Promises on coal, forests and funding amount to hot air as climate ‘breakthroughs’ wither under the spotlight
The pledges fly thick and fast; every day the Government and others make one bold announcement after another about the success of talks about the planet’s future. But, halfway through Cop26 in Glasgow, the reality may not be living up to the hype. Analysis by The Daily Telegraph suggests a large gap between official communiqué and the stark truth.
Coal
What they say: The UK made a breakthrough announcement last Thursday that 190 countries and organisations were now committed to phasing out the use of coal. In an official release, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business and Energy Secretary, declared: “spearheaded by the UK’S Cop26 presidency… the end of coal is in sight”.
The reality: Critics were quick to accuse the Government of overselling the deal. Although the announcement sounded impressive, the number of countries signed up was 45 and it did not include USA, China, India or Russia. Wales was cheekily included as an extra nation alongside the United Kingdom. The Government had also added to the pledge 120 entities who had already signed up to a separate Powering Past Coal Alliance that was agreed as long ago as 2017.
Of the 190 entities the Government listed, it emerged that 23 were new commitments and six of those had not fully committed to the pledge.
Ten of the countries that were signed up don’t use the fossil fuel in their power stations. The wording of the pledge also appeared to be watered down – with a commitment to end coal power for developed nations by 2030 and by 2040 for developing nations. Crucially a caveat was added “or as soon as possible thereafter”.
For example, Indonesia, a major coal user, agreed to phase out coal “into the 2040s” but only on condition of receiving financial support. Poland declared itself a developing nation to fit in with its own deadline of 2049.
Trees
What they say: In Cop26’s first major deal, Boris Johnson announced that 110 countries – “more leaders than ever before” in the prime minister’s words – had made the “landmark” commitment to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. The pledge includes £14bn of public and private funds to encourage success
The reality: This all sounded like quite the breakthrough until experts pointed out it was hardly a “landmark”. A similar pledge was made in 2014 at the New York Declaration on Forests – but five years on that was declared a failure. That declaration, endorsed at the 2014 UN climate summit in New York was endorsed by 150 governments, companies and other organisations. It was expected to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030. But an official report in 2019 said the declaration had been a failure and that deforestation had “actually accelerated” in the intervening years.
There may be improvements this time round with Brazil, which includes vast swathes of the Amazon rainforest, and Russia among the signatories in Glasgow. Prof Simon Lewis, an expert on climate and forests at University College London, said the political commitment was “good news” but warned the world “has been here
before” in reference to the 2014 agreement that “failed to slow deforestation at all”.
Cash
What they say: More than 450 firms, with assets totalling $130 trillion, on Wednesday announced their commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. They signed up to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). Trumpeted by Mark Carney as a “watershed” moment, the former governor of the Bank of England declared: “Right here right now is where private finance draws the line.” Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, agreed, saying: “This is a historic wall of capital for the net zero transition around the world.
The reality: The announcement might have been ‘watershed’ but the figure was ‘eye watering’, prompting the Financial Times to question the $130 trillion figure, pointing out that “the market capitalisation of the world’s stock markets is only about $120tn” in the first place.
Any lay person might have thought this vast sum was being invested to make the world go green. But it did not even include a promise that would prevent financial firms from making investments in fossil fuels.the University of Oxford’s Oxford Sustainable Finance Group said it would not be possible to deliver on climate pledges without “halting the financing of new fossil fuel infrastructure” and the GFANZ did not promise that. One campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory - said that Cop26 “looks set to become the biggest finance greenwash in history”.
Critics pointed out that $100 billion promised to developing countries as long ago as 2009 to battle climate change in 2020 to 2025 will not be delivered until 2023 at the earliest. In other words it’s all very well talking up a hypothetical $130 trillion, when $100bn of real money still hasn’t been raised.
Temperature
‘A similar pledge was made in 2014 at the New York declaration on Forests – but five years on that was declared a failure’
What they say: Led by president Joe Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, more than 100 nations pledged to reduce global methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. The influential International Energy Agency (IEA) said that with all the commitments being made at Cop26, the world was now on course to limit any temperature rise to 1.8C by the end of the century. This was heralded as a triumph for Cop26 because, pre-conference, the IEA was predicting a temperature rise above pre-industrial levels of 2.1C by 2100. The reality: The Global Methane Pledge comes with caveats. Major emitters such as Russia, China and India have not signed up and the commitments are all voluntary.
The IEA announcement comes with its own pinch of salt. The UN points out that even with these national plans in place, greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 13.7 per cent by 2030. In fact, to keep to a 1.5C rise in global temperatures, emissions will need to fall by 45 per cent in the next decade.
Even the IEA is sceptical. Dr Fatih Birol, its executive director, said its updated analysis showed that the targets would need to be “met in full and on time” to hold the global temperature rise to 1.8C. But he added: “we still fall well short of what is needed to keep the door open to 1.5C.”