A cleaner world, but what will the deal mean for consumers?
AFTER two weeks of talks, a final deal has been signed to end Cop26.
A series of smaller agreements has also been agreed, on coal, deforestation, methane and food standards. So what do they mean for the average person?
Energy
The UK has already moved faster than many other countries in phasing out coal. Last year just 1.8 per cent of our energy came from the most polluting fossil fuel.
But we are still reliant on gas to heat our homes and generate electricity, and prices have been rising because wind turbines have not produced as much power as usual. There has also been pressure on supplies due to last year’s cold winter and demand from Asia for liquefied natural gas.
In the long term, the Government plans to switch home heating to an electricity-based system, reliant on heat pumps. To make heat pumps cheaper and incentivise the switch, it has also said it plans to put the subsidies which currently make electricity prices artificially high onto gas bills instead.
A deal signed last week committed countries including Morocco, Ukraine and Indonesia to phase down their reliance on coal, in the 2030s for richer countries and 2040s for poorer ones.
In the short run, this could put yet more pressure on gas prices, because these countries are likely to switch to gas, a less polluting fossil fuel, rather than renewable energy sources which require investment to install.
Andrew Crossland, a fellow at Durham Energy Institute, said: “Demand for gas will go up, particularly if it’s a switch from coal to gas. I don’t know where the supply is going to come from.
“That’s only going to hurt consumers, whether that’s in the UK or abroad.
“I’d like to see more talk about promoting renewables, and I’d like to see better international finance for renewables, or low carbon sources,” he said.
Food
A deforestation deal signed last week saw more than 100 world leaders sign up to end deforestation by 2030. It’s not the first such deal but it is one of the largest, and comes with £500 million from the Government to protect rainforests.
The deal is part of a wider shift away from incentivising cheap food production on deforested land towards higherquality food grown closer to home. Ministers have previously said they expect food prices to rise, partly as a result of higher wages due to the loss of EU agricultural workers.
UK meat producers have higher welfare standards than those in other parts of the world, but if the supply of cheap imported meat stops, diners may have to get used to higher prices.
But Professor Tim Benton, of Chatham House, said the event did not signal a major change in diets because agreements focused on making farming more intensive rather than changing what is grown and eaten.
“Ultimately, the business interests of large-scale agriculture are such that they can see a route to be more profitable and adapting to climate change through climate-smart agriculture.
“I suspect that will be cost-neutral to consumers, because with a bit of private investment in solving these issues, and a bit of public investment in driving an innovation agenda in agriculture, we will get a lot of the way there,” he said.
The WWF also signed a deal with the UK’S major supermarket chains to track their progress to cutting their impact on nature in half by 2030.
Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF UK, said some foods, like fish, may become more expensive and eaten more infrequently due to a move away from trawling.
“I think it’s reasonable that you might end up paying more for better-quality fish, but then if you’re buying less fish overall, you’re not necessarily spending more money,” he said.
Mark Engel, Unilever chief supply chain officer, said sustainable products made without deforestation would “become the norm”, meaning lower prices than are seen currently. “When sustainable commodities is 5 per cent, it is a niche, and that brings all kinds of costs,” he said.
Electric cars
The UK is moving faster than most countries in the push for electric cars. Plans to phase out new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 put us ahead of almost everyone else. So a new electric car deal this week was intended to encourage others to step up their ambitions.
Major economies such as the US failed to sign up, as did four out of the world’s five largest car manufacturers.
But the deal does at least mean more countries are making efforts to bring in more electric cars, making for a larger market for UK industry, and potentially creating jobs.
Aviation
It seems the days of cheap flights are numbered. Britons used to flying to New York for a couple of hundred pounds return may be in for a shock as the airline industry comes under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint.
Its plans to do this via offsets and more sustainable fuels are controversial, and while the industry insists it can keep growing and offering cheap travel while the world moves away from fossil fuels, ticket prices are almost certainly going to rise.
Earlier this year the EU axed an exemption from tax on jet fuel for flights within Europe, and while the UK cut air passenger duty for domestic flights in the autumn statement, it plans to increase it for long-haul flights.
At Cop26 a new agreement on aviation was signed by 20 countries including the US, the UK, France and Spain. It relies heavily on sustainable aviation fuel and as-yet unproven new technologies such as battery and hydrogenpowered aircraft, leading to accusations of greenwashing from climate groups.
Gus Gardner, associate travel and tourism analyst at Globaldata, said: “Sustainable aviation fuel is going to be a great stop-gap for the aviation industry to reduce its impact until electric and hydrogen aircraft come in.
“The fundamental flaw is that there is a lack of funding to pay for it. At the end of the day, if passengers want an environmental means of travel, then they have got to pay for it.
“In an ideal world, we’d see government funding come through but there are lots of industries competing for that funding.
“So it’s going to fall on the passenger. We will see increased ticket prices to fund this new fuel to become economically and commercially viable.”