Salma El Wardany, Yousef Gamal El-Din, and John Ainger, Bloomberg News

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt
EnergiesNet.com 11 07 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron said the US, China and other non-European rich nations must pay “their share” to help poorer nations deal with climate change.

“We need the United States and China to step up,” Macron said on the sidelines of the COP27 summit in Egypt, AFP reported.

More than 100 world leaders have started arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh for the UN’s annual climate change summit, attempting to maintain momentum in the battle to curb planet-warming emissions.

Despite an early breakthrough that put the issue of compensating poorer countries for the impact of climate change on the agenda for the first time, delegates are downbeat on prospects for big new commitments. 

Rising energy prices, accelerated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, have led many governments to prioritize security of supply over the transition to cleaner energy.

Global emissions need to start falling rapidly before 2030 if the world has any chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celcius. But they will likely hit a record this year. Countries from Pakistan to the US have been hit by unprecedented climate disasters.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are among the biggest names expected at the start of the two-week event. US President Joe Biden and Brazil’s President-elect Luis Inacio Lula da Silva are due to appear later on. 

The most notable no shows are China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi, leaders of the world’s largest and third-largest emitters.

READ: 10 things to watch at the COP27 summit

Latest developments

• COP27 talks begin with deal to discuss climate reparations
  
  
• China calls for more aid to developing nations
  
  
• UN reports catalogs year of “climate chaos”
  
  
• Methane cloud spotted near Indian waste site

Here are the latest developments. All times Egypt.

Johnson Puts Trademark Boosterism to Work at COP (12:15 a.m. London)

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that the world risks learning the wrong lessons from the spike in energy prices due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and that the “spirit of Glasgow” — the last COP meeting held when he was still in power in 2021 — is already being lost.

It was a typically bullish appearance by Johnson on the sidelines of the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting, as he tried to talk up his government’s investments in renewable energy and what he called the “great achievement” at COP26 on climate change funding and forestry protection.

At home, Johnson’s presence in Egypt is controversial and seen as an attempt to repair his tarnished image on the global stage. But as was so often the case when he was prime minister, Johnson found his boosterism was not a fix-all.

He faced awkward questions about the UK’s responsibility to pay climate reparations, and the apparent inconsistency in his promotion of climate goals while also supporting more North Sea drilling. And on his main theme of the “spirit of Glasgow,” even Johnson acknowledged that actual funding commitments are still “way short” of what was agreed, and that “I don’t see any sign of a reduction in the scale of destruction in the forests of the world.”

Lagarde Says ECB Closely Watching Impact of Climate Change (12:12 pm)

“Our primary objective is to keep prices stable,” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde says. “That is the compass guiding every one of our actions, now more than ever. To deliver on this core responsibility, we need the full picture on all factors affecting inflation so that our policies remain effective.”

Bloomberg Announces Expansion of Coal Transition Program (11:40 am)

Michael Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Ambition and Solutions, announced Monday plans to support developing countries transition away from coal.

The effort will see Bloomberg Philanthropies partner with the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) to mobilize the flow of private capital to clean energy transition projects in emerging markets and developing countries. It will also provide technical assistance.

In 2019, Bloomberg committed $500 million to launch Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants in the U.S. by 2030

“We’ve seen that it’s possible to expand access to clean, affordable energy and cut carbon emissions at the same time,” Bloomberg said in a statement, adding that “the expansion of our work in Africa, Asia, and Latin America will help more countries develop more clean power, faster.”

Michael Bloomberg is founder and owner of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News.

US to Outline Carbon Credit Plans for Developing Nations (11:40 am)

The US is on track to outline this week initial plans for using new carbon credits to rapidly scale up financial investment in green energy projects in developing countries. The initiative follows months of talks by US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry with Wall Street and philanthropic groups.

The new framework is meant to be built out over the next year. That would allow time to develop program details, including environmental integrity provisions, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the plan is not yet public. There are also efforts to ensure any new carbon trading program is aligned with science-based targets and includes safeguards to ensure a just energy transition.

Any new carbon credit program would be greeted by skepticism. For years, carbon-market experts have warned that renewable-energy offsets are no longer fit for purpose. As solar and wind power have become the cheapest source of power in the vast majority of countries globally, it’s getting harder to prove that paying small sums as offset payments is causing those countries to stop the development of coal or gas power plants.

Norway’s Equinor Says There’s Too Much Green-Energy Bureaucracy (11:00 am)

“The time it takes to make these investments is too long,” Anders Opedal, CEO of Norwegian energy firm Equinor, said to Bloomberg TV, referring to the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

“It took eight years just to get the paperwork ready,” he said. “We see that all around the world — the time for planning takes longer than the execution. This is where we need to attack. That’s why I’m here — to discuss this with politicians.”

