UN Guide will help insurers plan for net-zero transition

Solar on net-zero house. Credit: David Dodge, Green Energy Futures via Flickr CC

The United Nations published a guide designed to help insurers plan for the transition to net zero.

On 2 July, the UN convened a multistakeholder “Forum for Insurance Transition to Net Zero (FIT)”, saying the guide is tailored for insurance and reinsurance underwriting portfolios. “This new deep-dive global guide was presented at the inaugural FIT Transition Insurance Summit hosted by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) at their headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.”

According to a Green Central Banking article, “The impact of climate change on insurance markets has been systematically underestimated, with profound implications for financial stability and the sustainability of the risk-sharing services insurance companies provide.

“The European Central Bank warned in June that insurers are at increasing risk from the physical risks of climate change, which could become a source of systemic risk.”

The UN described FIT as follows: “Underwriting the Transition” provides insurance market participants—insurers, reinsurers and brokers—with a comprehensive and structured framework to help them develop and disclose credible transition plans for underwriting portfolios, addressing a significant gap in existing transition plan guidance for the insurance industry.

“This pioneering guide paves the way for insurers, reinsurers and brokers to move beyond high-level commitments by independently implementing robust and actionable strategies that enhance long-term business resilience and company value, and help achieve global sustainability goals,” said Butch Bacani, UNEP Head of Insurance and FIT Chair. By underwriting with foresight, and by accelerating and scaling up a just transition to a resilient net-zero economy, the insurance industry can lead with purpose and conviction in helping build inclusive, resilient and sustainable communities and economies, and reaffirm its role as society’s risk manager.”

“Underwriting the Transition identifies key elements of a credible transition plan and provides a checklist to assess the credibility of a transition plan. Through real-world examples, the guide demonstrates how leading insurers, reinsurers and brokers are each implementing various concepts and approaches in their underwriting portfolios that support a just transition to a resilient net-zero economy, as shared in their published transition plans. Moreover, it helps insurance market participants navigate a complex and evolving landscape of sustainability disclosure and reporting.

“It is the second deliverable of the FIT Transition Plan Project—a series of global guidance to address the current major gap in insurance-specific transition plan guidance. “Underwriting the Transition” builds on the FIT’s inaugural report, “Closing the Gap: The emerging global agenda of transition plans and the need for insurance-specific guidance”, which was launched at the 2024 UN Climate Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.”

The third and final FIT Transition Plan Project publication will produce holistic, “total balance sheet” transition plan guidance that links the underwriting and investment portfolios of insurance and reinsurance companies. It is scheduled to be launched at the 2025 UN Climate Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil this November.

At the COP29 launch event of the FIT’s inaugural report, Dyogo Oliveira, President of the Brazilian Insurance Confederation (CNseg), announced that CNseg has joined the FIT, and that CNseg will build a “House of Insurance” at COP30, which will serve as the main platform for climate ambition and action by the global insurance industry.

“As COP30 approaches, we look forward to working together with the Brazilian insurance industry, the wider insurance, regulatory and supervisory community, and key stakeholders—from policymakers and real economy actors; to the scientific and academic community, and civil society—and to making the ‘House of Insurance’ a symbol of inclusiveness, resilience, sustainability, and hope,” said Bacani.

Chaired by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the FIT currently comprises over 50 organizations from across the globe.

UNEP saif FIT “continues to deepen and strengthen its commitment to work with the global insurance industry and key stakeholders to support the acceleration and scaling up of a just transition to a resilient net-zero economy as part of the solution to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss, and pollution; and the vision of a resilient, sustainable, and prosperous future for all.”

Related recent climate change reading:
Reuters: World risks up to $39 trillion in economic losses from vanishing wetlands, report says
World Economic Forum: Why we must roll out multiple energy transition solutions to reach net zero. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/multiple-energy-transition-solutions-to-hit-net-zero/ The Guardian: Politicians are retreating from net zero because they think the public doesn’t care. But they’re wrong. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/07/politicians-net-zero-public-research-climate-crisis Rebecca Willis

Impact of Trump’s NCA Dismissals: A Scientific Response

Road to Nowhere by Renate via Flickr CC

US science organizations to pick up on Trump’s abandonment of NCA

Two major US scientific organizations, American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union, will work together to produce more than 29 peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects of climate change, including observations, projections, impacts, risks and solutions.

