The Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) was launched by the Treasury this April, then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak used his platform at COP26 to pledge that large businesses in high-emission sectors would be subjected to new net-zero disclosure requirements from 2023. The requirement is around net-zero transition plans, which support long-term corporate emissions goals with interim milestones and outline the necessary steps to change business models and investment. Plans should also detail how workers will be supported and the need for upskilling and reskilling addressed.
Today, the TPT has published its first proposal for a ‘gold standard’ for net-zero transition plans. It was asked to draw up such a standard to ensure that disclosures are meaningful, unified, and would deliver the emissions reductions they tout.
The proposal consists of a framework, recommending how companies should develop plans and the key elements they should include; and an implementation guidance document. The guidance includes advice on when, where and how to provide net-zero transition plans.
The TPT is proposing that companies should have to publish one transition plan next year, then an update in 2026. In 2024 and 2025, information material to the plan should be included in financial reporting, it is recommending.
Regarding the content of a ‘gold standard’ plan, the TPT recommends that organisations should state high-level ambitions to mitigate emissions as well as top-line plans on climate adaptation. This information should be built upon with a list of actions to be taken in the short, medium and long-term and plans to finance these actions.Organisations should also clearly set out how their governance is set up for the net-zero transition.
There are also close ties to TCFD-aligned reporting in the TPT’s proposal. It wants to see businesses assessing the material risks it causes to the natural environment and to communities, and the opportunities it could bring about by reducing and eliminating these harms.
The guiding principles of the proposed framework are “ambition, action and accountability”. Ambition involves “preparing for and contributing to a rapid and orderly economy-wide net-zero transition”. Action involves bolstering long-term goals with interim milestones and making sure financial flows enable their deliver. Accountability covers governance.
The Bank of England’s executive director for financial sustainability Sarah Breeden said that the resources published today “will be key in building out the transition infrastructure necessary for supporting the financial sector to allocate capital efficiently, enabling the real economy transition to net zero.”
Breeden said: “Climate change poses risks to the stability of the financial system and to individual firms. Actions taken by the private sector today will determine the size of future risks which is why it is crucial financial and non-financial firms develop and disclose robust transition plans with a focus on concrete short-term action.”
There is no word yet on which month in 2023 net-zero transition plan disclosures are set to become mandatory, and which businesses will be covered by the mandate. Some firms, including Centrica, SSE and British American Tobacco have already published net-zero transition plans on a voluntary basis.
Commenting on the TPT’s publications, EY UK & Ireland’s managing partner for sustainability Rob Doepel said: “Fundamentally, implementation of the Disclosure Framework (pending consultation) will force the hand of businesses to produce and implement rigorous net-zero plans to deliver on the bold pledges and promises they have made to date.
“Not only is this a huge step towards making the UK a net-zero economy but is a significant step towards the world’s progression to net-zero, elevating the UK into a leadership position in the global economy on holding companies to account on action. Other G20 countries are likely to stand up and take notice of the UK’s progressive approach and it could well create a ripple effect where other countries follow a similar path.
“The guidance suggests that businesses should produce a “maximalist” plan covering not only their own decarbonisation plans, but how their plans fit into the UK and the world’s transition to net zero. TPT guidance goes further than TCFD requirements and potentially a long way beyond what many businesses have considered in their net zero planning to date.”
Supply chain leaders are under pressure from all sides to become more sustainable, not just from board-level executives but also from customers and investors. In fact, research by Celonis and IBM found that more than half of Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) would be willing to sacrifice up to 5% of profit to become more sustainable.
One key way of improving sustainability is getting rid of process inefficiencies which create significant waste and increase unnecessary emissions. Excess stock or production waste is often the result of unclear processes, miscalculations, quality deficiencies, or capacity bottlenecks. The materials and products wasted in the process drive up costs and have a negative impact on a company’s carbon footprint. But it’s often the case that companies can’t even see hidden process problems.
Through data-powered process mining, it is possible to find and fix the hidden process problems that you don’t know you have and improve your sustainability performance.
The missing data
The sustainable procurement of materials is fundamental to achieving overall sustainability in the supply chain. Transparency with regard to the exact ecological and social impacts of suppliers is important. However, this is precisely where sufficient insight is often lacking or information is not always available in a timely manner.
Shipping delays at ports worldwide have wreaked havoc on global supply chains, with research suggesting that as little as 34% of container vessels arrived without any delay to their destination in February 2022. This statistic is only a glimpse of the huge inefficiencies in supply chain that lead to unnecessary carbon emissions and a negative environmental impact. As an example, 1.6 billion tonnes of food are wasted each year, contributing to roughly 8% of the world’s carbon emissions. 78% of this waste occurs before the food reaches the consumer due to inefficient supply chains, meaning food is actually perishing before it hits supermarket shelves. Businesses are therefore forced to order more food than is needed in order to account for the shortfall.
