Every year, governments shower hundreds of billions of public money on the fossil fuel sector around the world, despite the fact that coal, oil and gas are mainly responsible for the climate crisis that has led the planet to an exceptional situation. Eliminating this aid is a historic demand in the fight against climate change. In the final declaration of the Glasgow climate summit, held at the end of 2021 in that Scottish city, the almost 200 countries that participated in that event (practically all of the world) included an explicit call to gradually eliminate inefficient public aid . However, that call from two years ago has not been transformed into concrete commitments in the climate plans of nations, as revealed this Tuesday. a report from the UN climate change area, which also warns that efforts to keep warming within the safest limits remain insufficient. Greenhouse gas emissions will peak before the end of the decade, but they will not be reduced quickly and intensely enough, the study warns.
Two weeks before the start of the annual climate summit in Dubai, COP28, this United Nations analysis examines the plans of the 194 countries that have signed the Paris Agreement. When a nation signs this pact, it must present a document with the measures it is taking and will take to address global warming. The vast majority commit in these plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and promote renewable energy. But only 4% of the climate plans of those 194 countries include direct references to the gradual elimination of public aid for fossil fuels, which are mainly responsible for emissions.
That 4%, seven countries, do not even represent 4% of the total public aid given to oil, gas or coal each year in the world. The report does not mention which nations include that commitment. But the important thing is not those who do it, but those who don’t. And ending these subsidies does not figure in the climate plans of the main greenhouse gas emitting powers, that is, China, the United States or India. Neither does the European Union, which presented an update on October 16 of its plan and does not include any mention of the elimination of subsidies that fuel the climate crisis.
Quantifying the total amount of this aid for fuel production and consumption is complicated. In 2021 they ended up in this sector 732 billion dollars (about 673,830 million euros) of public money in the 82 largest economies in the world, according to data endorsed by the OECD, the report points out. But the IMF, in another report in August, aimed much higher and raised public aid for fossil fuels to seven trillion dollars in 2022. The IMF analysis was based on data from 170 countries. In addition, it includes a large amount of public money that IMF experts indirectly understand that this sector takes, such as, for example, the health expenses incurred by States due to the health problems that fossil fuels also cause. In any case, both reports conclude that this aid is multimillion-dollar and, far from being reduced, it has increased significantly since 2020.
Ending them would have direct climate benefits. In the analysis released this Tuesday, UN experts recall that the IPCC – the international panel of experts that lays the foundations for the knowledge of climate change – has established that “the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies will lead to a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions of up to 10% by 2030, in addition to generating other environmental and financial benefits.”
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The UN report is one of the most important working documents for the summit that begins this November 30 in Dubai because it allows us to monitor the evolution of measures and promises in the fight against global warming. Every year, before these summits, the balance is presented with the updates of the national plans that the countries present (on this occasion 20 programs have been updated). And the main conclusion is once again the same as in previous editions: progress is being made, but not at the speed and intensity required for warming to remain within the safe limits set in the Paris Agreement.
The global emissions of greenhouse gases expelled by human beings in their daily activities and which are to blame for the climate crisis will peak this decade, “before 2030,” concludes the UN analysis. But, as António Guterres, UN Secretary General, recalled this Tuesday, this is not enough to “control the climate crisis” and avoid “the worst of the catastrophe.”
Global emissions in 2030 will fall by 2% compared to 2019 levels if national plans presented under the Paris Agreement are fully implemented. This pact, signed in 2015, establishes as a central objective that the increase in average temperature at the end of the century remains below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels; and as far as possible below 1.5 (warming has already reached 1.1 degrees). However, the UN experts indicate in their report that the full implementation of current national plans would lead to a temperature increase of between 2.1 and 2.8 degrees – in the best of cases, double the current warming.
The IPCC estimates that, to meet the 1.5 degree goal, global emissions would have to fall by 43% in 2030 compared to 2019—very far from the 2% that national plans now contemplate. To make the 2 degree goal possible, the reduction by the end of this decade should be 27%.
But, although time passes quickly, this is not a completely closed story; and national emissions cutting plans must be updated upwards. “Today’s report shows that governments as a whole are taking small steps to avoid the climate crisis. And it shows why governments must take bold steps at COP28 in Dubai to get going,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “This means that COP28 must be a clear turning point. “Governments must not only agree on what stronger climate measures will be taken, but also start showing exactly how to carry them out,” he added.
Guterres has gone more concrete when listing some of the measures that must be taken. “Countries must significantly increase renewable energy capacity,” he noted. And, at the same time, they have to “phase out coal”—in 2030 in OECD countries and in 2040 for the rest of the nations. In addition, they must “phase out all fossil fuels” within a strategy for a “just and equitable transition.”
The final Glasgow declaration of 2021 also called for the gradual reduction of coal that does not have emissions capture and storage technologies. The balance of national plans shows that 90% of countries are committed to increasing the presence of renewable energies. Although only 9% of nations mention gradually reducing coal electricity generation. In this case, the good news is that these 9% of countries represent 58% of the total electricity generated with coal in the world. This is because China, the world’s largest consumer of coal, does include explicit measures to abandon this fuel. The European Union, despite being one of the world economies with the most ambitious emissions reduction targets on the planet, does not explicitly mention the abandonment of coal in the latest update of its climate plan.
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