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How eBay is Encouraging Refurbished Tech to Reduce E-waste

Posted on by dishanth
How eBay is Encouraging Refurbished Tech to Reduce E-waste

Here’s a weird fact. There are currently a little over 8 billion people on the planet, yet there are about 16 billion mobile phones. Convenient maths shows us that means every single person on the planet has on average two phones.

Even more startling is the fact that, according to the international Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum, more than 5 billion of those will be thrown away this year and head to e-waste.

That is despite the fact that these devices contain valuable resources including gold, silver, copper, and palladium. Estimates put the value of these precious metals dumped each year at more than US$10 billion.

It’s not just mobile phones that are the issue, all electronic waste – from laptops to smart TVs – is a pressing issue that needs addressing.

In the UK alone, two million tonnes of e-waste is discarded each year. That’s according to Mark Monte-Colombo, Head of Refurbished Technology for eBay UK, who says refurbished technology can support a circular economy and enhance accessibility.

“Globally, a significant surge in electronic waste is expected to reach 74.7 million tonnes by the end of the decade,” Monte-Colombo tells Sustainability.

“However, the good news is that increased interest in refurbished technology can help to drastically reduce waste. For example, on eBay UK, through the sale of refurbished products, we avoided over 2.8 million kg of waste in 2022, which is equivalent to over 23.5 million phones being spared from landfills.”

 

Growing Demand for Refurbished to Reduce Costs and Waste

Refurbished technology refers to any tech product that has been used and returned, either to the original business or an approved reseller, for repairs or vetting before being resold.

People return technology for various reasons: perhaps the item is pristine but the customer had a change of mind within the returns window, sometimes items are returned due to marks or wear, many returns fall under what eBay calls ‘open box’ – meaning the item is pristine but not in its original packaging. On top of that, retailers offer trade-in schemes to help people upgrade their tech.

Monte-Colombo says momentum is growing for refurbished technology. More and more brands are seeing the value in refurbished products, and eBay now features over 150 leading brands in its refurbished category, such as Dyson, Samsung, and Apple.

“We understand how crucial it is to partner with major companies to extend the lifespan of electronic devices, reduce waste, and promote a circular economy,” he says.

“Looking ahead to 2024, I’m anticipating continued momentum for refurbished products.
Despite challenging times, consumers still genuinely care about the environment. Nearly a third (32%) of UK consumers we surveyed confirmed they’d purchase pre-loved or refurbished items because it’s better for the environment.”

 

 

Switching to Refurbished Drives Circular Economy

Refurbished technology is clearly resonating with consumers, with price being an important factor. Any stigma associated with ‘refurbished’, ‘second hand’, or ‘used’ is also being dispelled, largely thanks to mobile phones providing a “gateway” into the market.

Monte-Colombo says the frequent turnover of devices with contract upgrades has seen a constant influx of relatively new mobile devices becoming available as refurbished.

“The resale of pre-loved and refurbished goods on our global platform conserves resources and reduces waste,” says Monte-Colombo. “In 2022, we avoided 73,000 metric tons of waste globally through buying and reselling on the platform.

“Refurbishing requires significantly less energy compared to manufacturing new products. Our Refurbished category extends the lifecycle of electronic products and diverts them from landfills, helping shoppers reduce their environmental impact.

“With these environmental benefits, more consumers and businesses switching to refurbished vs new will enable a circular economy model.”

 

How Businesses can Benefit From Choosing Refurbished

There is still work to do to shift consumer attitudes from considering refurbished products as an afterthought to a first thought. To shift this perception, promoting the value and quality of refurbished tech products and their reduced environmental impact is essential.

Monte-Colombo says another significant challenge is educating consumers about electronic recycling and reducing barriers to recycling electronics that no longer function and cannot be repurposed.

“There’s also a real opportunity for businesses to invest in refurbished technology vs new, a trend we’ve already observed gaining traction,” he says.

“Nearly 60% of UK businesses actively opt for refurbished hardware over a new device. With many businesses setting sustainability goals, transitioning to refurbished technology can effectively help achieve these objectives.

