Wind power: Record number of approvals + Desert COP: Familiar battles + Industry: Achieving climate targets with waste heat

Dear reader,

Nine candles are burning on the birthday cake: On this day in 2015, the COP delegates rejoiced in the exhibition halls of Le Bourget airport in Paris after the Paris Agreement was finally adopted. What a relief and joy! Since then, climate activists have been comforting each other with the words of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman from Casablanca whenever things look bleak: “We will always have Paris!“

But is that true? Well, once the champagne glass is empty, we can see the world more or less soberly again. And at least there is some really good news about the expansion of wind power in Germany. And the incredible efficiency potential for industrial heat consumption is also positive.

But as is the case with nine-year-olds: You can’t really rely on them. That’s why this time, too, we have to report on how a COP on desertification will not be a success from a climate perspective, how bureaucratic confusion jeopardizes the success of the wind industry, how controversial carbon forest credits still are and how threatening forest loss and tundra melting are and will remain.

So: Bonne Anniversaire, Paris Agreement – and stay vigilant!

Your
Bernhard Pötter

Record numbers: Germany’s wind expansion finally gains momentum

Wind farm in Germany: In just under two years, the expansion of wind power will pick up again due to numerous subsidies.

By

Nico Beckert

New figures show: The expansion of wind power in Germany is progressing faster than many experts dared to hope not too long ago. The recently completed tendering round for onshore wind turbines has broken all records and allowed Germany to return to the ambitious expansion path set out in the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). Much of this success can be attributed to reforms introduced by the current German government, driven by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. However, only the new government will be able to reap the visible success of these reforms in the form of wind turbines actually being built.

According to the latest figures from the German Federal Network Agency, eleven gigawatts of onshore wind energy have been awarded in 2024 – around twice as much as was added in the previous record year of 2017. The turnaround can be seen above all in the recently concluded fourth tendering round of the year. In this round, 4.1 gigawatts were put out to tender; bids were received for 6.1 gigawatts. Unlike many previous tendering rounds, the most recent round was significantly oversubscribed. A total of 348 bids with a capacity of 4.1 gigawatts were awarded. In the first three tendering rounds, where the legally stipulated tender volumes were reduced to prevent excessively low prices, between 1.8 and 2.7 gigawatts of new capacity were awarded in each case – with a continuous increase in awards.

Industry praises reforms

The industry is highly satisfied with the development. “2024 was an absolutely successful year for onshore wind energy,” says Bärbel Heidebroek, President of the German Wind Energy Association. The result of the latest tender shows “how strongly the reforms of the outgoing federal government can be felt.” RWE also praised the policy: “Approvals in the wind sector have increased significantly in the last two to three years,” said Katja Wünschel, RWE Manager for Renewable Energies in Europe, in an interview with Capital. According to the RWE manager, it is now possible to connect a wind energy project within four years. This is a “significant improvement” on the six to eight years it took from planning to completion just a few years ago.

In order to speed up the expansion of wind power, the German government has made several legal amendments to cut requirements and make legal action more difficult:

With the “Wind-and-Land Act,” the German federal states were given binding area targets for the designation of wind farms for the first time and planning procedures were significantly shortened.
An amendment to the Federal Emission Control Act significantly simplified approval procedures. Applying the EU emergency law has also accelerated the approval of new wind farms in designated areas.
An amendment to the Federal Nature Conservation Act has drastically reduced the nature conservation requirements for new wind farms by making it possible to dispense with expert site inspections as a rule.
By enshrining in the German Renewable Energy Sources Act that renewable energies are in the “overriding public interest,“ lawsuits against new wind farms have been made much more difficult as they now have a high priority when decisions are being weighed up.

These changes are intended to help achieve the raised expansion targets. After all, in order to cover at least 80 percent of power consumption from renewable energies by 2030, wind and solar installations will need to multiply their previous annual output. However, while the targets for solar energy have already been exceeded in the past and current year, they have so far been missed by a wide margin for wind energy. The reason is that legislative amendments only take effect with a considerable delay.

Only the next federal government will reap the benefits

However, at twelve gigawatts, there has already been a sharp increase in approvals for new wind turbines this year. Now, these approvals are also being reflected in the tenders. However, the tangible successes – the substantial increase in the number of wind turbines actually put into operation – will only be achieved by the next federal government.

According to the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), it still takes an average of 20 months after the tender is awarded until a wind farm goes online. Therefore, “a significant increase in the volume of new installations” is not expected until the fourth quarter of 2025. This means that the expansion target, which is ten gigawatts gross in the coming years, will likely be missed again in 2025; however, given the latest tenders and approvals, it is certainly achievable in 2026.

However, the expansion could stall at the beginning of next year, the BWE warned on Wednesday. The reason for this is the new requirement that, effective January 1, the red warning lights on wind turbines may only be illuminated when an aircraft is in the vicinity; at other times, they must be switched off in order to reduce the visual disturbance to residents and thus increase the acceptance of wind farms.

Problems due to new warning light regulation

However, the implementation of this “demand-driven night identification” is causing problems: Almost all wind turbines to which the new rule applies will have been equipped with the necessary technology to receive transponder signals from aircraft by the end of the year. However, before it can go into operation, the technology must be tested and approved by the authorities. But the authorities cannot keep up with this task in many places, which is why existing wind farms could face high fines from January and problems with the launch of new ones, the association explained. It urged the ministry to clarify that no fines would be imposed if approval is not possible without the operator being at fault.

The BMWK is aware of the problem. They point out that the deadline for installing the technology has already been extended several times, meaning that the operators should have enough time to install it on time. However, a spokesperson said at the request of Table.Briefings that fines due to the lack of approval and delayed operation should be avoided if possible. “We are in talks with the network operators to find a viable solution.”

Desert COP: Why the fight for a legal framework and finances resembles the climate conferences

Opening of COP16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on December 2.

By

Urmi Goswami

Even as negotiations at COP16 of the United Nations Convention on Combatting Desertification (UNCCD) come to an end, the biggest of many decisions in Riyadh remains unresolved: How can a comprehensive solution to the spread of arid regions and droughts look like? There is also ongoing controversy as to what legal form an agreement on these issues should take – and how to close the enormous funding gap in the fight against desertification.

However, COP16 also shows that the topic is becoming increasingly important and countries such as Spain, which have traditionally been less concerned with it, have started to show greater interest. This is because the problem is getting bigger: More than three-quarters of all land on the planet was drier between 1990 and 2020 than in the previous three decades. Experts warn that without new efforts, three out of four people will be affected by drought by 2050. More frequent and more severe droughts, rising greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable use often dry out the soil to the point of no recovery.

31 percent of the global population lives in arid regions

A new report by the Science Policy Interface of the UNCCD finds that between 1990 and 2020, drylands expanded by about 4.3 million km², an area nearly a third larger than India. Much of this expansion is of humid regions transitioning to drylands, 40 percent of global arable land is affected by aridity.

In 2020, 30.9 percent of the global population lived in drylands, up from 22.5 percent in 1990. Without serious interventions, 5 billion people, or 50 percent of the projected global population, will be living in drylands by the end of the century. Tackling drought is a top priority at COP 16. “This phenomenon is not sparing any country and no biome. The Amazon rainforest is burning, the Philippines were hit by the drought for the first time this year, and the boreal forest in Canada also burned,” said UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw

‘Mobilize a billion dollars every day’

The UNCCD Executive Secretary has asked countries to increase the land restoration target, from 1 billion hectares by 2030 to 1.5 billion hectares. Financing is fundamental to realizing these goals. Thiaw says it is necessary not only to secure public funds but to mobilize private resources to reverse the tide. “We are talking about large numbers, the need to mobilize 1 billion US dollars a day to restore 1.5 billion hectares in the world by 2030.”

