrogen quotas. To ensure the simultaneous growth of hydrogen supply and demand, as well as the infrastructure for the use and production of hydrogen, “considerable coordination” is required on the part of policymakers.
Meanwhile, a new study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, published a few days ago by the EU Directorate General, rocks several fundamental beliefs about the new hydrogen world: According to the analysis, the capacity of electrolyzers that could be economically operated in Germany would be zero in 2050, assuming a perfect internal market. The largest hydrogen producer would be France. For the EU, it would be most cost-effective to cover its hydrogen needs entirely itself. Imports would be neither necessary nor economical. If intermediate products such as ammonia or sponge iron, which are to be produced using hydrogen, were imported and only the subsequent processing steps took place in the EU, the demand for hydrogen could be reduced by one-third. This would make a significant difference in the continued expansion of renewable energies. nib/ber/ae
Resistance by the local population against large industrial corporations in Latin America often resembles David against Goliath. This is also the case in the Sawré Muybu indigenous area in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil. It is home to the indigenous Munduruku people, who have been fighting legal and illegal mining in the region since the 1980s, most recently against the British company Anglo American in particular. 39-year-old Alessandra Korap is one of the most prominent environmental activists. This year she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “Green Nobel Prize.”
“I think it’s good that our work and our struggle is gaining international visibility,” Korap told Table.Media. “We have had to face so many setbacks in the past few years.” Before Korap, a Brazilian woman had won the Goldman Prize once before: In 1996, Marina Silva was awarded the prize, and today she is Brazil’s environment minister.
Korap spent the past few days at the Amazon Summit in Belém. She is disappointed with the outcome. When it comes to important decisions about the lives and territories of indigenous people, they are not at the presidential table, she said. She demands more protection for the rainforest and the indigenous peoples’ territories.
Korap started advocating for environmental causes in the Amazon early on. In 2019, the energetic woman already drew attention to the mercury contamination of the soil and water and led the resistance against Anglo American. With success: After numerous protests, several legal disputes, but also countless threats against Korap and her family, the British company abandoned its plans for 27 mining projects in the region in 2021.
The Goldman Environmental Foundation highlights that the victory against Anglo American, especially under the then government of Jair Bolsonaro, was a remarkable achievement. Under the government of the far-right ex-president, both climate action and minority rights were not a priority. During his election campaign, Bolsonaro already said he would no longer have an inch of land designated as indigenous – and kept his word. During his term in office, all processes for “demarcation,” i.e., for recognizing indigenous land, came to a standstill. Bolsonaro repeatedly emphasized that the indigenous people already had “too much land.”
Simultaneously, deforestation in the Amazon region increased sharply under Bolsonaro – even in designated indigenous areas, albeit only half as fast as in other parts of the country. Brazil’s indigenous people, therefore, rightly see themselves as guardians of the forest: “We are fighting for our land and thus for the protection of the climate,” says Alessandra Korap in the video call. “There is no intact forest without the local people.”
Korap’s daily routine consists of countless meetings with various organizations for environmental conservation and indigenous rights. To participate, she often has to travel for hours on boats through the rainforest. Korap is also studying law in order to be able to defend her rights and those of the indigenous people, and she is the mother of two children. There is not much time to catch a breath – when she does have some free time, she likes to spend it in the forest.
Brazil saw a change of government at the beginning of the year. Since then, the left-leaning Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been in power. Lula intends to clearly set himself apart from his predecessor on climate action and indigenous rights. For example, Brazil has, for the first time, a Ministry of Native People – led by the indigenous Sônia Guajajara. Alessandra Korap sees this as an important and correct step. When it comes to climate action, Lula has set himself the goal of “zero deforestation” by 2030, and at the beginning of June, he presented a 150-point roadmap for this.
Alessandra Korap is happy about the change of government. But the situation for indigenous people is still far from good. Bolsonaro’s advocates, the “team of evil,” as Korap calls them, are still in the parliaments and work for the agricultural industry and against the rights of indigenous peoples and climate protection. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court and the legislative process are currently fighting over the so-called “Marco Temporal.” The intention is that in the future indigenous people will only have a right to official recognition of their land if they were already living there when the constitution was proclaimed in 1988. From the perspective of its proponents, the law would protect farmers from expropriation. Above all, it is backed by the powerful agricultural lobby.
