Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ‘could speed move to green energy’
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not wrecked ambitions laid out in the Glasgow Climate Pact, according to US climate envoy John Kerry.
In fact, the war, which is having a major impact on international oil and gas supplies, may push Europe to accelerate moves to increase renewable energy and end reliance on fossil fuels, he says.
The pact, hammered out at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, saw nearly 200 countries agree to “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” and a phasedown of coal power in a bid to restrict global temperature rise to “well below” 2C, with a goal of 1.5C.
This means cutting emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, and reaching net zero by 2050.
In an interview for the BBC’S No Hot Air podcast, politician and diplomat Mr Kerry said the Russian president “hasn't wrecked” the climate agreement, “but he's presented a challenge to it".
He said: “What Vladimir
Putin has done by using gas energy as a weapon, is to convince Europe that it has to move faster.
“So, in fact, Europe is going to try to move to deploy renewable energy, wind, solar, etc, much faster than they originally had planned.”
Mr Kerry’s comments came as a new Met Office study warned there was a 50-50 chance that temperatures would temporarily exceed the key 1.5C threshold for global warming in the next five years.
The annual update forecasts that one of the years 2022-2026 is very likely to be the warmest on record globally, beating the current record hot year of 2016.
And it is likely one of the years in the next half-decade will see annual average temperatures exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the report produced for the UN’S World Meteorological Organisation said.
“We can say with credibility that we have kept 1.5C within reach, but its pulse is weak,” UK minister and COP26 president Alok Sharma said at the close of the COP26 summit.
Mr Kerry echoed the sentiment, but remained hopeful that action would be ramped up.
"The bottom line is we're in trouble right now unless we can turn things around faster over the next eight years," he said.
"We have to still fight for the 1.5C, as hard as it may be.
“But I remain an optimist, because I think that if we do what we've promised to do, we can have a 45 per cent global cut globally between now and 2030."
The world is already seeing increasing floods, storms, heatwaves and wildfires as a result of climate change of around 1.1C in 2021, and beyond 1.5C of warming, more extreme weather, crop damage and losses of key systems such as coral reefs are expected.
Some vulnerable countries, such as low-lying island states, warn that going beyond 1.5C threatens their very survival.
The report’s lead expert, Dr Leon Hermanson, of the Met Office, said: “A single year of exceedance above 1.5C does not mean we have breached the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement.”