As the pressure to act mounts, big debate is Riyadh on a global mechanism for drought resilience. At the start of COP16, countries were presented with seven options by the Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought, set up at COP15 in Abidjan.

Protocol or framework agreement?

A protocol is a legally binding instrument that can offer a broad and comprehensive legal approach to addressing drought at all levels. It outlines specific commitments, including proactive and integrated drought risk management, including risk and vulnerability assessment, monitoring, early warning, mitigation, response, and recovery related to drought.

The other option on the table is a Global Framework for Drought Resilience. This is an overarching strategic policy instrument, which would imply setting a global goal and time-bound targets and indicators; proposed actions to achieve these targets; and establishing monitoring and learning systems.

Africa wants a protocol, as it will also guarantee means of implementation.
The European Union, despite some concerns about the committed resources, and major developing countries such as India and Brazil are open to the idea of a Protocol, particularly as the demand has originated from Africa. Considering that the UNCCD came into being in the aftermath of severe famines in Africa, the Convention has been traditionally centered on the needs of the continent.
The United States and Japan are leading the pushback against any formal mechanism, preferring other possible options.
China, too, is ambiguous in its position

Lack of 278 billion per year

For the first time, the UNCCD undertook a financial needs assessment. The findings are dire:

An estimated annual investment of 355 billion US dollars is required till the end of this decade
Globally, there is a financing gap of 278 billion US dollars per year, with Africa alone lacking 191 billion US dollars.
The cumulative investment requirement between 2016 and 2030 is estimated at around 2.6 trillion US dollars – as much as global military spending in 2023 alone. However, only 18 percent of this investment has yet been made.
The bulk of investments, 72 percent, come from domestic resources. “Taxpayers heal the wounds,” said Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General.
Bilateral and multilateral resources account for 22 percent. The private sector accounts for just 6 percent of the total investment. “Government must end subsidies that incentivize harming land, replace them with measures to encourage land positive investments. Development assistance must scale up support to combat desertification, degradation and drought,” said Mohamed.

Increasing private investment is key to meeting the funding requirement. UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw says companies need to contribute more, for their own good. “It’s not charity, it’s investment.”

UNCCD also in financial difficulties

It is not just countries that need money to deal with desertification, land degradation, and drought; the UNCCD Secretariat and its Global Mechanism, too, need more money. The countries are to adopt a biennial budget (2025 and 2026) for the UNCCD Secretariat. While the work of the Convention has grown over the last decade, its core budget has remained near a constant zero nominal growth rate with minor adjustments. High inflation rates and rising commodity prices, as well as more tasks, make it necessary to increase the budget.

Like the UN Climate Change Secretariat, the UNCCD Secretariat relies on voluntary contributions to offset budget deficits. In the last ten years, dependence on voluntary contributions has increased. Their share has risen from 28 percent of total spending in 2012-2013 to 56 percent in the period 2022-2023. Without more money, the UNCCD would have to cut staff.

An increase of about 31 percent in country contributions has been proposed. However, the proposal to increase country contributions has run into trouble. The European Union and its member states, and major developing countries such as India, Brazil acknowledge the need to increase the contributions. Several African countries are concerned about the proposed hike as it would result in further burden on the exchequer. However, the biggest pushback on the proposed hike in contributions has come from the US and Japan.

EU climate targets: How industries are to use heat pumps and waste heat to achieve them

Efficient use of process heat becomes more important: beer bottles in a bottling plant in Gemünd.

By

Lukas Knigge

Without more efficient use of industrial process heat, the European climate targets can hardly be achieved. This is because the main source of emissions in the industrial sector is the combustion of fossil fuels – primarily gas – to generate heat in production processes for food, paper, chemicals, steel and cement. According to a report published this Thursday by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) think tank, significant greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided by electrifying industrial processes.

It shows that only three percent of process heat was electrified in 2020 – with the remainder being generated using fossil fuels. The RAP experts write that up to 60 percent could already be electrified using commercially available technologies today. By 2035, the potential is even 90 percent. Barriers to faster electrification are:

high investment and operating costs, investment risks and uncertain returns;
a lack of infrastructure, including insufficient access to the power grid;
knowledge gaps about available technologies, their suitability and advantages, and
technological gaps, especially related to high-temperature processes.

Electrification directive for the industry

RAP therefore proposes an EU electrification directive for industry to achieve 60 percent electrification by 2050. The European Commission must improve the economic framework conditions, for example through energy and carbon pricing, tax incentives and targeted support to reduce the investment risk, they say.

Moreover, better grid planning and more research and development funding are needed. “In order to leverage the electrification potential in the German industry, it is important to reform the grid fees and foster more flexibility,” says Jan Rosenow, RAP Director and scientist at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Until now, major industrial electricity consumers have received discounts for constant demand. “However, with the advent of variable renewable energy sources, we should move to dynamic, time-varying grid charges that reflect the true cost of transmitting electricity and encourage flexible energy use.”

The industrial sector is responsible for up to 20 percent of global carbon emissions. In Europe, over 65 percent of energy is consumed in industrial applications for processes such as drying, bleaching, sterilization and distillation. And a large proportion of this valuable heat is lost by being released unused into the environment. The company Susheat now aims to change this.

Ideas for the climate: High-temperature heat pumps

One way to use industrial waste heat more efficiently and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to use high-temperature heat pumps. A new research project by Susheat aims to bring about such an efficiency revolution in the energy consumption of the European industry and drive decarbonization in this sector. Susheat’s developers plan to recover and reuse 75 percent or more of the heat from industries such as food and beverage, paper and petrochemicals.

A recently published study estimates that heat pumps delivering temperatures of up to 250 degrees Celsius could reduce Europe’s industrial emissions by around 20 million tons of CO2 annually and play a “significant” role in achieving the EU’s climate targets. The system consisting of a new type of heat pump with a storage system could also be ready for use in one to two years – provided the political framework conditions and financing costs are right.

Silvia Trevisan and Mateo Sanclemente Lozano are researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Their university is among the 14 companies and universities involved in Susheat, located in countries such as Romania, Italy, Austria and the UK, Trevisan and Lozano told Table.Briefings. Using a latest-generation Stirling engine, built by the Norwegian company Enerin, they use waste heat and convert it into temperatures of up to 250 degrees.

Inspiration for heat storage: the human lung

KTH researchers combine the heat pump with a storage system that partly mimics the shape and function of the human lung. The system has been developed by the Universitat de Lleida (Spain) and can store heat for several hours, providing more flexibility and heat on demand.

In order to be even more flexible and efficient, these new industrial heat pump and heat storage technologies are connected to a solar thermal power plant and an AI management system. The aim is to reuse as much waste heat as possible. In parallel, the technology package is designed for use in different countries with varying electricity prices and conditions.

“You can also achieve temperatures between 200 and 250 degrees with concentrated solar energy,” says Trevisan. In a country like Italy, with abundant sunshine but expensive electricity, you would use more concentrated solar heat and produce less with the heat pump. “In a country like Norway, where the sun shines less but electricity is cheap and environmentally friendly, you can use the industrial heat pump more.”

Capital costs and amortization periods are obstacles

Commercial industrial high-temperature heat pumps capable of reaching 250 degrees could be available in one to two years. “The integrated system will take longer because the management is more complex – perhaps four to five years,” says Trevisan.

