DeBriefed 24 November 2023: Fossil fuels under fire on eve of COP28; Record heat from Brazil to South Africa; IEA’s ‘moment of truth’ for oil and gas

§ This week

Fossil fuels out

COP28 CUTBACKS: France and the US will back a ban on private financing for new coal power at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, which kicks off next week, Reuters reported. The EU parliament passed a resolution calling for countries to agree to “a tangible phase-out of fossil fuels as soon as possible…including by halting all new investments in fossil fuel extraction”, said another Reuters story. (Note that the parliament is distinct from the EU itself, which has only committed to pushing for a phaseout of “unabated” fossil fuels at COP28.) 

COAL RUSH: Meanwhile, India’s power ministry has said that the country plans to expand its coal generation capacity by adding “at least 80 gigawatts (GW) by 2031-32”, Indian newspaper Mint reported. “New Delhi won’t bow down to any pressure to take coal phasedown targets” at COP28, Indian newspaper Economic Times reported.

Extreme heat

RED ALERT: Brazil reached its hottest temperature on record on 19 November, when the southeastern town of Araçuaí hit 44.8C, according to the Brazilian Report. Brazil’s National Institute of Meteorology put large parts of the country under a red alert, the Guardian said. The Independent cited a rapid attribution analysis, which found that “temperatures in Rio were up to 4C warmer last week than they were in the period from 1979-2000”. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that a fan died during a Taylor Swift concert in Brazil due to the heat.

AFRICAN HEAT: The record-breaking heatwave engulfing Madagascar in October would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused warming, according to a new rapid attribution study, the Guardian reported. The report highlighted the lack of media coverage of the heatwave, the newspaper added. Elsewhere, News24 reported that South Africa recorded an all-time national temperature record of 43C this week.

§ Around the world

• SCEPTICS TRIUMPH: Far-right climate sceptics have won elections in Argentina and the Netherlands. Argentina’s new president Javier Milei has called climate change a “socialist lie”, according to E&E News. The Party for Freedom, which has won the most seats in the Dutch parliament, says in its manifesto that “we must stop being afraid” of climate change, the Agence France-Presse reported.
• JUST TRANSITION: Indonesia has released its final plan to mobilise $20bn of investment from rich countries to help it build renewables and replace its fleet of coal power plants, according to Nikkei Asia.
• PEAKING EARLY: A survey of experts found that more than 70% think that China is on track to hit its target of peaking its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions before 2030, Chinese-language outlet Jiemian reported.
• UK SPENDING: Climate measures were “thin on the ground” in the UK’s autumn statement, Carbon Brief reported.
• ‘SUPERCHARGE’ RENEWABLES: The Australian government plans to “supercharge” its renewables ambitions by underwriting 32GW of low-carbon power projects by 2027, said the Australian Financial Review.
• GAS IN GAZA: As Israel’s conflict with Hamas continues, Haaretz reported that the US wants Israel to develop offshore gas fields as a new “revenue stream” to help “revitalise” the Palestinian economy.

§ 7,200

The number of fossil-fuel representatives that have attended UN climate talks over the past 20 years, according to the Washington Post.

§ Latest climate research

• Labourers on rice and maize fields are the most exposed agricultural workers to dangerous humid heat, new research in Environmental Research Communications found.
• The occurrence of “ocean-onto-land” droughts – which originate over the oceans and migrate onto land – has increased in the past 60 years, according to a study in Nature Climate and Atmospheric Science.
• A new paper in Science Advances presented the first “fine-scale” observations of methane and CO2 emissions from NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation imaging spectrometer. The authors attributed the emissions to their sources, including the oil and gas, waste and energy sectors.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

§ Captured

There is a relatively small amount of allowable carbon emissions – known as the “carbon budget” – remaining if global warming is to be limited to 1.5C, the ambition of the Paris Agreement. As Carbon Brief’s coverage of the UN Environment Programme emissions gap report shows, as of the start of 2023, the remaining carbon budget for having a 50% chance of keeping temperatures at 1.5C was only around 250bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), which is roughly six years of current emissions.

§ Spotlight

IEA’s ‘moment of truth’ for oil-and-gas companies

Carbon Brief takes a dive into the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest report on the future of oil and gas. It has been launched to coincide with the start of COP28, which IEA chief Dr Fatih Birol described as a “moment of truth” for the sector.