A common problem here is that decision-makers simply do not have the necessary information for climate-friendly route planning, and the amount of data is one of the biggest obstacles. What seems paradoxical at first glance has its roots in the increasing number of IT systems and applications as well as the virtually exploding mass of stored information. Whereas 25 years ago even larger companies worked with only a handful of different IT systems, today there are usually hundreds, often with numerous applications being used to support a single process. This complexity leads to breaks and inefficiencies in processes that cannot be detected, let alone fixed, with traditional methods.
At the same time, these weak points mean unnecessary consumption of resources and thus increased costs and avoidable CO2 emissions.
Why process mining works
This is exactly where process mining and execution management come in. Process mining works like an X-ray machine for internal procedures and can illuminate and subsequently optimise critical business processes. It does this by visualising the current state of internal operations, including all process variants on the basis of data. With valid, data-based insights across all procedures it is possible to break down silos and incorporate sustainability into every decision or measure. All processes and different data sources are taken into account. By bringing together data from all common IT systems, such as SAP, Oracle or Salesforce, and mapping it in its actual form, business processes become holistically understandable.
By applying process mining and the right execution management in this way, companies can shrink the time it takes to find a process problem from years to hours, and make great leaps and bounds in sustainability goals in a short span of time.
The path to sustainability
Making a business more sustainable actually has a positive effect on the bottom line. Some of the world’s leading companies measure the impact of inefficiencies within their supply chain processes in order to minimise resource waste. Process mining and execution management helps these companies find and realise opportunities to significantly optimise fuel consumption, yielding material, financial and environmental benefits.
Carbon commitments and sustainability goals are no longer seen as afterthoughts. Rather, they are fundamental aspects of a company’s overarching business strategy. As processes determine how businesses run, they enable operational and even systemic change. Once processes are analysed and improved with intelligence and data execution, it becomes possible to prioritise sustainability in every operational decision.
This continuous measurability is a crucial aspect for many companies in view of the increasingly strict regulatory requirements. To put it in a nutshell: AI-supported technologies and continuous follow-up are the prerequisites for a sustainability process that is ‘sustainable’ in the literal sense of the word.
Offshore wind farm capacity in the UK is set to triple in what has been hailed as “one of the country’s biggest ever steps” towards achieving net-zero emissions.
Scotland has agreed to lease thousands of square kilometres of its seabed to new projects, which are set to bring in £700m for the country’s government.
The ScotWind programme has given the go-ahead to new wind farm developments which are forecast to boost capacity by 25GW.
According to government figures, the current offshore wind capacity installed in the UK is around 11GW.
Melanie Onn, from trade association RenewableUK, said it marked “the start of a new era” for the country’s offshore wind industry. “ScotWind represents one of the country’s biggest ever steps towards net zero,” she said.
ScotWind is the first auction for wind farm developments to take place in Scotland in a decade.
It was announced yesterday that 17 applications had been accepted, with SSE Renewables and Shell New Energies among the successful bidders.
Ms Onn said the new capacity “is two and a half times the UK’s entire current offshore wind capacity” and equal to “the entire current operational offshore wind capacity for the whole of Europe”.
RenewableUK’s deputy chief executive added: “It will scale up exponentially our ability to slash emissions. In the long term, it will also help to reduce the UK’s vulnerability to international gas prices which are hurting consumers.”
The UK is currently facing an energy crisis amid soaring gas prices, with estimates that millions could see their bills increase by more than 50 per cent.
As Scotland revealed the successful applications for wind farms in their waters, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “The scale of opportunity here is truly historic.”
She added: “ScotWind puts Scotland at the forefront of the global development of offshore wind, represents a massive step forward in our transition to net zero.”
The Scottish government has set a goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2045, while 2050 is the goal for the UK as a whole.
Towards the end of last year, Boris Johnson said all electricity in the country should be produced from clean sources by 2035.
Speaking about the ScotWind project, Dustin Benton from the Green Alliance think tank said expanding wind power was “crucial” to meet this target, as well as reach net zero by the set date.
The 25GW increase in capacity is much higher than the 10GW initially hoped to be created by ScotWind.
The new wind farm developments are also estimated to create thousands of new jobs.
Crown Estate Scotland, which was behind the leasing round, said the announcement of the successful bids was only the first stage of a long process that the developments must go through “before we see turbines going into the water”.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been touted, again and again, as one of the critical technologies that could help Australia reach its climate targets, and features heavily in the federal government’s plan for net-zero emissions by 2050.
CCS is generally when emissions are captured at the source, such as from a coal-fired power station, trucked to a remote location and stored underground.
But critics say investing in CCS means betting on technology that’s not yet proven to work at scale. Indeed, technology-wise, the design of effective carbon-capturing materials, both solid and liquid, has historically been a challenging task.
So could it ever be a viable solution to the fossil fuel industry’s carbon dioxide emissions?
Emerging overseas research shows “liquid marbles”—tiny droplets coated with nanoparticles—could possibly address current challenges in materials used to capture carbon. And our modelling research, published yesterday, brings us a big step closer to making this futuristic technology a reality.
But the efficacy and efficiency of CCS has long been controversial due to its high-operational costs and scaling-up issues for a wider application.
An ongoing problem, more specifically, is the effectiveness of materials used to capture the CO₂, such as absorbents. One example is called “amine scrubbing“, a method used since 1930 to separate, for instance, CO₂ from natural gas and hydrogen.
The problems with amine scrubbing include its high costs, corrosion-related issues and high losses in materials and energy. Liquid marbles can overcome some of these challenges.
This technology can be almost invisible to the naked eye, with some marbles under 1 millimetre in diameter. The liquid it holds—most commonly water or alcohol—is on the scale of microlitres (a microlitre is one thousandth of a millilitre).
The marbles have an outer layer of nanoparticles that form a flexible and porous shell, preventing the liquid within from leaking out. Thanks to this armour, they can behave like flexible, stretchable and soft solids, with a liquid core.
What do marbles have to do with CCS?
Liquid marbles have many unique abilities: they can float, they roll smoothly, and they can be stacked on top of each other.
Other desirable properties include resistance to contamination, low-friction and flexible manipulation, making them appealing for applications such as gas capture, drug delivery and even as miniature bio-reactors.
In the context of CO₂ capture, their ability to selectively interact with gases, liquids and solids is most crucial. A key advantage of using liquid marbles is their size and shape, because thousands of spherical particles only millimetres in size can directly be installed in large reactors.
Gas from the reactor hits the marbles, where it clings to the nanoparticle outer shell (in a process called “adsorption”). The gas then reacts with the liquid within, separating the CO₂ and capturing it inside the marble. Later, we can take out this CO₂ and store it underground, and then recycle the liquid for future processing.
This process can be a more time and cost-efficient way of capturing CO₂ due to, for example, the liquid (and potentially solid) recycling, as well as the marbles’ high mechanical strength, reactivity, sorption rates and long-term stability.
So what’s stopping us?
Despite recent progress, many properties of liquid marbles remain elusive. What’s more, the only way to test liquid marbles is currently through physical experiments conducted in a laboratory.
Physical experiments have their limitations, such as the difficulty to measure the surface tension and surface area, which are important indicators of the marble’s reactivity and stability.
In this context, our new computational modelling can improve our understanding of these properties, and can help overcome the use of costly and time-intensive experiment-only procedures.
Another challenge is developing practical, rigorous and large-scale approaches to manipulate liquid marble arrays within the reactor. Further computational modelling we’re currently working on will aim to analyse the three-dimensional changes in the shapes and dynamics of liquid marbles, with better convenience and accuracy.
This will open up new horizons for a myriad of engineering applications, including CO₂ capture.
Beyond carbon capture
Research on liquid marbles started off as just an inquisitive topic around 20 years ago and, since then, ongoing research has made it a sought-after platform with applications beyond carbon capture.
This cutting-edge technology could not only change how we solve climate problems, but environmental and medical problems, too.
Magnetic liquid marbles, for example, have demonstrated their potential in biomedical procedures, such as drug delivery, due to their ability to be opened and closed using magnets outside the body. Other applications of liquid marbles include gas sensing, acidity sensing and pollution detection.
With more modelling and experiments, the next logical step would be to scale up this technology for mainstream use.
When applied to droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, or other extreme weather events, the term “unprecedented” is getting old. In August, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report about the dire realities we face, a drought exacerbated by global warming already had been raging for years across much of southern Africa.
It seems as though world leaders are finally ready to take meaningful action, but there’s a critical group regularly missing from key climate meetings like the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow: local, climate-focused small businesses that already are making a difference in their communities. Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) working on climate adaptation and mitigation are a crucial but underestimated partner in the fight to reduce emissions.
Even though climate financing options are increasing, SMEs’ role in sustainable development continues to be overlooked. Their predicament is one shared by more than 200 million SMEs of all types in developing countries that cannot get the funds they need to grow, facing an estimated US$5.2 trillion annual financing gap.