Perhaps the biggest challenges are the capital costs for the new technologies and the government’s incentives. “The technology could be a game changer,” says Trevisan. “Much of the challenge is probably more related to the capital costs and the amortization periods that the industry is willing to accept.”

The European Heat Pump Association shares this view. Most EU countries, as well as Norway, Switzerland and the UK, offer government incentives, but there are also obstacles – including a lack of awareness of the potential of the new technology. For this reason, the association calls on the EU Commission to place these new technologies at the heart of its Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act, which is due to be published soon.

Climate in figures: Why the Global North also needs to step up the fight against deforestation

Discussions regarding deforestation at international climate conferences usually focus on tropical forests. The protection of the Amazon rainforest, for example, receives a lot of attention – and in fact, according to the environmental organization WWF, more fires have been counted in the Brazilian part of the Amazon region in the last eleven months than at any time since 2007. By mid-October, 13 million hectares had been affected by the fires. If the fires in the Cerrado and Pantanal – two other important biomes in Brazil – are included, the area affected rises to 30.1 million hectares.

Researchers previously assumed that tropical rainforests store a particularly large amount of carbon. However, fires and climate change are reducing their ability to absorb CO2. Recent scientific studies even provide evidence that the forests of the northern latitudes, such as the boreal coniferous forests of Russia and Canada, may have become a more important carbon sink. This makes their protection all the more important – and it would be all the more important to talk more about them at international climate negotiations, say representatives of the Global South such as Sikeade Egbuwalo, responsible for biodiversity at the Nigerian Ministry of Environment. On Climate Home News, she criticizes the “deeply rooted double standard.”

However, World Resources Institute (WRI) data shows: Large forest areas are also disappearing in the Northern Hemisphere. And while forests in the south are being cut down to make way for agribusiness, mining and oil and gas extraction, among other things, forestry and wildfires play an important role in the north. The WRI distinguishes five main causes of deforestation:

Between 2001 and 2023, around 155 million hectares of trees were lost worldwide due to forestry. However, forests can grow back in these areas, either naturally or through planting.
Commodity production, for example, in agriculture, mining, or the oil and gas industry, often for export, is responsible for a loss of 102 million hectares. This forest loss is permanent, and it is unlikely to grow back.
The forest is also permanently destroyed whenever human settlements are built. This has resulted in the loss of three million hectares of trees over the period.
The WRI separately records temporary agricultural production in deforested areas. Here, the forest may return. Nevertheless, 113 million hectares of forest were lost in this category during the period examined.
Finally, wildfires cause the loss of 113 million hectares of trees. The WRI includes fires not related to agricultural activities or other “visible human transformations” – unlike fires in the Global South, for example, which are used to clear land for agriculture and appear in different categories. ae

Adaptation strategy: How the German government plans to tackle climate change

The German government has adopted its climate adaptation strategy. Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Green Party) announced this on Wednesday following the cabinet decision. The strategy is based on the Climate Adaptation Act, which came into force in the summer and, for the first time, sets measurable targets to help make Germany more resilient against climate risks.

Improved public warning

Among other things, focus will be placed on improving public warnings in the event of an emergency, for example through the nationwide warning app Nina. The number of users is supposed to increase significantly by 2030. Other warning systems, such as sirens, will also be expanded throughout Germany. It is a whole package of measures, emphasized Lemke. For example, improved drinking plans in care facilities and the expansion of green spaces in cities. She also stressed the importance of more resilient infrastructure and, for example, adapting the height of bridges to future heavy rainfall events and flood disasters.

As global warming progresses, the likelihood of extreme weather is increasing. Since 2023, adaptation to these consequences has been enshrined in a separate law as a government task.

Damage totaling 145 billion euros since 2000

Lemke emphasized that adapting to the consequences of climate change was also a major cost issue. “We want to limit the damage that occurs in Germany as a result of climate change. Since 2000, the damage has already totaled 145 billion euros. We want to counter this with preventive measures,” she explained. According to her ministry, this is a cross-ministerial task and one that will continue regardless of the outcome of the snap elections next spring. The newly adopted strategy applies with immediate effect and is binding until a new one is drawn up by a future federal government. dpa/lb

Carbon credits: Resignations from the ICVCM certification body

Due to criticism of the assessment standards for carbon certificates by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), two members of the body have resigned from their posts. Lambert Schneider from the Berlin-based Öko-Institut and Jürg Füssler from Infras in Zurich refuse to support the ICVCM’s decision to classify certain forest protection credits as “high integrity.” In their view, the committee made decisions against its own rules.

ICVCM is an industry initiative to restore trust in credits on the voluntary carbon offset market. It brings together independent experts to assess whether measurement methods for offsetting projects do not lead to overestimates wherever possible. Founding members include Google and the Bezos Earth Fund.

The first methods received the new quality seal back in June. These included projects that remove ozone-depleting refrigerants from electronic waste and capture methane from landfill sites. Although these projects are not very controversial, they are also small and not very sought-after. However, the forest conservation projects that dominate the market are quite different. Their methods have been significantly developed. Three have now been awarded the coveted “High Integrity” seal at the COP in Baku: TREES by ART and VM48 and J-REDD+ by Verra. The co-chair of the ICVCM’s expert panel explained that it had been established that the methods concerned “have rigorous approaches in place to ensure additionality, permanence, robust quantification and social safeguards, among other criteria.”

However, there were disputes, for example, about the calculation methods used to determine how many emissions a forest protection project prevents. Some methods lead to over- or underestimates. “One might argue that underestimation in some jurisdictions or projects would compensate for overestimation in others,” write Füssler and Schneider in a joint blog post. In such a case, the overestimation of some projects would not be a problem. However, Füssler and Schneider fear that the incentive to announce a compensation project is higher where deforestation is already decreasing. While the ICVCM does not rule this out, it intends to keep an eye on the risk with “more research” while projects are already underway.

Schneider criticized that these different positions had not been sufficiently communicated, hence his resignation. ICVCM has not yet responded to the criticism, but has stated that it will “review the implementation of the methods” and “closely monitor integration risks.” Tin Fischer

Heat pumps: Number of funding applications skyrockets

The uncertainty regarding future subsidies for eco-friendly heating systems in Germany has apparently boosted demand significantly: According to Table.Briefings information, the KfW approved an average of 9,100 applications per week between the end of November and the beginning of December. This is an increase of 55 percent compared to the figures from the previous three weeks. Part of this increase can be attributed to applications for previously installed heating systems that could be submitted until November 30.

The BMWK assumes that the increase is mainly due to concerns about subsidy cuts. This is supported by the fact that the figures in the first week of December, after the deadline for late registrations, were still around 40 percent higher than in the first weeks of November. The application figures include all eco-friendly heating systems; in recent months, around 80 percent of these applications were for heat pumps, with the remainder mainly for biomass heating systems and district heating connections.

The future of the subsidies is still unclear. The BMWK assumes that it will initially continue unchanged next year, even without an approved budget. However, there could be significant changes under a new government: Jens Spahn, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, recently announced at the Heat Pump Forum that subsidies would be “adapted to the current budgetary situation”; in the medium term, subsidies could be scrapped entirely. The SPD and the Greens, on the other hand, as possible coalition partners of the CDU/CSU, want to keep them. mkr

Arctic tundra: Why the region becomes a CO2 source

The past nine years have been the warmest in the Arctic since records began. The permafrost is thawing and climate change is intensifying wildfires. All of this has turned the Arctic tundra into a source of carbon and methane, as an update of the Arctic Report Card for the year 2024 shows. The report speaks of a “new regime.”