The world must continue investing in oil and natural gas, he said, to improve energy security. Still, companies and investors must put money into renewable energy at the same time to accelerate the transition to cleaner fuels, he said. Equinor is investing around $25 billion between 2021 and 2026 on renewables.

Countries Set to Follow up on Methane Pledge (11:00 am)

Countries are set to discuss their plans for cutting methane emissions from oil wells, agriculture and waste at a ministerial meeting on Nov. 17, a year after a global pledge to slash the greenhouse gas 30% by 2030.

The meeting is one of more than 20 methane-related events being held at COP27, as focus intensifies on a gas that’s much more potent but more short-lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. That means reductions can quickly yield results and help limit global temperature increases to

How Fast are 25 Global Cities Going Green?

Nations will also deliver updates on their progress in tackling methane releases from oil and gas wells during a separate session on Friday. The US Environmental Protection Agency is due to unveil the latest iteration of its plan to regulate methane emissions from fossil fuels.

IMF’s Georgieva Says Global Inflation May Be Nearing Its Peak (10:40)

The global surge in consumer prices may be close to the high point of the current cycle but might yet prove stubborn, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.

“I’m not going to jump ahead of data, but it is very possible that we are peaking,” Georgieva said, just days before a report that will probably show US inflation for October stayed close to 8%. “We now see central banks very united on fighting inflation as a top priority and rightly so. If we don’t succeed, it would de-anchor and then the foundation for growth which is price stability is dented.”

EIB’s Hoyer Warns Against Energy Transition Backtracking (10:10 am)

European Investment Bank President Werner Hoyer warned against ‘’backtracking” on energy transition, saying dependence on fossil fuels must stop despite the challenges posed by the invasion of Ukraine and rising energy prices.

“Backtracking would be absolutely the wrong step, but of course the temptation is there,” Hoyer said an interview with Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of COp27. He also said developing countries must get the necessary support from the industrialized world to enable them to benefit from renewable energy

Macron Says US, China Must Pay ‘Their Share’ (10:00 am)

French President Emmanuel Macron said the US, China and others must pay “their share” to help poorer countries deal with climate change.

“We need the United States and China to step up,” Macron said on the sidelines of the COP27 summit in Egypt, AFP reported. “Europeans are paying. We are the only ones paying. Pressure must be put on rich non-European countries, telling them, ‘you have to pay your fair share’.”

IKEA Seeing Full Shelves Again After Covid Hit, CEO Says (9:30am)

Jesper Brodin, CEO of IKEA, said inflation is easing in some of the countries in which the furniture retailer operates.

“Our bigger change was during the initial phase of Covid,” he said to Bloomberg TV. “But today we see great progress and our shelves are full again. Since July and August, we’ve been able to bring down prices” in some places.

The company thought sales “would be much lower at this point due to the energy crisis,”  he said. But “people are still really focused on life at home. They are prioritizing home more than ever.”

Brodin said the popularity of plant-based food, which IKEA started selling about two years ago, was growing rapidly.

“Already in Germany, our biggest market, more than 30% of our food offering is plant-based,” he said. “That surprised me a bit.”

Africa Seeing Little Green-Energy Investment, Says BloombergNEF (6:30 am)

Africa is getting a “tiny share” of global investments in green energy, said Luiza Demor, head of energy transitions at BloombergNEF. The situation for emerging markets as a whole is little better.

“These countries are not seeing investment flows,” she said. Still, this is the “first time Africa is in the spotlight, together with emerging markets,” Demor said.

Lula’s Return Could See Brazil Regain Climate Leadership, Says CFR’s O’Neil (6:00 am)

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro made Brazil “a pariah” on climate change, according to Shannon O’Neil, senior fellow for Latin America at the Council on Foreign Relations. With the return of Luis Inacio Lula da Silva from January, it can “regain that leadership.”

“It’s a really interesting moment for Brazil,” O’Neil said to Bloomberg TV. “You have an outgoing president who was very anti-climate change, who didn’t attend some of these summits and who definitely had a policy of deforestation and an anti-environmental approach.”

That contrasts with Lula, who talked about saving Brazil’s rainforests in his presidential campaign.

“Lula will have a lot of problems at home he needs to deal with — the end of Covid, a recovering economy,” O’Neil said. “But I think the environment is an issue that is dear to his heart and one he will be focused on.”

— With assistance by Yousef Gamal El-Din, Craig Stirling, Lin Noueihed, Francine Lacqua, Jennifer A Dlouhy, Charles Daly, Lyubov Pronina and Tom Metcalf

bloomberg.com 11 07 2022