The AP and the Guardian reported on the development late last week after the Trump administration dismissed all contributors to the sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA), the US government’s major study on climate change. The dismissal of nearly 400 contributors left the future of the study in doubt; it had been scheduled for publication in 2028.

The NCA has been overseen by the NASA-supported Global Change Research Program, a US climate body that the Trump administration also dismissed last month. The reports, published since 2000, coordinated input from 14 federal agencies and hundreds of scientists.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University climate professor and chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the collaboration between AMS and AGU “is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.”

Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and an author of the one in 2023, added: “People are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it’s the size of the storm sewer pipes they’re installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat.”

In addition to widespread dismissals across federal agencies, federal websites have been purged of information pertaining to climate change and extreme weather events since Trump took office in January.

The NCA report is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashed funding or elimination of offices involved in coordinating thereport, scientists and activists said in an AP report.

“We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,” AGU President Brandon Jones said. “It’s more about ensuring that science continues.”

Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future.

With the assessment, “We’re better equipped to deal with the future,” Bamzi said. “We can’t be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.”

In the announcement on Friday, the two societies said: “This effort aims to sustain the momentum of the sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA), the authors and staff of which were dismissed earlier this week by the Trump administration, almost a year into the process.”

According to the AMS and AGU, the collection will not replace the NCA but instead create a mechanism for important work on climate change’s impact to continue.

“It’s incumbent on us to ensure our communities, our neighbors, our children are all protected and prepared for the mounting risks of climate change,” AGU’s president, Brandon Jones, said.

“This collaboration provides a critical pathway for a wide range of researchers to come together and provide the science needed to support the global enterprise pursuing solutions to climate change,” he added.

Similarly, the AMS president, David Stensrud, said: “Our economy, our health, our society are all climate-dependent. While we cannot replace the NCA, we at AMS see it as vital to support and help expand this collaborative scientific effort for the benefit of the US public and the world at large.”

The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is “harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security.”

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: “Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth.”

Is this the start of push-back on Trump? If so, Yes!

A world without birds?

Sulphur Crested Cokatoo by Bernard via Flickr CC

Unimaginable…but a Clemson University study concludes that climate is changing faster than most of the world’s birds can adapt.

Casey Youngflesh, an assistant professor in Clemson University’s Department of Biological Sciences, led a study at the university that examined how a bird’s pace of life — the rate at which it grows, develops, reproduces, and how long it lives — is related to environmental conditions and what that reveals about how they might respond to a changing climate.

Included in the study were 7,477 species of birds — basically all the world’s resident, non-marine birds — and used global climate data from 1950 to 2022.

Youngflesh and collaborators from Michigan State University “found that a key link exists between how much an environment varies over time and how long birds tend to live,” according to an article by Cindy Landrum of Clemson’s College of Sciences. “Specifically, species tend to live longer in environments that are more variable from year-to-year, a type of bet-hedging strategy that has long been theorized.”

These longer-lived species “may be at greater risk as well. All else being equal, these species experience greater change per generation than their shorter-lived counterparts. Because more generations means faster adaptation potential, these species are more likely to lag behind in their response to climate change.”

“One of the key things that varies among different bird species is pace of life. We were specifically interested in the role of the environment in potentially driving those differences,” Youngflesh said. “Where do we see ‘slow species’? Where do we see ‘fast species’? And why?”

The study found that birds with a “fast” pace of life have shorter lifespans and have as many young as they can during that time, something Youngflesh called a “live fast, die young” strategy. Birds with a “slow” pace of life have longer lifespans and low rates of reproduction.

“For a ‘slow’ species, if one year is bad, you’re going to live on to reproduce another year —you’re waiting it out. If you’re a bird that lives 30 years, you could handle a couple of bad years,” he said. “But if you’re a ‘fast’ species and there are several bad years in a row, that might be catastrophic. They may not get an opportunity to breed and raise their young.”

These results have important implications for understanding how species are likely to respond to climate change.

“While organisms with a slower pace of life (longer lifepans) are expected to be more robust to environmental variability, these species will tend to adapt to directional change at a slower rate. Fewer generations over a given period means fewer opportunities for selection to operate and thus slower evolutionary adaptation. Similarly, for a species that is used to large fluctuations in temperature year-to-year, a small change in temperature might be less meaningful than to a species that experiences very little fluctuation in temperature over time.”

S0, all change is not equal: “A one-degree Celsius change in temperature is not equal in all environments,” Youngflesh said. “We are making the case that we need to contextualize rates of climate change in terms of both the historical variability of environmental systems and species’ pace of life.”

The study compared two birds: a sulphur-crested cockatoo, which had the longest generation length of any species in the study at 27.2 years, and the double-barred finch, which had the shortest generation length at 1.4 years.

“There might be 19 generations of double-barred finch for every one generation of sulphur-crested cockatoo,” Youngflesh said. “So, the sulphur-crested cockatoo has fewer opportunities for selection to operate and thus slower evolutionary adaptation, all else being equal. Species experiencing higher rates of environmental change per generation are likely to be those that suffer the greatest consequences of climate change.

Detailed findings were published in Ecology Letters in an article titled, “Environmental variability shapes life history of the World’s birds.”

Decarbonizing Maritime Shipping: The PNW2Alaska Initiative

There’s an effort underway in the Pacific Northwest to make freight and cruise waterways as green as possible.

The Royal Caribbean Ovation of the Seas cruise ship leaves a port near Seattle. (Courtesy of the Port of Seattle)

Actually, the Green Corridor concept has been underway for some time.

Last May, the Pacific Coast Business Times reported the Port of Hueneme became the first U.S. port authority to sign agreements to create green automotive shipping corridors with ports and terminals in Japan and South Korea. “The partnerships we have with Japan and South Korea will help mutually grow commercial relationships with existing port clients and allow for a dynamic effort to make a difference around the globe with green shipping and development practices,” Kristin Decas, Port of Hueneme CEO and director, said in a press release.

The Port of Hueneme signed agreements to create green automotive shipping corridors between it and the Port of Yokohama in Japan and the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Pyeongtaek International Ro-Ro automotive terminal in the Port of Pyeongtaek, South Korea.

The agreements will help promote collaboration for environmentally sustainable port development initiatives and automotive logistics to transition to a zero-emission future, according to the release.

In September 2023, the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Shanghai unveiled an Implementation Plan Outline for the first trans-Pacific green shipping corridor. Corridor features include:

A voluntary partnership of leading maritime goods movement stakeholders, including the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Shanghai, with input from leading cargo owners, has developed a Green Shipping Corridor Implementation Plan Outline to accelerate emissions reductions on one of the world’s busiest container shipping routes.
Plan development was supported by C40 Cities, the global network of mayors working to deliver the urgent action needed to confront the climate crisis. C40 is the facilitator of the Green Shipping Corridor, providing support to the cities, ports, and their corridor partners by coordinating, convening, facilitating, and providing communications support for the corridor’s goals.
Carrier partners supporting this plan intend to begin deploying reduced or zero lifecycle carbon capable ships on the corridor by 2025.

X-Press Feeders, the world’s largest independent common carrier, recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with six European ports: Port of Antwerp Bruges (Belgium), Port of Tallinn (Estonia), Port of Helsinki (Finland), Port of Hamina Kotka (Finland), Freeport of Riga (Latvia) and Klaipeda Port (Lithuania).

Through this MOU, X-Press Feeders and the participating ports will pool resources and expertise to develop and implement sustainable practices for maritime operations.

Under the MOU:

– Parties will work together to further develop infrastructure for the provision and bunkering of alternative fuels such as green methanol,

– Encourage the development of supply chains for fuel that are zero or near zero in terms of greenhouse gas emissions

– Provide further training programs for port workers and seafarers with regards to the handling of alternative fuels

– Leverage digital platforms to enhance port call optimization

– Parties will have regular meetings to update and discuss progress on actions for further developing green shipping corridors.

X-Press Feeders’ green methanol is sourced from fuel supplier OCI Global. The green methanol is made from green hydrogen and the decomposition of organic matter, such as waste and residues. OCI’s green methanol is independently certified by the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) Association headquartered in Germany. The ISCC system promotes and verifies the sustainable production of biomass, circular and bio-based materials and renewables.

X-Press Feeders, which was founded in Singapore in 1972, is the world’s largest independent common carrier. X-Press Feeders operates a fleet of more than 100 vessels, calling at more than 180 ports worldwide. X-Press Feeders aims to achieve net zero emission by 2050 and be the ‘Greener Feeder Carrier of Choice’.

Green Shipping

Green shipping refers to transporting goods with as little environmental impact as possible. This may involve using advanced technology to optimize ship design, operations and performance to improve energy and fuel efficiency, prevent pollution, and reduce emissions. The concept of green shipping may be implemented already in the design phase of a new vessel, through continuous improvements or by switching to zero-emission fuels.