97 researchers from eleven countries contributed to the report under the leadership of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Many of the Arctic’s vital signs are either reaching record levels or bordering on record levels almost every year,” says Gerald Frost, senior scientist at Alaska Biological Research Inc. and long-time author of the Arctic Report Card. Findings show, for example:

Over the past 20 years, wildfires in the Arctic region have released an average of 207 million tons of carbon into the air every year.
The average water temperature in most shallow waters of the Arctic Ocean in August was two to four degrees warmer than in the comparable period from 1991 to 2020.
Permafrost temperatures in Alaska were the second-warmest on record.
The population of migratory caribou has declined by 65 percent in recent decades. The main reasons for this are the heat in summer and increasing rainfall. This jeopardizes the food security of the local population.
The snowmelt begins one to two weeks earlier, and the tundra becomes greener due to the higher temperatures.
This year’s summer was the wettest in the Arctic since records began. More rain also falls on snow-covered areas, causing the region to become covered in ice. This makes it difficult for people to move around and for animals to find food.

The report reveals that some population groups, such as the indigenous Kangiqtugaapik hunting community, can better adapt to the “warmer, wetter and more unsafe world.” Some plant and animal species, including the ice seals in the Bering Strait, can also cope with the changes. Their population remains stable thanks to a change in diet from Arctic cod to saffron cod. Nevertheless, the report states that the overall risks can only be overcome if greenhouse gas emissions are stopped worldwide. lb

Euronews: Ski resorts without snow. Ski resorts without snow. Thanks to climate change, more and more ski resorts are preparing for the time when there will no longer be enough snow. The European “BeyondSnow” project supports them in this. In Slovenia, the focus is on hikers and cyclists as future guests. To the article

Washington Post: For Musk, climate change has become less important. For a long time, Elon Musk has considered climate change the biggest problem of our time. That time is over. Although Musk does not deny climate change, he now considers it a less urgent problem and focuses primarily on technology to tackle it. To the article

Time: Better housing could help the climate. 215 million US citizens live in poor conditions. Measures to renovate buildings could not only improve their quality of life, but also help in the fight against climate change. To the article

Bloomberg: Saving water in data centers. Microsoft has unveiled a new data center concept optimized for the demands of AI applications without the need for water for cooling. The aim is to save 125 million liters of water per data center every year. To the article

Untouchable – the steel and coal investor Daniel Křetínský

Daniel Křetínský during an interview in France.

His critics have already given Daniel Křetínskýs (49) many labels: The “Czech Sphinx,” he was called by the Financial Times. The French journalist Jérôme Lefilliâtre called him the “garbage collector of Europe” in a biography. This is because Křetínský acquired Mitteldeutsche Braunkohlengesellschaft (Mibrag) in 2009 and Leag in Lusatia in 2016. By purchasing the coal companies, the billionaire became one of the biggest air polluters in Europe.

Unclear whether Křetínský wants to invest own money in steel transformation

Now there is another characterizing metaphor: “Buttoned up like an oyster” is how he describes his concrete plans for the Thyssenkrupp steel subsidiary TKSE, said Jürgen Kerner in an interview with Table.Briefings. However, the second chairman of IG Metall and member of the Supervisory Board of Thyssenkrupp AG has a very differentiated impression of Křetínský.

Daniel Křetínský already holds a fifth of the shares in TKSE, with an option for a further 30 percent. “When I send him a message, he responds immediately,” says Kerner. “That’s very polite.” But there is still no discussion about the important issues.

Without a binding discussion, it remains unclear whether Křetínský wants to invest his own money in the Group in order to enable the restructuring and ecological transformation of Germany’s largest steel group, which is in deficit. “Every week that goes by without such a conversation feeds doubt in me and my colleagues that he is the right owner,” warns Kerner. Yet the Czech is actually “a very approachable person” with whom it is easy to talk “about many different topics on a meta-level.”

Sigmar Gabriel describes the investor in a very similar way in an interview with Table.Briefings: “I got to know Mr. Křetínský as an extraordinarily knowledgeable and very good analyst,” says the former Federal Minister of Economic Affairs, who resigned from his position as Chairman of the TKSE Supervisory Board in late summer in a dispute with the ThyssenKrupp Executive Board. At the time, Gabriel even recommended that Křetínský should take over TKSE completely – a statement that the former Minister did not want to repeat.

In the wake of the privatization winners

According to the Forbes Rich List, Křetínský is one of the three richest Czechs with 9.4 billion US dollars, and his company holdings are estimated to be five times that amount. As the son of a computer science professor and a constitutional judge, there are several fortunate circumstances that explain how he came to this wealth: firstly, after studying law and gaining his doctorate at Masaryk University in Brno, he met Patrik Tkác and Petr Kellner.

Tkác, a successful banker from Slovakia, brought Křetínský into his investment company J&T in 1999 and made him a partner in 2003. Together they founded the holding company EPH in 2009 and initially became involved in the fossil energy business in Central Eastern Europe. Kellner, for his part, had bought up apparently worthless shares in the former state-owned companies with his Dutch-registered fund PPF during the so-called coupon privatization after the fall of communism in the Czech Republic and made a fortune in the process. Křetínský was in a relationship with Kellner’s daughter Anna for many years, and with her father’s help, he built up the convoluted EPH company empire.

It also benefited enormously from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, not only have the coal-fired power plants in eastern Germany and elsewhere been profitable, but according to the Czech NGO Re-Set, the profits from the transit of natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe, which EPH’s majority shareholding in Eustream collects, have also increased. The Ukrainian government was just as unenthusiastic about this as it was about the continuing business of the Düsseldorf-based retail group Metro in Russia. Křetínský had bought into the struggling Metro in 2018.

Criticism of climate change denial through his media involvement

Today, Daniel Křetínský owns a complex network of companies throughout Europe. He holds stakes in supermarket chains such as Sainsbury (UK) and Casino (France), soccer clubs such as Westham United and Sparta Prague, and the Dutch postal service. In France, he bought the left-wing magazine Marianne and the second-largest publishing house Editis in addition to the magazine Elle. In his home country, his Czech News Center has a third of the media market, including the tabloid Blesk.

According to Křetínský’s numerous opponents from the environmentalist scene, this paper in particular has repeatedly denied climate change – supposedly fitting for an investor who has made a large part of his fortune from fossil fuels. One prominent opponent is EU Commissioner Jozef Síkela. During his time as Czech Minister of Industry and Trade, he fended off Křetínský’s takeover attempt of pipeline operator Net4Gas and nationalized the company. Síkela felt unfairly pressured by negative reporting in Blesk. Křetínský now presents himself as a climate protector and claims to want to promote the energy transition with his companies.

Undervalued companies

Daniel Křetínský’s business strategy is to buy up companies in crisis at low prices. He then usually holds them for years. Unlike many other investors, he does not usually break them up into individual parts. But he also often does not invest on a large scale in order to get the companies back on the road to success. However, Kerner, an IG Metall employee, is still hoping for this for TKSE.