Congress approved a bill to apply the Marco Temporal for indigenous land designation in early June. If it becomes law, designating areas as indigenous would become much more difficult, as many peoples would have problems proving that they lived there before 1988. This could also affect Alessandra Korap’s homeland of Sawré Muybu, which has yet to be definitively designated as an indigenous territory. “We’ll keep fighting,” Korap says. Lisa Kuner
July 2023 was the globally hottest month ever recorded. For the first time, the average temperature was 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. This means that the 1.5-degree target has not yet been exceeded, but this record once again proves that it is time to act!
Jochen Flasbarth is quite optimistic in our big interview. He believes that Europe’s climate action is on the right track. The State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) spoke with Bernhard Pötter and Horand Knaup about what needs to be done better at COP28 than last year, Flasbarth’s hopes for climate financing and why Lindner’s cost-cutting measures will not curtail Germany’s contribution.
The transformation of deforestation and the steel sector is progressing far too slowly. At the Amazon Summit in Belém, Brazil, eight countries failed to agree on a real breakthrough, reports Daniela Chiaretti from the conference. An end to deforestation by 2030, as proposed by Lula, did not find broad approval. In the steel sector, billions in subsidies are promised for decarbonization. But China does not act fast enough. If the People’s Republic’s steel sector were a country, it would rank fifth among the world’s largest emitters – and the government’s climate plans for the sector have many loopholes.
In year eight after the Paris Climate Agreement, which you helped negotiate, temperatures continue to rise, we have floods and forest fires around the world like never before. Where do we stand, really?
Even if it may sound strange: Eight years after Paris, we are in a better position than I dared to hope back then. I would not have thought it possible in 2015 that the whole world would be talking about 2050 as a target for greenhouse gas neutrality. Yes, it is not agreed globally, but it is the consensus in the G7 and G20. And the fact that we are not talking about 2 degrees, but still about 1.5 degrees as a target, is also something I did not imagine in Paris.
Reality feels different, the 1.5 degrees can no longer be achieved.
There’s no denying that we’re still struggling with implementation. But with the Just Energy Transition Partnerships, for example, we have dropped important anchors on how we can bundle the financial resources of donors and the ambitions of partners, especially in important emerging countries – and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But it is clear that the next steps must follow.
There are record temperatures everywhere, on land and at sea. Science says very clearly: The current pace is not enough.
For me, that’s two levels. Yes, the situation is bad. But as a developed country in Europe, we have legally set the most ambitious climate neutrality target by 2045. And the course towards achieving this goal has been set. We are also doing well in the global comparison. Incidentally, the German Chancellor never leaves any doubt for even a second that we in Germany will reach the 2045 target. The whole system is geared towards maintaining Germany as an industrial location and its prosperity, while remaining climate neutral at the same time. None of this is easy, but there is an absolute will to achieve this goal.
Does climate have the status in this government that it should have?
Of course, there is always more that can be done. But we are taking a very, very strenuous path, also in order to gain the support of the population. The course has been set for the expansion of renewables, for which I also fought for a long time. The economy minister has continued this in a very difficult phase. Or the hydrogen strategy – for me, these are all proof that this government is taking the issue much more seriously than the last one.
Declarations of intent are one thing, but the government is simultaneously gutting the Climate Change Act. How credible is that?
What is crucial is that we make progress in expanding renewables and that we have enough green hydrogen for processes that cannot be converted to use electricity. All this is on the way. Besides: The Climate Change Act is no longer my responsibility, I fought for it in my previous position.
But international climate financing is one of your responsibilities. The Chancellor has pledged six billion euros a year between now and 2025, while the finance minister is forcing all departments to take tough budget cuts. How does Germany intend to keep its promises?
In 2021 we were at 5.34 billion. There is still a gap – but I am confident that the promised funding can be realized. From the BMZ’s side, climate action and adaptation are even stronger integrated into all programs. And the other ministries involved – the Ministry of Economics, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – also prioritize the issue. We will certainly not have to hide ourselves at the SDG Summit this fall and at COP in November.
What did the numbers look like in 2022?
There are no concrete figures yet. The evaluation is quite complex, we will probably know more by the end of August.
What is clear, however, is that there will have to be quite a leap upward between 2024 and 2025 to keep the Chancellor’s promise.
Why? We achieved well over five billion in 2021. The figures for the following year will be similar. For instance, we launched the PtX Fund at the end of 2022 with a total of 270 million euros to support green hydrogen. For instance, we have signed climate and development partnerships with South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kenya and Peru. This involves considerable additional funding. That is why the figures for 2022 will undoubtedly be higher than those for 2021. And then, we have to see how we close any remaining delta by 2025.
Are you not worried that the finance minister’s cost-cutting operation could widen the gap again?
No, I don’t see that. Because we don’t see development cooperation and climate action as alternatives, but rather we tie the two together. Even in crises, for example, in our support for Ukraine: We help with reconstruction and do so in a transformative manner at the same time. Or in food security: We increase soil fertility and develop new agricultural techniques to promote climate adaptation simultaneously. We don’t just want to provide food, we want to increase the resilience of countries so that the fight against hunger, agricultural production and climate adaptation go hand in hand.
Adding up hunger reduction, climate adaptation and hydrogen technology – is that the formula for achieving the 100 billion a year worldwide that the developed countries have promised the Global South?
This sounds to me like I should feel bad about it. Why? We exclusively promote green hydrogen in our development cooperation. Along with the expansion of renewables, this is one of the core technologies for climate action and, therefore, part of international climate financing for developing countries. Moreover, we are considered one of the countries that strictly adhere to the OECD criteria for climate financing. So why should promoting green hydrogen be anything other than climate action?
Because there is a feeling that the numbers are glossed over. The developed countries aimed to reach the 100 billion in 2023. So far, no one has confirmed that they will meet that target. Everywhere it is said that the OECD is still calculating.
We do not gloss over anything! Hydrogen can only be credited if it is regenerative, i.e., produced with renewable energies. And funds for the fight against hunger can only be credited if they include either adaptation or mitigation elements. A bag of rice shipped to Liberia does not count towards this. If we help reintroduce the half-moon technique in Niger with an increased water retention capacity of the soil and we save six tons of CO2 per hectare annually as a result, we will achieve several goals simultaneously. And I can say one thing for certain: We will not shy away from our responsibilities. Germany will contribute more than its mathematical fair share to international climate financing.
Do partner countries accept hydrogen technology as part of the 100 billion package?
You have to stand by your stance. And our stance is that hydrogen technology is, of course, part of our development cooperation with countries like Morocco or Namibia. We are committed to ensuring that new hydrogen supply chains also result in good, sustainable development on the ground. That the energy transition is simultaneously promoted locally and that the local population is supplied with electricity. If this is not accepted, we have to talk about why not. That doesn’t mean that we do less elsewhere.
Can you give any examples?
In South Africa, power outages are the biggest economic obstacle. If we help ensure that the country has an increasingly stable energy supply with a growing proportion of renewables, that is the best way also to create additional jobs. We want to focus our spending, after all. It is always part of the respective bilateral cooperation. And then it is also credited.
Does the COP in Dubai in November stand a chance of success if we don’t reach the 100 billion?
It would certainly not make the negotiations any easier. But the good thing about the OECD figures is that they can’t be glossed over. So if the figures show that we are on the right track, it would certainly be helpful. If they don’t do that, the negotiations will be more difficult.
The climate conference is held in one of the most fossil fuel-rich countries on the planet. Is there any hope of success?
Our message to the hosts is that we have expectations, especially regarding emission reductions. That is the blank spot that was left at the last COP. This needs to get better in Dubai.
Would it be conceivable for the developed countries to say that we will put more on the table after 2025 if other countries like China or South Korea, which have been very reluctant so far, also join in?
I would advise all current donors against making an additional financial commitment if not all who are in a position to contribute are involved. And, of course, all those who contribute to the climate problem. That was the big flaw of the last COP, that China dodged loss and damage financing. I would have preferred that we had included countries like China, the Arab states, Singapore and others back then.
And that also includes CO2 storage, i.e., CCS?
There is a debate about that, yes. But I’m not worried about that, because this technical path has no chance of becoming a winning issue in economic terms.
A bold statement!
Maybe, but that’s how I see it. Permanent production on a fossil basis in order to then capture and store the emissions from energy production has always been an economic pipe dream. But of course, some countries will not give up this option. And if these countries believe they have a business case, then all I can say is: go ahead!
But the question is more fundamental. If the decision to use CCS is taken somewhere now, it will rejuvenate the entire fossil fuel system. It would convey that we are continuing with coal, oil and gas. A new back door would open.
Not at all. In Europe, the course has been set for a world with 100 percent renewables. There will be some CCS for unavoidable industrial emissions, but that will be it. The reality is that without government support, there are no more fossil investments at the moment. Without the state taking on the risk, the BPs and Shells of this world will no longer invest in oil or gas.
And yet, that’s precisely what the EU – namely CCS – recently failed to rule out.
So? Who’s doing it? I don’t see anyone. All EU states must achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050. From a development perspective, it is clear that the EU will remain a pioneer and that the reality will be essentially a renewable one and, for a few member states, a nuclear one.
Will it not be the case that we get a global renewables target in Dubai that doesn’t hurt anyone? Including fossil energies that are allowed to continue operating if there is CCS?
I don’t consider the CCS debate to be that threatening. We only talk about the expansion of renewables with all our partner countries. There are no relevant CCS projects in other donor countries either, while renewables, including storage, are now a highly sophisticated technology. It may well be that the classic fossil countries want to keep a door open. And yet: When I recently visited Iraq, their biggest concern was that they might miss the opportunity for renewables, including hydrogen, because the Arab states, in particular, are making such massive progress in this area.
However, we first support gas production in Senegal. How does that fit together?
We have reached a very solid agreement with Senegal on a Just Energy Transition Partnership, which excludes the promotion of fossil energies. And I believe that the good result, namely to cover 40 percent of Senegal’s electricity generation capacities with renewables by 2030, would not have happened without us. It is only thanks to our convincing presentation that the President agreed to 40 percent in the end instead of the 35 percent initially envisaged. Considering the economic growth that Senegal aims for, this is very remarkable. Of course, the agreement does not require Senegal to abandon its gas completely.
So gas is a bridging technology there, too?
We also have gas as a bridging technology in Germany. It would be difficult to explain to others that we use something they are not allowed to use. We are currently having quite a discussion with our partners in Africa, who very openly accuse us of duplicity in many areas. To say that we promote renewables, but only if you agree not to use your gas – I don’t think that’s right.
How does a European donor country respond to accusations of duplicity?
It was not Europe that signed the Paris Agreement, but the whole world. And we take that as a yardstick. We cannot allow ourselves to be pushed into the corner of thinking that climate action is only a concern of the West or the North. But then we also have to deliver – on cooperation and in financing.
A new global political bloc formed at the Amazon Summit in Belém convened by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: the alliance of tropical rainforest countries. It has formed around the eight South American countries that belong to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OCTA). In addition to Brazil, these are Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Suriname and Guyana. The Belém Summit was their first meeting since 2009.
But the new alliance extends beyond the South American grouping: Together with Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo-Brazzaville, they form a new force in the international climate arena that is expected to make its debut at the next UN climate change conference, COP 28, in December in the United Arab Emirates. In their joint communiqué, which the Caribbean state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines also signed, the twelve states reaffirmed their commitment under the title “United For Our Forests.”
However, the final political declaration of the Amazon countries fell short of expectations. Although the OCTA states agreed in Belém on an alliance against deforestation in the Amazon region, they could not agree on the common goal of completely stopping rainforest deforestation. Lula has pledged to end deforestation in his country by 2030. But other OCTA countries, especially poorer countries in the region, did not feel ready to reach this goal. A consensus could not be achieved with them.
There was another conflict over oil exploration in the region. This dispute, too, could not be overcome at the summit. This was a source of tension between the Brazilian government and Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
Petro was blunt in his speech. He harshly criticized oil exploration in the forest and reproached what he called “progressive denialism.” Right-wing governments, said the Colombian, “have an easy escape, which is denialism.” It is a trap for progressives who “create another kind of denialism and talk about ecological transitions.” He continued: “We are on the verge of the extinction of life. And in this decade, we politicians have to make decisions.”
On Sunday, at the Amazon Dialogues – a pre-summit event involving society, local governments, indigenous peoples, scientists, traditional communities and social movements – Colombia’s Environment Minister Susana Muhamad advocated a progressive plan to end oil exploration in the region. Brazil, with intentions to explore for oil in the so-called Equatorial Margin, a wide swath that includes offshore wells and runs from the Amazon to the Northeast, blocked the Colombian idea.
In the end, the final declaration only made modest progress on the topic of oil. The document opens a dialog between Amazonian countries on the sustainability of mining and oil exploration.
On deforestation, the final text stresses the “urgency of agreeing on common goals to combat deforestation” and has zero deforestation in the region as an “ideal.” The declaration launches an alliance to fight deforestation in the Amazon, based on national targets such as Brazil’s zero deforestation by 2030. National legislation on forests differs between Amazonian countries, as do interests.
One of the main points of the final declaration is the citation – four times – that it is necessary to avoid the point of no return of the Amazon, a phase in which the forest can no longer regenerate due to excessive pressure from deforestation and fires, and becomes fragile, becoming a biome closer to a savannah.
It is a victory for science, especially for Brazilian researcher Carlos Nobre, who coined the term in studies with the North American Thomas Lovejoy in the 1990s. According to them, the point of no return for the Amazon will be reached when the forest is cleared by more than 20 to 25 percent. According to MapBiomas, a network of researchers, environmental groups and tech startups that measures the rainforest, Brazil has already cut down 21 percent of its forest, and the entire Amazon region has already lost 17 percent of its native cover.
The Belem Declaration is, however, comprehensive. It is an interesting starting point for cooperation between Amazon countries. It has more than 20 pages and 113 paragraphs dealing with Amazon cities, science and education, water resources, climate change, biome protection, police and intelligence cooperation, infrastructure and sustainable development, health, food security, human rights, indigenous peoples, cultural recognition, diplomatic cooperation and implementation.
In one of its opening paragraphs, the declaration condemns the “proliferation of unilateral trade measures that, based on environmental requirements and standards, result in trade barriers.” While the European Union is not explicitly mentioned, the passage likely refers to the negotiations between Mercosur and the EU – the latter is pushing for certain sustainability rules to be included in the planned trade agreement. The text says that these trade barriers “primarily affect small producers in developing countries, the pursuit of sustainable development, the promotion of Amazonian products and efforts to eradicate poverty and combat hunger, and threaten the integrity of the international trading system.”
The declaration “United for our Forests” contains a similarly veiled criticism: In it, the twelve signatory states condemn “unilateral measures” that constitutes a means of “arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination, or a disguised restriction on international trade”.
The text mentions indigenous peoples 64 times. It guarantees them and traditional communities the right to the territories they inhabit. It creates the Amazon Technical-Scientific Intergovernmental Panel with researchers from the region and the permanent participation of indigenous peoples and traditional communities.
Another important point is the creation of the Center for International Police Cooperation in the Amazon, based in Manaus – a kind of Interpol of the Amazon. The center is to help fight organized crime. In addition, an air traffic control system is intended to combat drug trafficking and the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the region. The background: Organized crime is rising in the Amazon region and is causing serious damage to the rainforest, for example, through coca cultivation and illegal gold mining. Experts such as Bram Ebus, a consultant for the International Crisis Group, say that anyone who wants to protect the Amazon must take action against organized crime there. Now the Amazon states want to coordinate their activities in this area as well.
Reducing emissions in industrial sectors such as steel and cement production is considered one of the biggest challenges of climate policy. But there is hope: “Steel has moved from inertia to progress,” a new Global Energy Monitor report says. Its conclusion: “The last year was pivotal for heavy industry decarbonization.” Now, 43 percent of new planned steel capacity is based on lower-emission electric arc furnaces. Although 57 percent of planned steel mills still use coal-based blast furnaces, the figure was 67 percent in 2022.
In Europe, three major subsidy packages recently made headlines:
“Coal-based steel production is on the decline, but not quickly enough,” concludes the Global Energy Monitor. Progress is particularly slow in China. As the largest steel producer, the country faces particularly big tasks:
So far, the climate goals for China’s steel sector are not particularly ambitious. By 2030, it is to achieve a (undefined) emission peak. However, emissions have been slowly decreasing for the past two years, according to Xinyi Shen, a steel expert at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). The cause is a reduced demand in the construction and infrastructure sectors, not stricter regulations.