Switching to zero-emission fuels is gradually proceeding as more alternative fuels and engines enter the market. More shipbuilders are designing ships with green technology such as dual-fuel engines to accelerate the shift to clean fuels

Green shipping also includes training and educating staff and crew members in marine environmental awareness, including environmental policies, global requirements and compliances, ship energy efficiency, safe bunkering, oil transfer procedures, pollution prevention, garbage handling and disposal, biofouling, and ballast water management.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set a target to reduce the total annual GHG emissions from international shipping by at least 50 percent by 2050.

So, here’s the skinny on the latest green corridor, from the Port of Seattle.

The Pacific Northwest to Alaska Green Corridor (PNW2Alaska) is a collaboration among 14 organizations to create “a new era of low- and zero- greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cruise travel between Alaska, British Columbia and Washington.”

Decarbonizing this environmentally sensitive route is challenging, the port says. “Urban ports like Seattle and Vancouver can access large amounts of clean electricity to run shoreside operations and may have easier access to alternative fuels being developed. Smaller, remote ports in Alaska have more infrastructure and access challenges. Any decarbonization solution needs to work for cities, boroughs, ports, and cruise lines carrying passengers thousands of miles.”

The PNW2Alaska Green Corridor initiative considers the needs of each partner as it tests the feasibility of local solutions to decarbonize cruises in the Pacific Northwest. “One goal for all partners is that this first cruise-led Green Corridor can be an idea test bed that accelerates decarbonization at the 2,000 river and ocean cruise ports around the world.”

An aerial view of ships, boats, ferries and liners around Vancouver, B.C. (Courtesy of Vancouver Fraser Port Authority)

“No single group can achieve decarbonization. Combatting the reality of climate change takes honesty, accountability, innovation, and partnership,” said Port of Seattle Commission President Hamdi Mohamed of the collaboration. “We want to become a zero-emission port by 2050, and we need communities and industry partners to work together to meet these ambitious goals.”

PNW2Alaska was established in response to the 2021 Clydebank Declaration, a global commitment to create six green corridors on specific shipping routes by 2025, with corridors in operation by 2030, to move the needle toward maritime decarbonization at scale. Twenty-four countries took the commitment, the U.S. and Canada among them.

Next, Green Corridors, Part 2, and “elevating the future of freight.”

Hanford going solar

Hanford by Nicholas Blumhardt vi Flickr CC

The Department of Energy (DOE) entered into negotiations with Hecate Energy, LLC for a solar project capable of delivering up to one gigawatt of clean energy within an 8,000-acre area of DOE-owned land at the Hanford nuclear site as part of the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative.

The Hanford site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States government on the Columbia River in Washington. It has also been known as Site W and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site was home to the Hanford Engineer Works and B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first atomic bomb, which was tested in the Trinity nuclear test, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki. For more Hanford’s history, click here.

DOE says the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative aims to repurpose parts of DOE-owned lands to support the growth of America’s clean energy economy. The latest announcement reinforces the Biden-Harris Administration’s “whole-of-government approach to leveraging federal properties to increase the deployment of clean power through the buildout of utility-scale clean energy projects.”

Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said, “Since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, we’ve added nearly 90 gigawatts of solar capacity to the grid—enough to power roughly 13 million homes—and we’re building on this historic progress with another massive solar project,” She added that through this latest announcement, DOE is transforming thousands of acres of land at the Hanford site into a thriving center of carbon-free solar power generation.”

Hecate Energy, LLC was selected to negotiate a real estate agreement for up to 8,000 acres at Hanford that DOE is making available for the development of a gigawatt-scale solar photovoltaic system with battery storage.

The selection was made through a competitive qualifications-based process for evaluating and ranking proposals. The selection comes after public comments on a request for information in August 2023, a Cleanup to Clean Energy information day at Hanford in September 2023, and a request for qualifications issued in March 2024. DOE and Hecate Energy will negotiate a realty agreement; DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during this process.

While cleanup at the huge Hanford site could take 50 years, the solar project might be up and running in five to seven years.

In addition to supporting the Administration’s clean energy goals, this project has the potential to benefit the Hanford site, Tribal Nations, and surrounding communities, while complementing local efforts to plan for the future. DOE will complete environmental review and applicable regulatory processes, and continue to communicate and partner with industry, Tribal Nations, communities, stakeholders, regulators, and others as clean energy projects are developed on DOE land.