However, Křetínský’s spokesman Daniel Častvaj denied that Křetínský is withdrawing profits, as a Greenpeace report on Leag recently suggested. “As shareholders, we have not yet received a single euro of profit as a dividend,” Častvaj wrote to Table.Briefings. “All profits are reinvested in the company.” Otherwise, he asked for understanding that an interview with Křetínský on Leag or TKSE is currently not possible. There it is again – the oyster. Alex Veit

CLIMATE.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

Bernhard
Pötter

Alexandra
Endres

Christiane
Kühl

Lisa
Kuner

Lukas
Knigge

Malte
Kreutzfeldt

Nico
Beckert

Dear reader,

Nine candles are burning on the birthday cake: On this day in 2015, the COP delegates rejoiced in the exhibition halls of Le Bourget airport in Paris after the Paris Agreement was finally adopted. What a relief and joy! Since then, climate activists have been comforting each other with the words of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman from Casablanca whenever things look bleak: “We will always have Paris!“

But is that true? Well, once the champagne glass is empty, we can see the world more or less soberly again. And at least there is some really good news about the expansion of wind power in Germany. And the incredible efficiency potential for industrial heat consumption is also positive.

But as is the case with nine-year-olds: You can’t really rely on them. That’s why this time, too, we have to report on how a COP on desertification will not be a success from a climate perspective, how bureaucratic confusion jeopardizes the success of the wind industry, how controversial carbon forest credits still are and how threatening forest loss and tundra melting are and will remain.

So: Bonne Anniversaire, Paris Agreement – and stay vigilant!

Your
Bernhard Pötter

Record numbers: Germany’s wind expansion finally gains momentum

By

Nico Beckert

New figures show: The expansion of wind power in Germany is progressing faster than many experts dared to hope not too long ago. The recently completed tendering round for onshore wind turbines has broken all records and allowed Germany to return to the ambitious expansion path set out in the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). Much of this success can be attributed to reforms introduced by the current German government, driven by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. However, only the new government will be able to reap the visible success of these reforms in the form of wind turbines actually being built.

According to the latest figures from the German Federal Network Agency, eleven gigawatts of onshore wind energy have been awarded in 2024 – around twice as much as was added in the previous record year of 2017. The turnaround can be seen above all in the recently concluded fourth tendering round of the year. In this round, 4.1 gigawatts were put out to tender; bids were received for 6.1 gigawatts. Unlike many previous tendering rounds, the most recent round was significantly oversubscribed. A total of 348 bids with a capacity of 4.1 gigawatts were awarded. In the first three tendering rounds, where the legally stipulated tender volumes were reduced to prevent excessively low prices, between 1.8 and 2.7 gigawatts of new capacity were awarded in each case – with a continuous increase in awards.

Industry praises reforms

The industry is highly satisfied with the development. “2024 was an absolutely successful year for onshore wind energy,” says Bärbel Heidebroek, President of the German Wind Energy Association. The result of the latest tender shows “how strongly the reforms of the outgoing federal government can be felt.” RWE also praised the policy: “Approvals in the wind sector have increased significantly in the last two to three years,” said Katja Wünschel, RWE Manager for Renewable Energies in Europe, in an interview with Capital. According to the RWE manager, it is now possible to connect a wind energy project within four years. This is a “significant improvement” on the six to eight years it took from planning to completion just a few years ago.

In order to speed up the expansion of wind power, the German government has made several legal amendments to cut requirements and make legal action more difficult:

With the “Wind-and-Land Act,” the German federal states were given binding area targets for the designation of wind farms for the first time and planning procedures were significantly shortened.
An amendment to the Federal Emission Control Act significantly simplified approval procedures. Applying the EU emergency law has also accelerated the approval of new wind farms in designated areas.
An amendment to the Federal Nature Conservation Act has drastically reduced the nature conservation requirements for new wind farms by making it possible to dispense with expert site inspections as a rule.
By enshrining in the German Renewable Energy Sources Act that renewable energies are in the “overriding public interest,“ lawsuits against new wind farms have been made much more difficult as they now have a high priority when decisions are being weighed up.

These changes are intended to help achieve the raised expansion targets. After all, in order to cover at least 80 percent of power consumption from renewable energies by 2030, wind and solar installations will need to multiply their previous annual output. However, while the targets for solar energy have already been exceeded in the past and current year, they have so far been missed by a wide margin for wind energy. The reason is that legislative amendments only take effect with a considerable delay.

Only the next federal government will reap the benefits

However, at twelve gigawatts, there has already been a sharp increase in approvals for new wind turbines this year. Now, these approvals are also being reflected in the tenders. However, the tangible successes – the substantial increase in the number of wind turbines actually put into operation – will only be achieved by the next federal government.

According to the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), it still takes an average of 20 months after the tender is awarded until a wind farm goes online. Therefore, “a significant increase in the volume of new installations” is not expected until the fourth quarter of 2025. This means that the expansion target, which is ten gigawatts gross in the coming years, will likely be missed again in 2025; however, given the latest tenders and approvals, it is certainly achievable in 2026.

However, the expansion could stall at the beginning of next year, the BWE warned on Wednesday. The reason for this is the new requirement that, effective January 1, the red warning lights on wind turbines may only be illuminated when an aircraft is in the vicinity; at other times, they must be switched off in order to reduce the visual disturbance to residents and thus increase the acceptance of wind farms.

Problems due to new warning light regulation

However, the implementation of this “demand-driven night identification” is causing problems: Almost all wind turbines to which the new rule applies will have been equipped with the necessary technology to receive transponder signals from aircraft by the end of the year. However, before it can go into operation, the technology must be tested and approved by the authorities. But the authorities cannot keep up with this task in many places, which is why existing wind farms could face high fines from January and problems with the launch of new ones, the association explained. It urged the ministry to clarify that no fines would be imposed if approval is not possible without the operator being at fault.

The BMWK is aware of the problem. They point out that the deadline for installing the technology has already been extended several times, meaning that the operators should have enough time to install it on time. However, a spokesperson said at the request of Table.Briefings that fines due to the lack of approval and delayed operation should be avoided if possible. “We are in talks with the network operators to find a viable solution.”

Desert COP: Why the fight for a legal framework and finances resembles the climate conferences

By

Urmi Goswami

Even as negotiations at COP16 of the United Nations Convention on Combatting Desertification (UNCCD) come to an end, the biggest of many decisions in Riyadh remains unresolved: How can a comprehensive solution to the spread of arid regions and droughts look like? There is also ongoing controversy as to what legal form an agreement on these issues should take – and how to close the enormous funding gap in the fight against desertification.

However, COP16 also shows that the topic is becoming increasingly important and countries such as Spain, which have traditionally been less concerned with it, have started to show greater interest. This is because the problem is getting bigger: More than three-quarters of all land on the planet was drier between 1990 and 2020 than in the previous three decades. Experts warn that without new efforts, three out of four people will be affected by drought by 2050. More frequent and more severe droughts, rising greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable use often dry out the soil to the point of no recovery.

31 percent of the global population lives in arid regions

A new report by the Science Policy Interface of the UNCCD finds that between 1990 and 2020, drylands expanded by about 4.3 million km², an area nearly a third larger than India. Much of this expansion is of humid regions transitioning to drylands, 40 percent of global arable land is affected by aridity.

In 2020, 30.9 percent of the global population lived in drylands, up from 22.5 percent in 1990. Without serious interventions, 5 billion people, or 50 percent of the projected global population, will be living in drylands by the end of the century. Tackling drought is a top priority at COP 16. “This phenomenon is not sparing any country and no biome. The Amazon rainforest is burning, the Philippines were hit by the drought for the first time this year, and the boreal forest in Canada also burned,” said UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw

‘Mobilize a billion dollars every day’

The UNCCD Executive Secretary has asked countries to increase the land restoration target, from 1 billion hectares by 2030 to 1.5 billion hectares. Financing is fundamental to realizing these goals. Thiaw says it is necessary not only to secure public funds but to mobilize private resources to reverse the tide. “We are talking about large numbers, the need to mobilize 1 billion US dollars a day to restore 1.5 billion hectares in the world by 2030.”