China’s government has taken some steps to reduce the sector’s emissions in the medium term:
However, many of these measures have loopholes. Caitlin Swalec of Global Energy Monitor criticizes some companies for replacing already derelict steel mills with new capacity. In addition, there are illegally operated, unregistered steel mills that are not covered by such “replacement programs.” The government’s goal was to reduce production capacity to below one billion tons by 2020. However, 1.065 billion tons of steel were produced in the same year, according to expert Xinyi Shen, who estimates that the steel capacity is about 200 million tons higher than planned.
Nevertheless, there are signs of hope. According to Shen, since 2021, the focus of the exchange program has been on low-emission technologies. Between 2021 and the first half of 2023, there have been “promising advancements”. Since 2021, the share of lower-emission electric arc furnaces in the total new capacity has risen to 30 to 40 percent, according to a new CREA analysis.
The world’s first ironworks using hydrogen for direct reduction were built in China, and a hydrogen-based steel plant is currently under construction, with more in the pipeline, says Kevin Tu from Agora Energiewende China. Additionally, some provinces are leading the way with innovative approaches. In Fujian, 90 percent of the state’s revenue from electricity payments by iron and steel manufacturers is reinvested in the sector for electric arc furnaces, energy saving, or CO2 capture. In Sichuan, there are tax incentives for electric arc furnaces, which, unlike other steel plants, are allowed to continue production on days with high pollution, according to Tu.
However, critics say that the investments are insufficient. “Comparing the size of China’s steel industry to the scale of investments in research and development and technological transformation, China lags far behind Europe and the US,” says Caitlin Swalec from the Global Energy Monitor. Data confirms this: In the US and Germany, a similar number of lower-emission steel capacities are set to be created as in China, even though the steel sector in both states is much smaller.
Many Chinese steel companies are holding back from further investments because lower-emission technologies are not yet mature. Moreover, the demand for green steel is not sufficient to incentivize investments, says Shen. Tu adds that carbon capture and storage (CCS) in coal-based blast furnaces is progressing very slowly. Furthermore, in addition to a few major companies, there are numerous small steel producers that lack the necessary resources for investments due to overcapacity and low steel prices, making it difficult to implement climate protection measures.
Pressure could arise from existing energy efficiency requirements. Steel plants that do not meet the prescribed efficiency values by 2025 are to be shut down. According to Kevin Tu, the requirements should lead to 30 percent of current iron and steel capacity being shut down or modernized in the next two years. However, the shutdown of steel plants has not been strictly enforced in the past, says Bin Yan from consulting firm Sinolytics.
China also aims to reduce sector emissions by increased steel scrap recycling. The government plans to “increase the share of scrap-based steel production from ten percent in 2022 to 15 percent in 2025 and further to 20 percent in 2030,” says Kevin Tu. This will “significantly reduce” sector CO2 emissions. By using electric arc furnaces, emissions per ton of steel could be reduced by 70 percent, according to Shen from CREA. However, Caitlin Swalec from the Global Energy Monitor notes that concrete measures for achieving these targets are still lacking.
To curb foreign demand and thus reduce emissions, China’s government has increased export tariffs and reduced tax benefits since 2021. However, due to the weak yuan and low production costs, China’s exports are still highly competitive and recently reached a seven-year high, according to Shen.
“More decisive policy incentives are urgently needed” to lower emissions, says Tu. The high costs and lack of incentives are currently deterring companies from voluntary decarbonization, says Shen. The government needs to “set emission reduction goals, provide financial support and create market incentives to persuade steel manufacturers to change their production methods,” says CREA’s expert. The latter could be achieved by including the steel sector in China’s emissions trading scheme. From the outside, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism could also put pressure on Chinese producers, according to Swalec.
There is an infographic hanging in room 216 on the second floor of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in Manhattan. The piece is called “Anatomy of an AI System,” and it shows what it takes to bring Amazon’s smart speaker “Echo,” to life. It’s a map of the components of an AI: It is about geological earth processes and the extraction of raw materials, about the fabrication of chips, the wages of the workers involved, the training of the system with data, and the disposal of old devices.
Until a few years ago, life cycle assessments (LCAs), illuminating a product from the cradle to the grave, were only something for research laboratories. That is now a thing of the past. In connection with the global sustainability goals and the climate crisis, they are increasingly gaining the public’s attention. They have even arrived in museums.