“For me, the future is refurbished. In 2024, we’ll see sustained consumer demand for refurbished tech. I’m excited to see the continued shift to a more sustainable future.”

 

 

 

 

Source  Sustainability

Cloud technology could be the most disruptive digital tool for empowering ASEAN’s vulnerable communities

Posted on by dishanth
Cloud technology could be the most disruptive digital tool for empowering ASEAN’s vulnerable communities

Cloud technology in Asia Pacific is projected to grow dramatically in the next few years, and plays a crucial role in modernising and empowering communities across the region. But it is not without challenges to ensure its benefits are broadly felt.

Cloud technology plays a crucial role in modernising and empowering communities across Southeast Asia, from boosting financial inclusion to streamlining access to formal markets for smallholder farmers, according to a report by Eco-Business Research launched on Friday (19 March). But multiple stakeholders must collaborate to ensure that there is true democratisation of cloud technology across the region.  

Cloud technology – the delivery of on-demand computing services through a network of remote servers – is projected to grow by 117 per cent in Asia Pacific between 2019 and 2024, according to GlobalData with more businesses allotting bigger budgets towards it.

Cloud needs minimal infrastructure and investment while it has the ability for companies to operate at scale quickly making it particularly appealing for emerging economies. 

Nevertheless, the development and adoption of cloud technology vary considerably across the five focus countries studied in the Eco-Buisness report.

Singapore is a leader in cloud adoption and growth potential, which is underpinned by its robust infrastructure and enabling policies. It is ranked top in the Eco-Business Cloud Opportunity Matrix. Its ‘Smart City, Smart Nation’ initiative places heavy focus on cloud technology to enable a more efficient provision of services and to streamline government systems. 

Parking, tax and government platforms allowing you to register births and businesses are powered by cloud technology. “We now have the ability to use data to manage transport systems like never before,” Jamie Leather, chief of Transport Sector Group, Asian Development Bank said in the report.

 

Source: Eco Business

 

Thailand and Malaysia are ranked next in the matrix, with conducive regulatory environments and relatively high digital penetration at around 80 per cent of the populations in both countries.

Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia, and the Philippines still have some way to go, the report noted, with both countries lacking the bedrock digital infrastructure needed to propel cloud technology. 

Nevertheless, Indonesia is one to watch as it is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud computing, with a thriving digital start-up industry boasting companies such as multi-service platform and digital payment group, Gojek and e-commerce company, Tokopedia.   

Growing pains are to be expected as digital infrastructure, awareness and enabling policies develop alongside the uptake of cloud technology.

“Everyone is still on this journey, no-one has a solution for best practice,” said Calum Handforth during a panel discussion launching the paper, and who advises on smart cities and digitalisation for the United Nations Development Programme. 

 

Breaches in data privacy are a headache for both public and private sector entities and could undermine the adoption of cloud technology, despite most providers having robust security systems in place, the report said. Singapore’s digital success story is marred by serious data breaches including one in 2018 when hackers accessed 1.5 million medical records, including those of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 

“Governments are upskilling their ability to understand the discussions around privacy and security,” May Ann Lim, executive director of Asia Cloud Computing Association, said in the report.  

Cloud technology is in a strong position to be a “force for good” the report said, enabling collaborative cross-border efforts to cohesively deal with cybercrime. However, borders must stay open to allow cloudtech to maximise on trade and economic opportunities. The report suggests the creation of a “common set of principles governing cross-border data flows” will boost economic competitiveness collectively as a region.

The report said that the digital divide is a major impediment to cloud technology. Some in Southeast Asia are being left behind in the race to digitise with stuttering power supply and unstable internet provision in developing markets including the Philippines and Indonesia. 

Even in markets with high internet provision, “policymakers and digital service providers need to address the disparity between different segments of society,” the report charged. Meanwhile, improving computer literacy is instrumental in ensuring cloud technology is inclusive of all.  