More information on the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative can be found here.

Maritime Partners, USCG agree on hydrogen power system

M/V Hydrogen One rendering. Credit: Elliott Bay Design Group

Maritime Partners received a ‘Design Basis Agreement’ from the U.S. Coast Guard for the M/V Hydrogen One towboat that includes e1 Marine hydrogen generator technology that will be used for the vessel’s power plant.

Maritime Partners, LLC, is a New Orleans-based maritime financing company that’s primarily focused on Jones Act vessels. The Maritime Partners press release said, “The M/V Hydrogen One is being designed as a first-of-its-kind vessel using new, cleaner, fuel cell technology that works by converting stored methanol to hydrogen.”

The hydrogen is then put into the fuel cell to generate power for the vessel. A successful string test of this technology was completed in Gothenburg, Sweden, in June 2023, proving it to be a viable option as the sole power generation source for vessel propulsion.

“The signing of this agreement opens the pathway for us to deploy our technological capabilities,” said Bick Brooks, co-founder and CEO of Maritime Partners. “With this, Hydrogen One is one step closer to becoming the world’s first vessel to utilize hydrogen generator technology greatly reducing emissions, increasing efficiency and providing a model for cleaner energy use as the industry continues to seek ways to decarbonize.”

The DBA process sets the rules for new technology proposed for installation on marine vessels. Maritime Partners worked with several industry leaders on the Hydrogen One project, including the Seattle-based Elliott Bay Design Group, which is designing the towboat; Bourg, La.-based Intracoastal Iron Works, which is the selected shipyard; e1 Marine, RIX Industries, Power Cell Group, among others, to work through the U.S. Coast Guard requirements.

Dave Lee, Maritime Partners’ VP of Technology & Innovation, said his company is committed to “developing and utilizing sustainable, clean energy solutions, as the entire maritime industry continues to seek alternative fuel options that are cleaner, greener, and more efficient.”

The signing of this DBA ensures that as the M/V Hydrogen One project advances Maritime Partners will be working towards an agreed-upon framework with the U.S. Coast Guard for the design, arrangement, and engineering aspects of the power system and associated safety systems for plan review, inspection, and eventual certification of the M/V Hydrogen One.

This is an important and necessary step for the eventual development of fossil-free marine propulsion.

An exercise in futility?

No More Fossil Fuels by Joe Brusky via Flick CC

Supply chain emissions are mostly “overlooked” by corporations measuring their operational emissions (known as Scope 1 and 2), leaving a huge question mark about the ability to achieve net zero globally by 2050.

That’s a major problem, as a report from Boston Consulting Group indicates: corporations’ “supply chain Scope 3 emissions are 26 times higher than their operational emissions.” And: “Supply Chain Scope 3 Emissions continue to be overlooked, with only 15% of corporates having set a supply chain emissions target.”

Looking at this another way, 85% of businesses have no commitment to cut supply chain emissions!

That undermines the entire net zero exercise and its timeline because those blind spots drive “significant unreported risks for both investors and corporates.”

The BCG analysis examined the climate disclosures made by more than 23,000 companies through CDP (the non-profit Carbon Disclosure Project) this year, which was slso produced in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

For the average large, listed company, supply chain emissions will be 26 times higher than those generated in operations. The discrepancy is even higher in the retail and apparel sectors, at a ratio of 92:1 tonnes and 47:1 tons respectively.

The only sector in which supply chain emissions are equal to or less than operational emissions is fossil fuels.

“As such, having a robust plan to cut supply chain emissions should be part of any corporate climate strategy,” notes BCG.

The report says its conclusions “highlight that the challenge of effectively measuring Scope 3 emissions is widespread and spans industries,” said Sonya Bhonsle, director of strategic accounts at CDP. “Meaningful strides toward emissions reductions require corporates to evaluate their full supply chain, then raise ambition and take accountability. The first step to driving meaningful change toward a 1.5°C-aligned net zero future begins with disclosure.”

Evaluating the spectrum of all emissions is challenging and might be an impossibility. Unless all facets of the drive to net zero are factored in – and not “overlooked” – net zero cannot be achieved.

But then what is Plan B?

All over the map

Climate Change by Taymaz Valley via Flickr CC

What to make of net zero? Is it really happening? Is it possible? Will there be enough money? Is there enough staying power on the part of companies and organizations? When?

One recent World Bank report, Net Zero Energy by 2060: Charting Europe and Central Asia’s Journey Toward Sustainable Energy Futures, says that with decisive action, net zero energy is within reach in Europe and Central Asia (ECA). “The World Bank has developed a model to project an optimal least-cost pathway for ECA to achieve a net zero energy target by 2060. Together, the 23 countries included in the model produce almost a tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions. The report considers the profound impact the war in Ukraine has had on energy security by representing energy trade flows on the basis of gas pipeline flows and capacities as of May 2023 and under a stress test. This novel analysis delivers insights not covered by previous works, focused mainly on the European Union.” Continuing, in the short term, “Central Asia faces a tightening gas supply balance and some difficult choices. Central Asia has been a large net exporter of gas, notably to China. Rapidly growing demand within the entire subregion, combined with stagnating production (especially in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan), limits the ability to meet export commitments to China and peak winter demand at home simultaneously. Russia’s proposed gas union with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan could improve Central Asia’s natural gas balance, although the poor state of pipeline infrastructure (IEA 2016) poses uncertainties. Improving regional gas trade in Central Asia and increasing gas imports from Turkmenistan could be also used to replace coal in Kazakhstan, fill the emerging supply gap in Uzbekistan, and meet growing demand across Central Asia.”

So basically, it’s time for ECA to ditch fossil fuels and embrace renewables for energy security and sustainable growth. It sounds easy enough, but it’s complicated. Very complicated

Another recent report, an article in RealClear World, says Net Zero’s days are “numbered.” Former IMF chief economist Oliver Blanchard poured water on the claim that net zero is a major growth opportunity when he told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee that there would be a “substantial fiscal cost to achieve anything close to Net Zero.”

Of course, it’s going to be expensive, and no one really knows how costly it will be! Is it, as some say, a growth opportunity that will pay for itself? That would be nice, but that is probably way too optimistic.

For example, a recent analysis revealed that the world is not on course to achieve the target of zero-emission fuels comprising five percent of international shipping fuels by 2030, according to Reuters. This shortfall threatens the shipping industry’s broader objective of decarbonizing by 2050. The assessment indicates that the existing production capacity for scalable zero-emission fuels (SZEF) will only cover a quarter of the required fuel volume by 2030. As of the end of 2022, there were 24 ships capable of operating on SZEF, primarily methanol, with an additional 144 on order.

However, current orders represent only one-fifth of the necessary volume to achieve mid-term sustainability goals. “It’s just not enough at scale or at the pace that is needed,” said UN COP Climate Champions shipping lead Kathryn Palmer.

And here is a wild one: An article in Fortune says, “Germany’s latest ‘net zero’ plan involves storing carbon dioxide underground beneath the sea.” Wait, what? “According to the article, Germany plans to enable underground carbon storage at offshore sites, pushing ahead with a much-discussed technology in an acknowledgment that time is running out to combat climate change,” the country’s vice chancellor said. How difficult and expensive will that be?

Yes, but what happens if the globe somehow reaches net zero? That’s a big if, of course, because there is so much work to do by companies, organizations, and governments.

A recent paper from a group of scientists, published by Frontiers in Science, “The Zero Emissions Commitment and Climate Stabilization,” has some unnerving conclusions, including this one: “How confident are we that when we stop carbon emissions, we also stop global warming?” Yikes, there’s an enigma.

Here are some “key points” in the paper:

Substantial uncertainty remains in both the sign and magnitude of the Zero Emissions Commitment (ZEC): the expected additional change in global surface temperature once we achieve net zero CO₂ emissions.
Uncertainty in ZEC has implications for the remaining carbon budget to stay below the temperature limits of the Paris Agreement: a positive ZEC reduces the remaining budget; a negative ZEC opens the door for more ambitious targets or more time to reach net zero.
The prospect of additional warming after net zero is both plausible and significant, with a chance that ZEC could exceed 15% of total global warming.
While a ZEC of 0 means no further change to global surface temperatures, other aspects of the Earth system, such as sea levels, will continue to change in a net zero world due to warming realized previously. These changes should be factored into the assessment of safe warming limits and adaptation plans.
Current climate models do not adequately represent the full scope of complex and interdependent Earth system processes that determine ZEC. (bold added)

The paper presents “a structure for quantifying uncertainty in ZEC and proposes a roadmap for future research into quantifying ZEC and reducing its uncertainties.