While there is now precise data on the socio-economic impact of a pair of jeans or a commercial flight, information about artificial intelligence is still scarce. This is for several reasons: Data centers and tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and ChatGPT inventor OpenAI rarely disclose numbers, companies and researchers use different measurement methods, and in the global material, data and energy flow, it is difficult to distinguish AI applications from one another. Moreover, the technology is evolving dynamically. Power consumption figures can become outdated after only a short time because they do not take into account the efficiency gains of newer devices.
What is known leads experts – as of yet – to a rather pessimistic interim conclusion. “AI systems can have serious environmental impacts,” says the AI Index Report 2023, Stanford University’s highly regarded annual trend report.
The chosen design and infrastructure can indeed influence the result. For example, the training runs of GPT-3, a ChatGPT precursor, were developed with 175 billion parameters – meaning the connections between artificial neurons. They generated 502 tons of CO2. The open-source Bloom language model with 176 billion parameters, on the other hand, produces just 25 tons of CO2.
However, there is concern that the numbers will rise. Spurred by interest in the ChatGPT platform, which was released in late November 2022, the industry is in a frenzy. The number of applied training data and resulting computing operations is growing exponentially, more and more companies are programming AI applications for smartphone apps, computers or cars – and both companies and consumers are using these applications millions or even billions of times a day.
The global information and telecommunications sector emitted around 700 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020, accounting for 1.4 percent of global emissions. Compared to the transport or construction sectors, this is modest. But AI is unlikely to stop there. According to Sasha Luccioni, who works at the intersection of climate change and AI at US company Hugging Face, new generations of language models are producing thousands of times more carbon dioxide than previous generations.
The water footprint is another pressing challenge as temperatures rise and water tables fall. According to the University of California, Riverside, 20 to 50 requests on ChatGPT consume about half a liter of water. It is needed in two interrelated processes: First, to cool power plants that generate electricity – second, to cool data centers that use the produced electricity to run their machines. Thirty percent of all data centers are located in the United States; Google’s facilities alone consumed nearly 13 billion liters of clean water in 2021. And the stock continues to grow: The number of servers worldwide increased by more than 37 percent between 2017 and 2022 to 85.6 billion units.
Some companies boast that they are taking responsibility. Manufacturer Nvidia claimed to use self-learning AI models to make the production of its chips, which are essential for artificial intelligence, more energy efficient. Google claimed to have trained its PaLM language model using a data center in Oklahoma, which is 89 percent CO2-free thanks to renewable energy. But so far, that’s the exception. Globally, the majority of AI developers rely on fossil fuel grids.
Scientist Kate Crawford says artificial intelligence can’t be called artificial or intelligent, given the numerous problems the technology poses. The Australian scientist worked together with an artist to design the infographic on display at New York’s MoMa and also mapped the AI landscape in her book “Atlas of AI.” In it, she points out – in addition to the impact on nature and the environment – that humans are being exploited. This happens, for example, when they have to process raw data at low wages in “digital sweatshops” so that companies like OpenAI and their platform ChatGPT can use it as training data.
Crawford doesn’t deny that AI can advance medicine, help build “smart” energy grids and control autonomous vehicles. But part of the truth is that AI is in many ways an “extractive” industry, as she writes, So far, it’s hardly sustainable.
High hopes rest on green hydrogen: It is expected to help reduce emissions in the steel sector, find use in power plants, make shipping and – some hope – passenger transport more climate-friendly. But to meet future demand, electrolysis capacity will have to grow faster than the wind and solar industries have managed during their periods of highest percentage growth. This is revealed by a study published in Nature Energy, in which authors from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) were particularly involved.
The EU aims to produce ten million tons of green hydrogen by 2030 and import the same amount from abroad. To achieve this, electrolysis capacity would have to double every year from 2024, according to the study’s authors. Such growth rates are “unprecedented” for energy technologies, they write. They believe a “breakthrough” toward high capacity will not occur before 2038. They add that it takes time for high growth rates to lead to a high installed capacity of electrolyzers. The authors warn that governments “urgently need to develop business models for investing in green hydrogen,” for example, through financial incentives or green hydrogen quotas. To ensure the simultaneous growth of hydrogen supply and demand, as well as the infrastructure for the use and production of hydrogen, “considerable coordination” is required on the part of policymakers.