The report showcases several examples of best-practice in the region. Indonesia has rising potential in using cloud technology to help support and modernise agribusiness. “The farm-to-customer model has also helped the industry address the ongoing problem of multiple middlemen who typically take a 10 to 15 per cent margin each,” according to the report.  

 

There is potential for smallholders to tap into the e-commerce market using cloud-powered apps as the country’s growing middle class opts for online shopping over the traditional open-air ‘wet’ market, Purnama Adil Marata, an expert in agribusiness in Indonesia told the panel. Meanwhile, cloud-powered innovations can “make modern farming more inclusive for the smallholder farmer,” Marata added.  

Cloud has also played a part in facilitating access to finance for smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia, home to one of the world’s largest unbanked populations. By leapfrogging bricks-and-mortar banking, Indonesia’s farmers, one of the poorest groups in the region that would be ordinarily regarded as high-risk borrowers by traditional financers, can tap into micro-loans as well as agricultural cooperatives where farmers can pool their resources.

“These cloud-enabled lending platforms have also provided farmers with legitimate and safer alternatives to predatory loan sharks,” said the report.

More collaboration is needed in the region to maximise cloud potential. “For this to work, it requires more than just technology…you need to combine it with leadership,” Jane Treadwell from Amazon Web Services said during the panel discussion, whose backlog of experience also includes the digital transformation of governments for the World Bank.

Greater collaboration is needed between government, the private sector, academia and customers to ensure democratisation of the cloud, and that the benefits of this technology can help the most vulnerable people in the region. “Without partnerships, collaborations, we have nothing,” Akanksha Bilani, regional alliance head at Intel told panellists.

 

 

By Gillian Parker

Source Eco Business

Climate justice and human rights movements must go hand-in-hand

Posted on by dishanth
Climate justice and human rights movements must go hand-in-hand

Both the Paris Agreement and the advancements towards mandatory due diligence have the potential for a huge, transformational effect across our economy.

The climate justice and human rights movements have been on separate paths for far too long. Both have made considerable progress in the past decade, but if we are going to see the type of transformational change that our times require in either, the two must come together.

Recent advancements indicate that this is starting to take place.

The climate movement reached a watershed moment when the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016. Over 196 governments around the world set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, an unprecedented challenge of coordination and action.

They also sent a bold message to actors across all sectors – from finance and business, to civil society and philanthropy – that it was time for action.

 

For instance, a company’s failure to decarbonise could be seen as contributing to human rights and environmental violations under a mandatory due diligence regime.

 

Concurrently, the field of business and human rights rapidly accelerated in 2010 when the United Nations endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), a framework to prevent and address the risk of adverse impacts of business activities on human rights.

Governments have been encouraged to translate the UNGPs into national action plans or roadmaps. At the same time, demands on the corporate sector to implement human rights due diligence, a central component of the UNGPs, intensified.

Lawmakers saw an opportunity to recognise the expectation of due diligence behaviour on the part of companies, and governments started legal mandates, including the French Devoir de Vigilance law of 2017, the Dutch Child Labour Law of 2019.

Most recently, the European Parliament indicated through a large majority the likelihood of adopting an EU-wide mandatory due diligence law that would cover human rights and environmental issues.

Both the Paris Agreement and the advancements towards mandatory due diligence have the potential for a huge, transformational effect across our economy.

As governments and the private sector race to decarbonise and minimise their harmful greenhouse gas emissions, legal requirements on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence are being instituted that can themselves spur this action through incentives and sanctions.

For instance, a company’s failure to decarbonise could be seen as contributing to human rights and environmental violations under a mandatory due diligence regime.

The researcher Chiara Macchi has termed this merger “climate due diligence” and argues it as an emerging notion requiring corporations to assess and address risk, as well as to integrate the climate change dimension into vigilance planning, corporate reporting, external communication and investment decisions.

This concept is being tested in real-time in France. Oil giant Total is being sued by French nonprofit and law firm Sherpa together with 14 French local authorities and four NGOs.