Uncertainly, thy name is net zero.

The sponge knows?

Sponge by Olly Clarke via Flickr CC

Perhaps it should be net-below-zero.

According to a study in Nature, the planet has already passed the 1.5 °C warming threshold that climate crisis experts are saying is the goal for climate action.

At the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, nations agreed not to exceed 1.5 °C, a main guardrail of climate change. But the problem is that the planet has already passed 1.5 °C of warming, according to a new measuring technique that goes back further in time than current methods. The technique involves dating ancient sponges.

“We have an alternate record of global warming,” said coral-reef geochemist Malcolm McCulloch, at the University of West Australia Oceans Institute in Crawley, and lead author of the study. “It looks like temperatures were underestimated by about half a degree.”

However, McCulloch says that long-lived marine sponges can provide indications of temperature as far back as the eighteenth century. He and his colleagues analyzed the ratio of the elements strontium to calcium in the 300-year-old calcium carbonate skeletons of a coral-like species of sponge, Ceratoporella nicholsoni, that grows off the coasts of Puerto Rico. This ratio changes only with changes in water temperature, making it a sort of thermometer, according to the study published in Nature Climate Change.

The sponges were sampled from one particular section in the Caribbean — the only place where they are found. They were collected at a depth of 33–91 meters, in what’s called the ocean mixed layer. “Sea-surface temperature can be highly variable on top,” McCulloch was quoted as saying. “But this mixed layer represents the whole system down to a couple hundred meters, and it’s in equilibrium with the temperatures in the atmosphere.”

The sponge skeletons suggest that the planet started to warm up in the mid-1860s, during the period currently defined as the pre-industrial baseline.

“The baseline is where we measure our current temperatures from, so when we say 1.5 [degrees of warming], it’s to do with this reference point,” said McCulloch.

McCulloch and colleagues have calculated that global temperatures had in fact increased by 0.5 °C more than what was estimated by the IPCC. “That’s a huge difference relative to the total amount of warming,” says McCulloch. Furthermore, the planet exceeded 1.5 °C of warming by around 2010–2012 and is on track to surpass 2 °C in the next few years.

Climate change is all about calibration and constantly trying to catch up; our planet operates on its own time schedule, no matter how hard we try to understand.

Toothless

COP28 by USAID via Flickr CC

So they decided it’s time to “transition away” from fossil fuels? It took 28 meetings for this realization?

At the end of the 28^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), European Union and world leaders “recommitted” to delivering the Paris Agreement goals and limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5 Celsius. They agreed to “accelerate” emission reductions towards net zero by 2050, with urgent action in this critical decade. This includes transitioning away from fossil fuels and reducing global emissions by 43% by 2030.

Some commitments and actions announced by the EU at COP28:

A Global Pledge on Renewables and Energy Efficiency to triple renewable energy capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. €2.3 billion from the EU budget will support the energy transition in the European neighborhood and around the globe
€175 million of financial support from the EU and its Member States to reduce methane emissions
More than €400 million in funding from the EU and its Member States to activate a new loss and damage fund for climate emergencies
The first two European clean tech projects to be supported by the EU-Catalyst partnership to help the EU reach its 2030 climate targets
A €20 billion Team Europe contribution to the Africa-EU Green Energy Initiative
a new Team Europe initiative focused on deforestation-free value chains

It sounds good, but…

Critics, notably activist Greta Thunberg say the deal will not prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, which scientists say will trigger catastrophic and irreversible impacts, from melting ice sheets to the collapse of ocean currents.

“This text is toothless and it is nowhere even close to being sufficient to keep us within the 1.5-degree limit,” Thunberg, 20, told Reuters outside Sweden’s parliament, where she and a handful of other protesters were calling for climate justice.

“It is a stab in the back for those most vulnerable. As long as we don’t treat the climate crisis as a crisis and as long as we keep lobby interests influencing these texts and these processes, we are not going to get anywhere,” she said.

The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a yearly international summit where world leaders, environmental experts, activists, and stakeholders gather to discuss and negotiate actions to combat climate change.

For more information

EU at COP28 Climate Change Conference

Climate action and the Green Deal

Press release: Global Pledge on Renewables and Energy Efficiency

Press release: EU negotiators secure agreement at COP28 to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels and triple renewables and double energy efficiency this decade Statement of President von der Leyen on the outcome of COP28