As the pressure to act mounts, big debate is Riyadh on a global mechanism for drought resilience. At the start of COP16, countries were presented with seven options by the Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought, set up at COP15 in Abidjan.

Protocol or framework agreement?

A protocol is a legally binding instrument that can offer a broad and comprehensive legal approach to addressing drought at all levels. It outlines specific commitments, including proactive and integrated drought risk management, including risk and vulnerability assessment, monitoring, early warning, mitigation, response, and recovery related to drought.

The other option on the table is a Global Framework for Drought Resilience. This is an overarching strategic policy instrument, which would imply setting a global goal and time-bound targets and indicators; proposed actions to achieve these targets; and establishing monitoring and learning systems.

Africa wants a protocol, as it will also guarantee means of implementation.
The European Union, despite some concerns about the committed resources, and major developing countries such as India and Brazil are open to the idea of a Protocol, particularly as the demand has originated from Africa. Considering that the UNCCD came into being in the aftermath of severe famines in Africa, the Convention has been traditionally centered on the needs of the continent.
The United States and Japan are leading the pushback against any formal mechanism, preferring other possible options.
China, too, is ambiguous in its position

Lack of 278 billion per year

For the first time, the UNCCD undertook a financial needs assessment. The findings are dire:

An estimated annual investment of 355 billion US dollars is required till the end of this decade
Globally, there is a financing gap of 278 billion US dollars per year, with Africa alone lacking 191 billion US dollars.
The cumulative investment requirement between 2016 and 2030 is estimated at around 2.6 trillion US dollars – as much as global military spending in 2023 alone. However, only 18 percent of this investment has yet been made.
The bulk of investments, 72 percent, come from domestic resources. “Taxpayers heal the wounds,” said Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General.
Bilateral and multilateral resources account for 22 percent. The private sector accounts for just 6 percent of the total investment. “Government must end subsidies that incentivize harming land, replace them with measures to encourage land positive investments. Development assistance must scale up support to combat desertification, degradation and drought,” said Mohamed.

Increasing private investment is key to meeting the funding requirement. UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw says companies need to contribute more, for their own good. “It’s not charity, it’s investment.”

UNCCD also in financial difficulties

It is not just countries that need money to deal with desertification, land degradation, and drought; the UNCCD Secretariat and its Global Mechanism, too, need more money. The countries are to adopt a biennial budget (2025 and 2026) for the UNCCD Secretariat. While the work of the Convention has grown over the last decade, its core budget has remained near a constant zero nominal growth rate with minor adjustments. High inflation rates and rising commodity prices, as well as more tasks, make it necessary to increase the budget.

Like the UN Climate Change Secretariat, the UNCCD Secretariat relies on voluntary contributions to offset budget deficits. In the last ten years, dependence on voluntary contributions has increased. Their share has risen from 28 percent of total spending in 2012-2013 to 56 percent in the period 2022-2023. Without more money, the UNCCD would have to cut staff.

An increase of about 31 percent in country contributions has been proposed. However, the proposal to increase country contributions has run into trouble. The European Union and its member states, and major developing countries such as India, Brazil acknowledge the need to increase the contributions. Several African countries are concerned about the proposed hike as it would result in further burden on the exchequer. However, the biggest pushback on the proposed hike in contributions has come from the US and Japan.

EU climate targets: How industries are to use heat pumps and waste heat to achieve them

By

Lukas Knigge

Without more efficient use of industrial process heat, the European climate targets can hardly be achieved. This is because the main source of emissions in the industrial sector is the combustion of fossil fuels – primarily gas – to generate heat in production processes for food, paper, chemicals, steel and cement. According to a report published this Thursday by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) think tank, significant greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided by electrifying industrial processes.

It shows that only three percent of process heat was electrified in 2020 – with the remainder being generated using fossil fuels. The RAP experts write that up to 60 percent could already be electrified using commercially available technologies today. By 2035, the potential is even 90 percent. Barriers to faster electrification are:

high investment and operating costs, investment risks and uncertain returns;
a lack of infrastructure, including insufficient access to the power grid;
knowledge gaps about available technologies, their suitability and advantages, and
technological gaps, especially related to high-temperature processes.

Electrification directive for the industry

RAP therefore proposes an EU electrification directive for industry to achieve 60 percent electrification by 2050. The European Commission must improve the economic framework conditions, for example through energy and carbon pricing, tax incentives and targeted support to reduce the investment risk, they say.

Moreover, better grid planning and more research and development funding are needed. “In order to leverage the electrification potential in the German industry, it is important to reform the grid fees and foster more flexibility,” says Jan Rosenow, RAP Director and scientist at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Until now, major industrial electricity consumers have received discounts for constant demand. “However, with the advent of variable renewable energy sources, we should move to dynamic, time-varying grid charges that reflect the true cost of transmitting electricity and encourage flexible energy use.”

The industrial sector is responsible for up to 20 percent of global carbon emissions. In Europe, over 65 percent of energy is consumed in industrial applications for processes such as drying, bleaching, sterilization and distillation. And a large proportion of this valuable heat is lost by being released unused into the environment. The company Susheat now aims to change this.

Ideas for the climate: High-temperature heat pumps

One way to use industrial waste heat more efficiently and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to use high-temperature heat pumps. A new research project by Susheat aims to bring about such an efficiency revolution in the energy consumption of the European industry and drive decarbonization in this sector. Susheat’s developers plan to recover and reuse 75 percent or more of the heat from industries such as food and beverage, paper and petrochemicals.

A recently published study estimates that heat pumps delivering temperatures of up to 250 degrees Celsius could reduce Europe’s industrial emissions by around 20 million tons of CO2 annually and play a “significant” role in achieving the EU’s climate targets. The system consisting of a new type of heat pump with a storage system could also be ready for use in one to two years – provided the political framework conditions and financing costs are right.

Silvia Trevisan and Mateo Sanclemente Lozano are researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Their university is among the 14 companies and universities involved in Susheat, located in countries such as Romania, Italy, Austria and the UK, Trevisan and Lozano told Table.Briefings. Using a latest-generation Stirling engine, built by the Norwegian company Enerin, they use waste heat and convert it into temperatures of up to 250 degrees.

Inspiration for heat storage: the human lung

KTH researchers combine the heat pump with a storage system that partly mimics the shape and function of the human lung. The system has been developed by the Universitat de Lleida (Spain) and can store heat for several hours, providing more flexibility and heat on demand.

In order to be even more flexible and efficient, these new industrial heat pump and heat storage technologies are connected to a solar thermal power plant and an AI management system. The aim is to reuse as much waste heat as possible. In parallel, the technology package is designed for use in different countries with varying electricity prices and conditions.

“You can also achieve temperatures between 200 and 250 degrees with concentrated solar energy,” says Trevisan. In a country like Italy, with abundant sunshine but expensive electricity, you would use more concentrated solar heat and produce less with the heat pump. “In a country like Norway, where the sun shines less but electricity is cheap and environmentally friendly, you can use the industrial heat pump more.”

Capital costs and amortization periods are obstacles

Commercial industrial high-temperature heat pumps capable of reaching 250 degrees could be available in one to two years. “The integrated system will take longer because the management is more complex – perhaps four to five years,” says Trevisan.