Meanwhile, a new study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, published a few days ago by the EU Directorate General, rocks several fundamental beliefs about the new hydrogen world: According to the analysis, the capacity of electrolyzers that could be economically operated in Germany would be zero in 2050, assuming a perfect internal market. The largest hydrogen producer would be France. For the EU, it would be most cost-effective to cover its hydrogen needs entirely itself. Imports would be neither necessary nor economical. If intermediate products such as ammonia or sponge iron, which are to be produced using hydrogen, were imported and only the subsequent processing steps took place in the EU, the demand for hydrogen could be reduced by one-third. This would make a significant difference in the continued expansion of renewable energies. nib/ber/ae
Resistance by the local population against large industrial corporations in Latin America often resembles David against Goliath. This is also the case in the Sawré Muybu indigenous area in the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil. It is home to the indigenous Munduruku people, who have been fighting legal and illegal mining in the region since the 1980s, most recently against the British company Anglo American in particular. 39-year-old Alessandra Korap is one of the most prominent environmental activists. This year she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “Green Nobel Prize.”
“I think it’s good that our work and our struggle is gaining international visibility,” Korap told Table.Media. “We have had to face so many setbacks in the past few years.” Before Korap, a Brazilian woman had won the Goldman Prize once before: In 1996, Marina Silva was awarded the prize, and today she is Brazil’s environment minister.
Korap spent the past few days at the Amazon Summit in Belém. She is disappointed with the outcome. When it comes to important decisions about the lives and territories of indigenous people, they are not at the presidential table, she said. She demands more protection for the rainforest and the indigenous peoples’ territories.
Korap started advocating for environmental causes in the Amazon early on. In 2019, the energetic woman already drew attention to the mercury contamination of the soil and water and led the resistance against Anglo American. With success: After numerous protests, several legal disputes, but also countless threats against Korap and her family, the British company abandoned its plans for 27 mining projects in the region in 2021.
The Goldman Environmental Foundation highlights that the victory against Anglo American, especially under the then government of Jair Bolsonaro, was a remarkable achievement. Under the government of the far-right ex-president, both climate action and minority rights were not a priority. During his election campaign, Bolsonaro already said he would no longer have an inch of land designated as indigenous – and kept his word. During his term in office, all processes for “demarcation,” i.e., for recognizing indigenous land, came to a standstill. Bolsonaro repeatedly emphasized that the indigenous people already had “too much land.”
Simultaneously, deforestation in the Amazon region increased sharply under Bolsonaro – even in designated indigenous areas, albeit only half as fast as in other parts of the country. Brazil’s indigenous people, therefore, rightly see themselves as guardians of the forest: “We are fighting for our land and thus for the protection of the climate,” says Alessandra Korap in the video call. “There is no intact forest without the local people.”
Korap’s daily routine consists of countless meetings with various organizations for environmental conservation and indigenous rights. To participate, she often has to travel for hours on boats through the rainforest. Korap is also studying law in order to be able to defend her rights and those of the indigenous people, and she is the mother of two children. There is not much time to catch a breath – when she does have some free time, she likes to spend it in the forest.
Brazil saw a change of government at the beginning of the year. Since then, the left-leaning Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been in power. Lula intends to clearly set himself apart from his predecessor on climate action and indigenous rights. For example, Brazil has, for the first time, a Ministry of Native People – led by the indigenous Sônia Guajajara. Alessandra Korap sees this as an important and correct step. When it comes to climate action, Lula has set himself the goal of “zero deforestation” by 2030, and at the beginning of June, he presented a 150-point roadmap for this.
Alessandra Korap is happy about the change of government. But the situation for indigenous people is still far from good. Bolsonaro’s advocates, the “team of evil,” as Korap calls them, are still in the parliaments and work for the agricultural industry and against the rights of indigenous peoples and climate protection. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court and the legislative process are currently fighting over the so-called “Marco Temporal.” The intention is that in the future indigenous people will only have a right to official recognition of their land if they were already living there when the constitution was proclaimed in 1988. From the perspective of its proponents, the law would protect farmers from expropriation. Above all, it is backed by the powerful agricultural lobby.
Congress approved a bill to apply the Marco Temporal for indigenous land designation in early June. If it becomes law, designating areas as indigenous would become much more difficult, as many peoples would have problems proving that they lived there before 1988. This could also affect Alessandra Korap’s homeland of Sawré Muybu, which has yet to be definitively designated as an indigenous territory. “We’ll keep fighting,” Korap says. Lisa Kuner