The suit alleges that Total’s failure to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its operations is a violation of the French Devoir de Vigilance law, France’s seminal legislation that required a duty of care from French companies for human rights and environmental harms.

Sandra Cossart, Sherpa’s Director, said: “This law specifically obliges companies to prevent the risks of human rights and environmental violations caused by their activities, and to do so in an appropriate manner. Total is legally required to identify the risks resulting from its contribution to global warming and to take the necessary measures to reduce its emissions.”

(Editor’s note: After the lawsuit was filed in January last year, Total said it regretted the legal action taken, adding it was working in compliance with national legal standards. The case is ongoing.)

The same French law is also being applied to pursue broader climate justice and just transition issues by representatives of the community of Unión Hidalgo in Mexico. The civil lawsuit against Electricité de France (EDF)’s wind park project focuses on the non-compliance of EDF with its vigilance duties to respect human rights by seeking free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous Union Hidalgo community.

(Editor’s note: The EDF did not respond to a request for comment by the Thomson Reuters Foundation about the lawsuit).

The urgency of addressing the climate crisis is clear, and avenues to accelerate needed transformation in our economy are expanding, including through legal mechanisms like mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence.

If Europe moves to a standardised mandatory due diligence approach with a right of action, this could be an incredible tool to shift momentum on corporations in addressing their greenhouse gas emissions. Two distinct paths, the Paris Agreement and the UNGPs and the resulting momentum towards mandatory human rights due diligence, are indeed converging, and this couldn’t happen soon enough.

Amol Mehra is the Director of Industry Transformation at Laudes Foundation, while Ilan Vuddamalay is a Senior Programme Manager for Labour Rights.

This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate.

 

 

Source Eco Business

TED Talks: To save the climate we have to reimagine capitalism

Posted on by dishanth
TED Talks: To save the climate we have to reimagine capitalism

 

“Business is screwed if we don’t fix climate change,” says economist Rebecca Henderson. In this bold talk, she describes how unchecked capitalism destabilizes the environment and harms human health — and makes the case for companies to step up and help fix the climate crisis they’re causing. Hear what a reimagined capitalism, in which companies pay for the climate damage they cause, could look like.

 

 

Rebecca Henderson is obsessed with finding solutions to climate change.

 

Why you should listen

Rebecca Henderson is a professor at Harvard Business School. Before that, she was a professor at MIT where she learned that anything is possible. Her research focuses on the role the private sector can play in building a more sustainable economy, particularly how purpose-driven firms can help rebalance capitalism. For several years she taught a course on capitalism that served as the basis for her book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, which was recently shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year. Despite the dire nature of the climate, she insists on remaining hopeful, quoting Howard Zinn: “To be hopeful in hard times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.” Henderson believes that we can and will solve climate change.

 

 

Source TED Talks

Rolls Royce plans 16 mini-nuclear plants for UK

Posted on by dishanth
Rolls Royce plans 16 mini-nuclear plants for UK

A consortium led by Rolls Royce has announced plans to build up to 16 mini-nuclear plants in the UK.

It says the project will create 6,000 new jobs in the Midlands and the North of England over the next five years.

The Prime Minister is understood to be poised to announce at least £200m for the project as part of a long-delayed green plan for economic recovery.

Rolls argues that as well as producing low-carbon electricity, the concept could become a new export industry.

The company’s UK “small modular reactor” (SMR) group includes the National Nuclear Laboratory and the building company Laing O’Rourke.

Last year, it received £18m to begin the design effort for the SMR concept.

The government says new nuclear is essential if the UK is to meet its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 – where any carbon released is balanced out by an equivalent amount absorbed from the atmosphere.

But there is a nuclear-sized hole opening up in the energy network.

Six of the UK’s seven nuclear reactor sites are due to go offline by 2030 and the remaining one, Sizewell B, is due to be decommissioned in 2035.

Together they account for around 20% of the country’s electricity.

 

What is a modular nuclear plant?