Perhaps the biggest challenges are the capital costs for the new technologies and the government’s incentives. “The technology could be a game changer,” says Trevisan. “Much of the challenge is probably more related to the capital costs and the amortization periods that the industry is willing to accept.”

The European Heat Pump Association shares this view. Most EU countries, as well as Norway, Switzerland and the UK, offer government incentives, but there are also obstacles – including a lack of awareness of the potential of the new technology. For this reason, the association calls on the EU Commission to place these new technologies at the heart of its Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act, which is due to be published soon.

Climate in figures: Why the Global North also needs to step up the fight against deforestation

Discussions regarding deforestation at international climate conferences usually focus on tropical forests. The protection of the Amazon rainforest, for example, receives a lot of attention – and in fact, according to the environmental organization WWF, more fires have been counted in the Brazilian part of the Amazon region in the last eleven months than at any time since 2007. By mid-October, 13 million hectares had been affected by the fires. If the fires in the Cerrado and Pantanal – two other important biomes in Brazil – are included, the area affected rises to 30.1 million hectares.

Researchers previously assumed that tropical rainforests store a particularly large amount of carbon. However, fires and climate change are reducing their ability to absorb CO2. Recent scientific studies even provide evidence that the forests of the northern latitudes, such as the boreal coniferous forests of Russia and Canada, may have become a more important carbon sink. This makes their protection all the more important – and it would be all the more important to talk more about them at international climate negotiations, say representatives of the Global South such as Sikeade Egbuwalo, responsible for biodiversity at the Nigerian Ministry of Environment. On Climate Home News, she criticizes the “deeply rooted double standard.”

However, World Resources Institute (WRI) data shows: Large forest areas are also disappearing in the Northern Hemisphere. And while forests in the south are being cut down to make way for agribusiness, mining and oil and gas extraction, among other things, forestry and wildfires play an important role in the north. The WRI distinguishes five main causes of deforestation:

Between 2001 and 2023, around 155 million hectares of trees were lost worldwide due to forestry. However, forests can grow back in these areas, either naturally or through planting.
Commodity production, for example, in agriculture, mining, or the oil and gas industry, often for export, is responsible for a loss of 102 million hectares. This forest loss is permanent, and it is unlikely to grow back.
The forest is also permanently destroyed whenever human settlements are built. This has resulted in the loss of three million hectares of trees over the period.
The WRI separately records temporary agricultural production in deforested areas. Here, the forest may return. Nevertheless, 113 million hectares of forest were lost in this category during the period examined.
Finally, wildfires cause the loss of 113 million hectares of trees. The WRI includes fires not related to agricultural activities or other “visible human transformations” – unlike fires in the Global South, for example, which are used to clear land for agriculture and appear in different categories. ae

Adaptation strategy: How the German government plans to tackle climate change

The German government has adopted its climate adaptation strategy. Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Green Party) announced this on Wednesday following the cabinet decision. The strategy is based on the Climate Adaptation Act, which came into force in the summer and, for the first time, sets measurable targets to help make Germany more resilient against climate risks.

Improved public warning

Among other things, focus will be placed on improving public warnings in the event of an emergency, for example through the nationwide warning app Nina. The number of users is supposed to increase significantly by 2030. Other warning systems, such as sirens, will also be expanded throughout Germany. It is a whole package of measures, emphasized Lemke. For example, improved drinking plans in care facilities and the expansion of green spaces in cities. She also stressed the importance of more resilient infrastructure and, for example, adapting the height of bridges to future heavy rainfall events and flood disasters.

As global warming progresses, the likelihood of extreme weather is increasing. Since 2023, adaptation to these consequences has been enshrined in a separate law as a government task.

Damage totaling 145 billion euros since 2000

Lemke emphasized that adapting to the consequences of climate change was also a major cost issue. “We want to limit the damage that occurs in Germany as a result of climate change. Since 2000, the damage has already totaled 145 billion euros. We want to counter this with preventive measures,” she explained. According to her ministry, this is a cross-ministerial task and one that will continue regardless of the outcome of the snap elections next spring. The newly adopted strategy applies with immediate effect and is binding until a new one is drawn up by a future federal government. dpa/lb

Carbon credits: Resignations from the ICVCM certification body

Due to criticism of the assessment standards for carbon certificates by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), two members of the body have resigned from their posts. Lambert Schneider from the Berlin-based Öko-Institut and Jürg Füssler from Infras in Zurich refuse to support the ICVCM’s decision to classify certain forest protection credits as “high integrity.” In their view, the committee made decisions against its own rules.

ICVCM is an industry initiative to restore trust in credits on the voluntary carbon offset market. It brings together independent experts to assess whether measurement methods for offsetting projects do not lead to overestimates wherever possible. Founding members include Google and the Bezos Earth Fund.

The first methods received the new quality seal back in June. These included projects that remove ozone-depleting refrigerants from electronic waste and capture methane from landfill sites. Although these projects are not very controversial, they are also small and not very sought-after. However, the forest conservation projects that dominate the market are quite different. Their methods have been significantly developed. Three have now been awarded the coveted “High Integrity” seal at the COP in Baku: TREES by ART and VM48 and J-REDD+ by Verra. The co-chair of the ICVCM’s expert panel explained that it had been established that the methods concerned “have rigorous approaches in place to ensure additionality, permanence, robust quantification and social safeguards, among other criteria.”

However, there were disputes, for example, about the calculation methods used to determine how many emissions a forest protection project prevents. Some methods lead to over- or underestimates. “One might argue that underestimation in some jurisdictions or projects would compensate for overestimation in others,” write Füssler and Schneider in a joint blog post. In such a case, the overestimation of some projects would not be a problem. However, Füssler and Schneider fear that the incentive to announce a compensation project is higher where deforestation is already decreasing. While the ICVCM does not rule this out, it intends to keep an eye on the risk with “more research” while projects are already underway.

Schneider criticized that these different positions had not been sufficiently communicated, hence his resignation. ICVCM has not yet responded to the criticism, but has stated that it will “review the implementation of the methods” and “closely monitor integration risks.” Tin Fischer

Heat pumps: Number of funding applications skyrockets

The uncertainty regarding future subsidies for eco-friendly heating systems in Germany has apparently boosted demand significantly: According to Table.Briefings information, the KfW approved an average of 9,100 applications per week between the end of November and the beginning of December. This is an increase of 55 percent compared to the figures from the previous three weeks. Part of this increase can be attributed to applications for previously installed heating systems that could be submitted until November 30.

The BMWK assumes that the increase is mainly due to concerns about subsidy cuts. This is supported by the fact that the figures in the first week of December, after the deadline for late registrations, were still around 40 percent higher than in the first weeks of November. The application figures include all eco-friendly heating systems; in recent months, around 80 percent of these applications were for heat pumps, with the remainder mainly for biomass heating systems and district heating connections.

The future of the subsidies is still unclear. The BMWK assumes that it will initially continue unchanged next year, even without an approved budget. However, there could be significant changes under a new government: Jens Spahn, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, recently announced at the Heat Pump Forum that subsidies would be “adapted to the current budgetary situation”; in the medium term, subsidies could be scrapped entirely. The SPD and the Greens, on the other hand, as possible coalition partners of the CDU/CSU, want to keep them. mkr

Arctic tundra: Why the region becomes a CO2 source

The past nine years have been the warmest in the Arctic since records began. The permafrost is thawing and climate change is intensifying wildfires. All of this has turned the Arctic tundra into a source of carbon and methane, as an update of the Arctic Report Card for the year 2024 shows. The report speaks of a “new regime.”

97 researchers from eleven countries contributed to the report under the leadership of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Many of the Arctic’s vital signs are either reaching record levels or bordering on record levels almost every year,” says Gerald Frost, senior scientist at Alaska Biological Research Inc. and long-time author of the Arctic Report Card. Findings show, for example:

Over the past 20 years, wildfires in the Arctic region have released an average of 207 million tons of carbon into the air every year.
The average water temperature in most shallow waters of the Arctic Ocean in August was two to four degrees warmer than in the comparable period from 1991 to 2020.
Permafrost temperatures in Alaska were the second-warmest on record.
The population of migratory caribou has declined by 65 percent in recent decades. The main reasons for this are the heat in summer and increasing rainfall. This jeopardizes the food security of the local population.
The snowmelt begins one to two weeks earlier, and the tundra becomes greener due to the higher temperatures.
This year’s summer was the wettest in the Arctic since records began. More rain also falls on snow-covered areas, causing the region to become covered in ice. This makes it difficult for people to move around and for animals to find food.

The report reveals that some population groups, such as the indigenous Kangiqtugaapik hunting community, can better adapt to the “warmer, wetter and more unsafe world.” Some plant and animal species, including the ice seals in the Bering Strait, can also cope with the changes. Their population remains stable thanks to a change in diet from Arctic cod to saffron cod. Nevertheless, the report states that the overall risks can only be overcome if greenhouse gas emissions are stopped worldwide. lb

Euronews: Ski resorts without snow. Ski resorts without snow. Thanks to climate change, more and more ski resorts are preparing for the time when there will no longer be enough snow. The European “BeyondSnow” project supports them in this. In Slovenia, the focus is on hikers and cyclists as future guests. To the article

Washington Post: For Musk, climate change has become less important. For a long time, Elon Musk has considered climate change the biggest problem of our time. That time is over. Although Musk does not deny climate change, he now considers it a less urgent problem and focuses primarily on technology to tackle it. To the article

Time: Better housing could help the climate. 215 million US citizens live in poor conditions. Measures to renovate buildings could not only improve their quality of life, but also help in the fight against climate change. To the article

Bloomberg: Saving water in data centers. Microsoft has unveiled a new data center concept optimized for the demands of AI applications without the need for water for cooling. The aim is to save 125 million liters of water per data center every year. To the article

Untouchable – the steel and coal investor Daniel Křetínský

His critics have already given Daniel Křetínskýs (49) many labels: The “Czech Sphinx,” he was called by the Financial Times. The French journalist Jérôme Lefilliâtre called him the “garbage collector of Europe” in a biography. This is because Křetínský acquired Mitteldeutsche Braunkohlengesellschaft (Mibrag) in 2009 and Leag in Lusatia in 2016. By purchasing the coal companies, the billionaire became one of the biggest air polluters in Europe.

Unclear whether Křetínský wants to invest own money in steel transformation

Now there is another characterizing metaphor: “Buttoned up like an oyster” is how he describes his concrete plans for the Thyssenkrupp steel subsidiary TKSE, said Jürgen Kerner in an interview with Table.Briefings. However, the second chairman of IG Metall and member of the Supervisory Board of Thyssenkrupp AG has a very differentiated impression of Křetínský.

Daniel Křetínský already holds a fifth of the shares in TKSE, with an option for a further 30 percent. “When I send him a message, he responds immediately,” says Kerner. “That’s very polite.” But there is still no discussion about the important issues.

Without a binding discussion, it remains unclear whether Křetínský wants to invest his own money in the Group in order to enable the restructuring and ecological transformation of Germany’s largest steel group, which is in deficit. “Every week that goes by without such a conversation feeds doubt in me and my colleagues that he is the right owner,” warns Kerner. Yet the Czech is actually “a very approachable person” with whom it is easy to talk “about many different topics on a meta-level.”

Sigmar Gabriel describes the investor in a very similar way in an interview with Table.Briefings: “I got to know Mr. Křetínský as an extraordinarily knowledgeable and very good analyst,” says the former Federal Minister of Economic Affairs, who resigned from his position as Chairman of the TKSE Supervisory Board in late summer in a dispute with the ThyssenKrupp Executive Board. At the time, Gabriel even recommended that Křetínský should take over TKSE completely – a statement that the former Minister did not want to repeat.

In the wake of the privatization winners

According to the Forbes Rich List, Křetínský is one of the three richest Czechs with 9.4 billion US dollars, and his company holdings are estimated to be five times that amount. As the son of a computer science professor and a constitutional judge, there are several fortunate circumstances that explain how he came to this wealth: firstly, after studying law and gaining his doctorate at Masaryk University in Brno, he met Patrik Tkác and Petr Kellner.

Tkác, a successful banker from Slovakia, brought Křetínský into his investment company J&T in 1999 and made him a partner in 2003. Together they founded the holding company EPH in 2009 and initially became involved in the fossil energy business in Central Eastern Europe. Kellner, for his part, had bought up apparently worthless shares in the former state-owned companies with his Dutch-registered fund PPF during the so-called coupon privatization after the fall of communism in the Czech Republic and made a fortune in the process. Křetínský was in a relationship with Kellner’s daughter Anna for many years, and with her father’s help, he built up the convoluted EPH company empire.

It also benefited enormously from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, not only have the coal-fired power plants in eastern Germany and elsewhere been profitable, but according to the Czech NGO Re-Set, the profits from the transit of natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe, which EPH’s majority shareholding in Eustream collects, have also increased. The Ukrainian government was just as unenthusiastic about this as it was about the continuing business of the Düsseldorf-based retail group Metro in Russia. Křetínský had bought into the struggling Metro in 2018.

Criticism of climate change denial through his media involvement

Today, Daniel Křetínský owns a complex network of companies throughout Europe. He holds stakes in supermarket chains such as Sainsbury (UK) and Casino (France), soccer clubs such as Westham United and Sparta Prague, and the Dutch postal service. In France, he bought the left-wing magazine Marianne and the second-largest publishing house Editis in addition to the magazine Elle. In his home country, his Czech News Center has a third of the media market, including the tabloid Blesk.

According to Křetínský’s numerous opponents from the environmentalist scene, this paper in particular has repeatedly denied climate change – supposedly fitting for an investor who has made a large part of his fortune from fossil fuels. One prominent opponent is EU Commissioner Jozef Síkela. During his time as Czech Minister of Industry and Trade, he fended off Křetínský’s takeover attempt of pipeline operator Net4Gas and nationalized the company. Síkela felt unfairly pressured by negative reporting in Blesk. Křetínský now presents himself as a climate protector and claims to want to promote the energy transition with his companies.

Undervalued companies

Daniel Křetínský’s business strategy is to buy up companies in crisis at low prices. He then usually holds them for years. Unlike many other investors, he does not usually break them up into individual parts. But he also often does not invest on a large scale in order to get the companies back on the road to success. However, Kerner, an IG Metall employee, is still hoping for this for TKSE.

However, Křetínský’s spokesman Daniel Častvaj denied that Křetínský is withdrawing profits, as a Greenpeace report on Leag recently suggested. “As shareholders, we have not yet received a single euro of profit as a dividend,” Častvaj wrote to Table.Briefings. “All profits are reinvested in the company.” Otherwise, he asked for understanding that an interview with Křetínský on Leag or TKSE is currently not possible. There it is again – the oyster. Alex Veit

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Bernhard
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Lukas
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