EU leaders head to COP27 as countries switch from gas to coal

Leaders from throughout the European Union are gearing up for the COP27, the UN Local weather Change Convention that goals to place the brakes on local weather change and restrict world warming to 1.5 levels Celsius, a theoretical aspiration that has change into more and more indifferent from the fact on the bottom.

There may be “no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place,” a UN environmental report concluded final month.

The EU has lengthy been thought-about a dependable advocate for the inexperienced transition, adopting far-reaching insurance policies and enshrining its 2050 local weather neutrality objective in regulation. The bloc has change into a type of experimental laboratory for local weather laws, with different international locations trying to see what works and what doesn’t.

Ultimately yr’s convention, the EU led efforts to slash methane emissions, defend tropical forests and assist South Africa’s decarbonisation. However issues have modified since Glasgow.

European leaders are heading to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, within the midst of a extreme vitality disaster that threatens to deliver trade to a standstill and households beneath monetary stress.

Confronted with the prospect of widespread blackouts and rationing, international locations have made safety of provides their prime precedence, even when it comes with a excessive financial and environmental price ticket.

As low-cost Russian fuel vanished in a single day, some member states have been compelled to resort again to coal, essentially the most polluting fossil gas.

Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece and Hungary have all introduced plans to increase the lifetime of coal vegetation, re-open these which were closed or raise the cap on coal-burning hours.

Austria, which celebrated the closure of its final coal plant in 2020, additionally proposed to re-activate its system to deal with emergency shortages. The concept was blocked in the summertime by the opposition.

The Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA) estimates the EU’s coal consumption rose by 10% within the first six months of 2022, pushed principally by electrical energy demand, and can proceed to extend as winter nears.

“We count on coal consumption to additionally rise within the second half of the yr, pushed up by the necessity to save fuel for winter amid uncertainty over Russian flows,” the company stated in its July market replace, launched earlier than the indefinite shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

“Germany will account for the most important extra consumption,” it famous.

Globally, the IEA predicts coal consumption to achieve 8 billion tonnes, reversing a downward pattern and matching the all-time excessive set in 2013. Europe will account for about 5% of this burning.

‘We have to catch up’

This sudden rise in coal burning seems to contradict the EU’s said priorities for COP27, which embrace urging different international locations around the globe to “shut the guide on unabated coal via a phasedown and ending inefficient fossil gas subsidies.”

Growing nations typically accuse the West of hypocrisy and selfishness in the case of inexperienced motion, arguing rich international locations have a bigger position to play given their historic accountability in releasing greenhouse fuel emissions and warming up the planet throughout previous industrial revolutions.

The new-button concern of local weather reparations, the monetary compensations for the irreversible harm attributable to local weather change, is rooted on this very disparity.

The European Fee, which has spearheaded world-class local weather legal guidelines, blames the state of affairs on Russia’s “weaponisation” of vitality provides and estimates the gas-to-coal change may final for as much as three winters.

This can result in a rise in greenhouse fuel emissions within the brief time period however that will likely be offset by an accelerated deployment of homegrown inexperienced vitality, comparable to photo voltaic panels and wind farms, the manager says.

The bloc continues to be legally sure to slash emissions by a minimum of 55% by the top of the last decade.

“What that may imply is that we have to catch up within the second half of the last decade for any influence that the following couple of winters have on our emissions, if there are any, via that further coal use we want on a short-term foundation,” stated a European Fee spokesperson on Thursday, in response to a Euronews query.

“However I believe that’s a state of affairs which the vast majority of our worldwide companions perceive, they recognize the state of affairs we’re put in in the mean time, and so they perceive that Europe will stay a world chief when it comes to phasing out coal around the globe and when it comes to elevating ambitions.”

The European Fee has unveiled a brand new plan, dubbed REPower EU, that goals to mobilise as much as €300 billion in loans and grants to realize whole independence from Russian fossil fuels earlier than the top of the last decade.

The plans additionally intend to chop down the infamous crimson tape of inexperienced know-how and broaden the EU’s targets for renewable vitality for 2030, from 40% to 45% of all whole vitality produced.

REPower EU continues to be beneath dialogue and no cash has but been launched.