Rolls Royce and its partners argue that instead of building huge nuclear mega-projects in muddy fields we should construct a series of smaller nuclear plants from “modules” made in factories.

The aim is to re-engineer nuclear power as a very high-tech Lego set.

The components would be broken down into a series of hundreds of these modules which would be made in a central factory and shipped by road to the site for assembly.

The objective is to tackle the biggest problem nuclear power faces: the exorbitant cost.

The reason it is so expensive is that the projects are huge and complex and have to meet very high safety standards.

And, because so few new nuclear power stations are built, there are very few opportunities to learn from mistakes.

 

EDF says Sizewell C will provide electricity for six million homes and create 25,000 jobs

 

So, Rolls Royce and its partners are saying let’s make them smaller and make lots of them so we get really good at it.

The concept would dramatically reduce the amount of construction that would be associated with a nuclear project, claims Tom Samson, the CEO of the UK Small Modular Reactor consortium (UK SMR).

“If we move all that activity into a controlled factory environment that drives down cost by simplification and standardisation,” he explains.

Each plant would produce 440 megawatts of electricity – roughly enough to power Sheffield – and the hope is that, once the first few have been made, they will cost around £2bn each.

The consortium says the first of these modular plants could be up and running in 10 years, after that it will be able to build and install two a year.

By comparison, the much larger nuclear plant being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset is expect to cost some £22bn but will produce more than 3 Gigawatts of electricity – over six times as much.

In addition to the six nuclear plants going offline by 2030, there’s another challenge. You have to factor in a massive increase in electricity demand over the coming decades.

That’s because if we’re going to reach our net zero target, we need to stop using fossil fuels for transport and home heating.

The government has said this could lead to a three-fold increase in electricity use.

 

 

The government says it remains committed to the construction of new nuclear power stations. GETTY IMAGES

 

The renewable challenge

UK SMR isn’t the only player which has spotted that there could be a gap in the market for smaller reactors. There are dozens of different companies around the world working on small reactor projects.

That has got the critics of nuclear power worried. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say small nuclear power stations pose similar risks of radioactive releases and weapons proliferation as big ones.

Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Doug Parr, says if the government wants to take a punt on some new technology to tackle climate change it would be better off investing in hydrogen or geothermal power.

And there are other reasons to question the SMR concept, says Professor MV Ramana of the University of British Columbia in Canada. He is a physicist and an expert on nuclear energy policy who has studied small modular reactors.

 

He says UK SMR’s 10-year time-scale for its first plant may prove optimistic. The one constant in the history of the nuclear industry to date is that big new concepts never come in on time and budget, he says.

He is sceptical that the factory concept can deliver significant cost savings given the complexity and scale of even a small nuclear plant. Smaller plants will have to meet the same rigorous safety standards as big ones, he points out.

He says where the concept has been tried elsewhere – in the US and China, for example – there have been long delays and costs have ended up being comparable to large nuclear power stations.

Finally, he questions whether there will be a market for these plants by the 2030s, when UK SMR says the first will be ready.

“Ten years from now, the competition will be renewables which are going to be far cheaper with much better storage technology than we have today,” says Prof Ramana.

 

Export opportunities

But Boris Johnson’s powerful adviser, Dominic Cummings, is known to be taken with the modular nuclear idea.

One of the reasons the government has been fighting so hard to free itself from the EU’s state aid rules is so it can get its shoulder behind technologies it thinks will give the UK economy and its workers a real boost.

Modular nuclear has the potential to do just that.

If Rolls Royce and its partners can show that the factory concept really does deliver high quality nuclear plants on time and on budget then there is potentially a huge world market for the technology.

The price per unit of electricity may be higher than with wind or solar, points out the clean energy consultant Michael Liebreich, but nuclear delivers power pretty much 24/7 and therefore can command a premium.

UK SMR is pitching the concept as a UK solution to the global challenge of tackling climate change and says there will be a vast export market as the world starts to switch to low carbon energy.

Boris Johnson is rumoured to be planning to take a big punt on nuclear power.

His government has always said new nuclear is going to be a key part of Britain’s future energy system.

As well as the potential investment in SMRs, the BBC has already reported that the government is expected to give the long-discussed new large nuclear plant at Sizewell in Suffolk the go-ahead.

Mr Johnson is expected to say these investments are essential if the UK is going to meet its promise to decarbonise the economy by 2050 as part of the worldwide effort to tackle climate change.

And, while there may be good reasons to question whether the SMR concept will deliver on its promise of low-cost nuclear power, there is no question it holds out exactly the kind of optimistic vision for the UK’s industrial future the government is desperate for.

 

 

Follow Justin on Twitter.

Source: BBC

 

 

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffers most extensive coral bleaching

Posted on by dishanth
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffers most extensive coral bleaching

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered its most extensive coral bleaching event in March, with scientists fearing the coral recovers less each time after the third bleaching in five years.

February 2020 was the hottest month on record since records began in 1900, Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, told Reuters Newsagency.

“We saw record-breaking temperatures all along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, there wasn’t a cool portion in the north, or a cool portion in the south this time around,” Professor Hughes said. “The whole Barrier Reef was hot so the bleaching we have seen this year is the most extensive so far.”

 

 

Professor Hughes added that he was now almost certain that the Reef was not going to recover to what it looked like even five years ago, not to mention 30 years ago. If the global warming trends continued the Great Barrier Reef would be destroyed, he said.

 

 

“We will have some sort of tropical ecosystem, but it won’t look like coral reef, there might be more seaweed, more sponges, a lot less coral, but it will be a very different ecosystem.”

 

The Great Barrier Reef, covering 348,000 square kilometres was UNESCO world heritage listed in 1981 as the most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem on the planet, according to the UNESCO website.

 

 

Source: http://econews.com.au/

How to save economy and climate together

Posted on by dishanth
How to save economy and climate together

The warnings are stark. With the Covid-19 crisis wreaking global havoc and the overheating atmosphere threatening far worse in the long term, especially if governments rely on the same old carbon-intensive ways, both economy and climate will sink or swim together.

“There are reasons to fear that we will leap from the Covid-19 frying pan into the climate fire”, says a new report, Will Covid-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on Climate Change? Published by the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford, UK, it says now is the time for governments to restructure their economies and act decisively to tackle climate change.

“The climate emergency is like the Covid-19 emergency, just in slow motion and much graver”, says the study, written by a team of economic and climate change heavyweights including Joseph Stiglitz, Cameron Hepburn and Nicholas Stern.

Economic recovery packages emerging in the coming months will have a significant impact on whether globally agreed climate goals are met, says the report.

“The recovery packages can either kill two birds with one stone – setting the global economy on a pathway to net-zero emissions – or lock us into a fossil system from which it will be nearly impossible to escape.”

The study’s authors talked to economists, finance officials and central banks around the world.

They say that putting policies aimed at tackling climate change at the centre of recovery plans makes economic as well as environmental sense.

“… Green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per dollar spend and lead to increased long term-term cost saving, by comparison with traditional fiscal stimulus”, says the report.

“Examples include investment in renewable energy production, such as wind or solar.

“As previous research has shown, in the short term clean energy infrastructure construction is particularly labour-intensive, creating twice as many jobs per dollar as fossil fuel investments.”

 

Fundamental change coming

Covid-19 is causing great suffering and considerable economic hardship around the world. But it has also resulted in cleaner air and waterways, a quieter environment and far less commuting to and from work, with people in the developed countries doing more work from home.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a recent survey that Covid-19 and other factors were bringing about a fundamental change in the global energy market, with the use of climate-changing fossil fuels falling sharply and prices of oil, coal and gas plummeting. The IEA also projected that global emissions of greenhouses gases would fall by 8 per cent in 2020, more than any other year on record.

The Oxford report says that with the implementation of the right policies, these positive changes can be sustained: by tackling climate change, many economic and other problems will be solved.

Sceptics have often said that public resistance to changes in lifestyle will prevent governments from taking any substantial action on the climate issue. The study begs to differ: “The (Covid-19) crisis has also demonstrated that governments can intervene decisively once the scale of an emergency is clear and public support is present.”

Economists and finance experts are calling for the UK to play a decisive role in ensuring that economies around the world do not return to the old, high-carbon ways but instead implement green recovery packages.

 

Climate conference

The UK is president and co-host of COP-26, the round of UN climate talks originally due to take place in November this year but now, due to Covid, postponed to early 2021.

The round is seen as a vital part of efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, now a finance adviser to the British prime minister for COP-26, says the UK has the opportunity to bring about fundamental changes in order to combat a warming world.

“The UK’s global leadership in financial services provides a unique opportunity to address climate change by transforming the financial system”, he says.

“To seize it, all financial decisions need to take into account the risks from climate change and the opportunities from the transition to a net zero economy.”

 

 

By Kieran Cooke, Climate News Network

Fossil fuel funding by world’s biggest banks has grown every year since the Paris Agreement, report finds

Posted on by dishanth
Fossil fuel funding by world’s biggest banks has grown every year since the Paris Agreement, report finds

America’s JP Morgan Chase has pumped more than the GDP of Finland into fossil fuels expansion since the Paris climate accord of 2015, while Japan’s and China’s mega banks have also been ‘failing miserably’ in their response to climate change over the last four years, a report from a coalition of NGOs has shown.

 

It’s as if the penny hasn’t dropped for the financial services industry that climate change is not only an increasingly disruptive environmental phenomenon, but a grave risk to the stability of the global economy.

Financial support for the fossil fuel industry has increased every year since the Paris Agreement came into being in 2015, according to a new report, Banking on Climate Change 2020, from a collective of environmental groups including Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack and Indigenous Environmental Network.

The Paris Agreement recommended that global warming be capped at 2°C above pre-industrial levels to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change. To do so, scientists say greenhouse gas emissions, the bulk of which come from the burning of fossil fuels, must be slashed.

However, the report found that 35 global banks have not only been maintaining but expanding the fossil fuels sector, with more than US$2.7 trillion in investments made since 2015.

 

It is unconscionable for banks to be approving new loans and raising capital for the companies that are pushing hardest to increase carbon emissions.

Alison Kirsch, climate and energy leader researcher, Rainforest Action Network

 

United States-headquartered banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America have accounted for 30 per cent of all fossil fuel financing from the major global banks since the Paris accord.

JPMorgan Chase, which recently announced it will close one-fifth of its branches in the US in response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, pumped US$269 billion—more than the gross domestic product of Finland—into the fossil fuels sector over the last four years, notably in fossil fuel expansion, Arctic oil and gas, offshore oil and gas, and fracking.

In Asia, Tokyo-headquartered Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) was the region’s biggest fossil fuel financer and the world’s sixth-biggest financier, investing US$119 billion since 2015.

 

The investments in fossil fuels made by the world’s biggest 35 banking institutions between 2016 and 2019. Source: Banking on climate change report.

 

Counting out coal

China’s mega banks were found to be world’s biggest financiers of coal—the single biggest driver of greenhouse gas emissions—since the Paris Agreement. China Construction Bank and Bank of China are the biggest bankers of coal mining, pumping US$25 billion into the sector between them. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China were the heaviest funders of coal power globally, investing US$42 billion combined, according to the report.

However, financial support for the carbon-intensive fuel is dwindling globally, the report noted. Finance to the top 30 coal mining companies fell by 6 per cent between 2016 and 2019, while finance to the top 30 coal power companies shrank by 13 per cent.

Though China’s banks are a noteable exception, the report found that 26 of the 35 banks in the report now have policies restricting coal finance, which has helped to push the finance sector away from coal. China’s big four banks do not have any climate policies in place.

A growing minority of the world’s biggest banks—now 16—now also restrict finance to some oil and gas sectors. The report said European banks have the toughest fossil fuel lending restrictions. France’s Crédit Agricole, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Italy’s Unicredit are said to have the most progressive climate policies.

 

Banking on Paris

The majority of the world’s top banks are signatories of frameworks such as the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Banking and the Equator Principles, which commit banks to align their business strategies with the Paris Agreement.

But because potential emissions from the coal, oil and natural gas already in production exhaust the carbon budget for the 2°C warming limit of the Paris Agreement, any bank that supports the further expansion of the fossil fuel sector is Paris-incompatible, the report noted.

Alison Kirsch, climate and energy leader researcher, Rainforest Action Network, said that it is “crystal clear” that banks are “failing miserably” in their response to climate change and the decarbonisation of the global economy.

“As the toll of death and destruction from unprecedented floods, droughts, fires and storms grows, it is unconscionable and outrageous for banks to be approving new loans and raising capital for the companies that are pushing hardest to increase carbon emissions,” she said.

The report emerges at a time when the ongoing Covid-19 coronavirus is threatening to derail investment in renewable energy, according to the International Energy Agency.

 

Source: https://www.eco-business.com/

Extreme weather could bring recession ‘like we’ve never seen before’.

Posted on by dishanth
Extreme weather could bring recession ‘like we’ve never seen before’.
  • Physical climate risk from extreme weather events remains unaccounted for in financial markets, a new paper warns.
  • But forecasting and modelling this risk is complicated, because previous climate patterns are ‘no guide to the future.’

Without better knowledge of the risk, the average energy investor can only hope that the next extreme event won’t trigger a sudden correction, according to the research.

 

“If the market doesn’t do a better job of accounting for climate change, we could have a recession – the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”

— Paul Griffin, Professor at the University of California, Davis.

 

The central message in his latest research is that there is too much “unpriced risk” in the energy market. “Unpriced risk was the main cause of the Great Recession in 2007-2008,” Griffin says.

“Right now, energy companies shoulder much of that risk. The market needs to better assess risk, and factor a risk of extreme weather into securities prices,” he says.

For example, excessive high temperatures, like those experienced in the United States and Europe last summer, can be deadly. Not only do they disrupt agriculture, harm human health, and stunt economic growth, they also can overwhelm and shut down vast parts of energy delivery, as they did in Northern California when PG&E shut down delivery during fires and weather that could trigger fire.

Extreme weather can also threaten other services such as water delivery and transportation, which in turn affects businesses, families, and entire cities and regions, sometimes permanently. All of this strains local and broader economies.

 

“Despite these obvious risks, ivestors and asser managers have been conspiciously slow to connect physical climate risk to company market valuations.”

— Paul Griffin, Professor at the University of California, Davis.

 

“Loss of property is what grabs all the headlines, but how are businesses coping? Threats to businesses could disrupt the entire economic system.”

Climate-vulnerable locations also factor into risk for energy markets. In the United States, US oil refining is located on the Gulf Coast, an area exposed to sea-level rise and intense storms. Oil refining in Benicia and Richmond, in Northern California, can be exposed to coastal flooding.

 

 

Energy companies’ transmission infrastructure is located in arid areas, increasing risk of damage, such as the destruction from recent wildfires in California. In addition, it is not clear insurance will be available to cover such risks. Add to those risks, Griffin says, “litigation, sanctions, and even loss of business from the property destroyed.

“The climate litigation risk already priced into energy stocks (after, for example, a protracted ExxonMobil court case in the 1990s) would prove insufficient.”

Extreme weather climate risk, in summary, is hard to predict.

“While proprietary climate risk models my help some firms and organizations better understand future conditions attributable to climate change, extreme weather risk is still highly problematic from a risk estimation standpoint,” he concludes in the article.

“This is because with climate change, the patterns of the past are no guide to the future, whether it be one year, five years, or 20 years out. Investors may also normalize extreme weather impacts over time, discounting their future importance.”

The paper appears in the journal Nature Energy.

 

 

Written by

Karen Nikos, Associate Director, News and Media Relations, University of California, Davis

This article is published in collaboration with Futurity.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.