Fossil fuels are set to take centre stage at COP28 in Dubai, a city built on decades of oil extraction. Dozens of nations say they want the event to yield a global commitment to reducing fossil-fuel use. 

COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber, who is also chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), has said cutting fossil-fuel supply is “inevitable and essential”. Doing so would require oil companies such as his to radically change their business models.

In its new report, the IEA lays out the role such companies could play in this transition. It also punctures many of the narratives that the oil industry has formed in recent years concerning its climate action – or lack of it.

‘Central to the solution’

Al Jaber has stressed that oil companies are “central to the solution” for climate change. The IEA agrees that the net-zero transition will be “more costly and difficult” without oil companies on board, but says a “step change” is required.

Oil majors such as Shell and BP have made much of their low-carbon investments. Yet, in 2022, the IEA says the industry channelled just 2.7% of its capital spending into clean energy. (It notes that Adnoc says it invests in clean energy, but has not revealed how much.)

Many spend nothing at all. More than 80% of oil and gas is produced by companies with no plans to invest in clean alternatives. State-owned firms such as Adnoc, which account for more than half of global production, have been particularly hesitant.

The IEA says oil industry spending on low-carbon alternatives could be brought in line with the agency’s “net-zero by 2050” scenario, if it increases to around 50% of capital expenditure by 2030. However, this would require shareholders and governments to accept lower returns, something there “does not appear to be a large appetite [for]”.

No ‘status quo’

Many oil-and-gas companies plan to cut emissions from their operations and drilling sites – rather than those from burning their products. Adnoc, for example, intends to be a “net-zero” company by 2045.

Yet these efforts are lacking in sufficient ambition, according to the IEA. It says less than 2% of oil-and-gas production is covered by an emissions target that aligns with the agency’s net-zero scenario. 

There are also question marks over how oil companies are cutting their emissions. 

The report stresses that relying on the still-emergent technology of carbon capture and storage (CCS), as many oil companies appear to be doing, cannot be “a way to retain the status quo”. It says the $3.5tn annual cost of scaling up CCS enough to maintain production while hitting climate targets is equivalent to the industry’s entire revenue.

The IEA also cautions against reliance on carbon offsets, which three-quarters of oil companies with emissions targets have stated they will use. 

‘Last ones standing’

Oil companies often emphasise the world’s “need” for fossil fuels and, indeed, the IEA sees a small amount of oil and gas extraction necessary even as companies “evolve their portfolios”.

Still, the IEA reiterates that its net-zero pathway means no new oil-and-gas fields. In fact, it says new developments since it first issued this warning in 2021 mean some would now have to be closed early. 

Various oil companies clearly intend to be the “last ones standing” – extracting oil long into the future. To them, the IEA issues a warning: “Many producers say they will be the ones to keep producing throughout transitions and beyond. They cannot all be right.”

§ Watch, read, listen

THE CLIMATE 1%: The Guardian has published a new series titled “the great carbon divide”, examining “who is most responsible for the emissions that are driving the escalating climate crisis, and what to do about carbon inequality”.

OFFSETS OUTED: A new Channel 4 documentary investigated the shadowy world of carbon-offsetting, travelling to Cambodia to try to speak to reticent industry representatives and investors, as well as local journalists who pointed to rights abuses in projects.

REFORMING FINANCE: As calls to transform the global financial system grow stronger at COP28, Boston University and the Centre and Science Environment, a research advocacy organisation in India, hosted a webinar to unpack what this could look like.

§ Coming up

• 27-29 November: UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland
• 29 November: Launch of IEA Energy Efficiency 2023 report
• 30 November-12 December: UNFCCC COP28, Dubai, UAE

§ Pick of the jobs

• World Resources Institute (Europe), food, land and water policy lead | Salary: €80,000-101,000 if based in the Netherlands and £65,000-82,000 if based in the UK. Location: The Hague, Netherlands, or London
• The Sunrise Project, co-director for the global finance programme | Salary: $143,275-171,248 if based in the US; £110,000-132,000 if based in the UK and €100,340-107,181 if based in the Netherlands. Location: North America, Europe or Asia
• The Fletcher School at Tufts University, assistant professor in climate policy, Salary: Unknown. Location: Massachusetts, US 

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected]