17 November 2015, Washington Post, In a major step on the road to Paris, rich countries agree to slash export subsidies for coal plants. After a concerted push from the United States, members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development agreed Tuesday to slash subsidies aimed at exporting technology for coal-fired power plants. The decision by the world’s wealthiest countries to eliminate export credits for the least efficient coal plants, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2017, and can be strengthened four years later, marks a major negotiating success for the Obama administration in the run-up to U.N. climate talks later this month. The U.S. and several other key global players–including France, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development–have already limited its export financing for coal plants and had been pressing other nations, including Japan and South Korea, to follow suit. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters about the agreement reached in Paris on the condition of anonymity, said that under the new rules OECD countries would still provide export credits for coal plants using ultra-supercritical technology and help finance slightly less-efficient plants in the world’s poorest countries. But the policy would effectively cut off public financing for 85 percent of coal plants currently in the pipeline, he said. Jake Schmidt, who directs the international program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, estimated that these export agencies typically fund between five and seven coal plants a year. A large number of private banks follow the OECD guidelines for their own lending practices, he added, so the move could have “a ripple effect.” Read more here
Category Archives: The Mitigation Battle
13 November 2015, DeSmog, Obama Administration Approves Pipeline Expansion Set to Feed First Ever Fracked Gas LNG Export Terminal. The Obama Administration has quietly approved expansion of a major pipeline carrying fracked gas destined for the global export market. The Gulf Trace pipeline, owned by The Williams Companies, is set to feed into Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export terminal in Louisiana. As first reported by Reuters, LNG tankers loaded with super-chilled liquefied natural gas obtained viahydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) will set sail for the first time from Sabine Pass in January 2016. In a statement, Williams said it had received approval for Gulf Trace from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and had set a date of the first quarter of 2017 for the project to be in service. The statement said Gulf Trace was part of $5.1 billion worth of transmission projects targeting the eastern U.S. Gulf Trace will feed gas obtained from fracking in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale basin to Sabine Pass. Pipeline company giant Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) recently purchased Williams Companies for $32.6 billion. ETP — whose assets include both hotly-contested proposed Dakota Access LLC pipeline and the Trans-Pecos Pipeline — is run byCEO Kelcy Warren, who served as an advisory committee member and donor to former Republican Party presidential candidate Rick Perry. Perry sits on ETP‘s Board of Directors. Sabine Pass LNG Terminal owner Cheniere Energy, the first company in the fracking era to receive an export permit from the Obama Administration back in 2012, also has a politically connected Board of Directors. Among its members is Obama’s former climate czar, Heather Zichal. FERC has come under fire of late for rubber-stamping nearly every project proposal landing on its desk. Read more here
13 November 2015, Renew Economy, Malcolm Turnbull was right: Direct Action is a climate con. You’ve got to hand environment minister Greg Hunt a capital A for Audacity. Or maybe a capital C for Chutzpah. Round two of the government’s emissions reduction fund – the central plank of its Direct Action plan – has come and gone, another $557 million has been spent making some farmers and carbon traders a lot richer than they used to be, and Hunt is still insisting that it is the greatest success in the history of emissions reductions. Ever. “In the lead up to Paris, this government has once again demonstrated that we can significantly reduce emissions and tackle climate change without a carbon tax and increased electricity prices,” he press released on Thursday. It’s easy to claim a triumph with rhetoric, but not so easy to do so with the numbers. Here is what the government has claimed to have done: It has cherry picked, presumably on the basis of price and authenticity, some 131 projects – mostly in vegetation and savannah burning, but also some in landfill gas and energy efficient lighting – that will deliver 45 million tonnes of abatement at an average of $12.25 each, over 10 years. Hunt – outrageously – says this is a price that is just one per cent of the carbon price under Labor. Dubiously, he says it will deliver on the government’s (modest) emissions reduction targets – minus 5 per cent from 2000 levels by 2020, and minus 19 per cent on 2000 levels by 2030. Everyone involved in this charade is keeping mum – or their hands firmly on the wads of cash now in their wallets – about what they really think. They have been dicked around so much by the coming and going of the CPRS and the carbon price, that they feel they deserve something, and wads of cash from a government auction is fair game. If a government is determined to force money into their pockets for doing something that their clients may well have done anyway (growing trees, not clearing other vegetation, continuing landfill gas operations), then who are they to argue. But here are a couple of key stats to put it into perspective. Read More here
12 November 2015, Climate News Network, Biggest economies still backing fossil fuels. Analysts say the world’s 20 leading economies give nearly four times as much in subsidies to fossil fuel production as total global subsidies to renewable energy. The governments of the world’s major industrialised countries, the G20 group, are providing more than US$450 billion a year to support the production of fossil fuels. That is almost four times the entire world’s subsidies to the rapidly growing renewable energy sector, as the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates total global renewables subsidies in 2013 at $121bn. The G20 group agreed in 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies “in the medium term”, a pledge that was repeated at its 2014 meeting in Brisbane. But the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and campaign group Oil Change International (OCI) have now published a detailed analysis of G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production. Empty promises Their “Empty Promises” report on G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production says researchers found that G20 support to fossil fuel production now totals $452bn. The report singles out the UK for particular criticism, saying it “stands out as the only G7 nation significantly ramping up its support for the fossil fuel industry, with even more tax breaks and industry support handed out to companies operating in the North Sea in 2015”. A similar report by the two groups a year ago said G20 subsidies for fossil fuel exploration alone amounted to an estimated $88bn annually. Read More here