International investors focus on getting dollars out the door through larger deals, while local capital is kept on the sidelines by high collateral requirements and unmanageable interest rates for early-stage businesses.
SMEs represent 90 per cent of businesses and provide more than 50 per cent of jobs worldwide according to the World Bank, so they have a key role to play in creating opportunities in economies struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Examples like SELCO India, a pioneering off-grid solar company, and Husk Power, an innovative pay-as-you-go renewable energy provider operating in Asia and Africa, show that with the right amount and type of financing and technical support, small businesses can improve lives through energy access – a key international goal. Off-grid renewables also help power sustainable mobility in both rural and urban settings.
Small businesses also have an important role to play in greening agriculture. Land use for crop and livestock production accounts for 24 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, and farms are vulnerable to droughts, floods, and rising temperatures. Financing climate-smart agricultural entrepreneurs is essential for making our food systems more resilient.
Here, too, off-grid renewable energy has become indispensable, providing power for irrigation, processing grains, and operating the cold rooms and coolers needed to store dairy products, fresh seafood, and fruits and vegetables. In India, Technoserve is helping small farms withstand and adapt to the climate crisis and raise their productivity without increasing emissions.
As these examples show, when small businesses have the financing and support they need, they can drive economic growth while mitigating emissions and supporting adaptation to climate change. That is because small businesses are more agile and adaptable – and respond to local needs much faster and more effectively – than large organisations. They also offer governments and policymakers an opportunity to try out new ideas, revealing both pitfalls and best practices before initiatives are scaled regionally or nationally.
For starters, the world needs far more finance vehicles and instruments that are tailored to small businesses working in the green economy. That means a mix of lower-cost, long-term capital and blended finance, as well as easier access.
Achieving the global goal of net-zero emissions requires policymakers, investors, banks, and others to attend to SMEs’ needs much more effectively than they have in the past. For starters, the world needs far more finance vehicles and instruments that are tailored to small businesses working in the green economy. That means a mix of lower-cost, long-term capital and blended finance, as well as easier access.
The world also needs more business accelerators focused on adaptation to climate change. There are only 25 such green accelerators located in non-OECD countries. Funding research and establishing professional networks will drive support to businesses that have strong growth potential.
Better metrics to assess success will be needed. That does not mean lowering environmental, social, and governance standards. Instead, it means devising indicators specifically for green enterprises in the SME sector to help them demonstrate their effectiveness and attract more investment.
Finally, investors must not overlook women, who produce up to 80 per cent of food in the Global South. Women also are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Investing in female climate entrepreneurs benefits the climate, food production, and overall prosperity.
Small businesses are integral to climate-change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Providing them the financing and support necessary to help them succeed is in everyone’s interest.
Kristina Skierka is CEO of Power for All. Richenda Van Leeuwen is Executive Director of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs.
Government ministers from around the world are in Glasgow for more talks.
They will discuss how to support poorer countries and if reparations for damage from natural disasters should be paid.
Poorer nations have called for $100bn of financial help, arguing they are already suffering and will be worst affected by climate change.
Developing countries have historically contributed a very small proportion of the damaging emissions driving climate change – while currently the wealthiest 1% of the global population account for more than double the combined emissions of the poorest 50%.
The majority of the money from the UK will go to help Asian and Pacific nations plan and invest in climate action, improve conservation and promote low-carbon development, the government said.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office described the £290m as “new funding” from the foreign aid budget. The government said last month that cuts to the UK’s foreign aid spending, to 0.5% of national income, will stay in place until at least 2024-25.
Senior government climate change advisers previously warned the cuts showed the UK was “neither committed to nor serious about” helping countries vulnerable to climate change ahead of COP26.
The UN summit will continue until Sunday, with much of the focus of the talks over how to limit global warming to the target of 1.5C.
Monday will see negotiators discuss how best to mitigate the impact of a warming planet, particularly for poorer countries.
Developing countries are asking for $100bn (around £73bn at current exchange rates) annually to help reduce emissions and adapt to climate change and reaching net-zero targets on emissions well before 2050.
A pledge for $100bn from wealthier nations was made as long ago as 2009, but the plans to have it in place by 2020 have not been realised and current targets aim to reach it by 2023 – an offer which has been described as “extremely disappointing”.
International trade minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the world “must act now” to prevent more people being pushed into poverty by climate change.
Where will the money be spent?
The government said its £290m in new funding to tackle the impact of climate change will be split between:
£274m to assist Asian and the Pacific nations to plan and invest in climate action, improve conservation and ensure low-carbon development
£15m to a fund designed to support developing countries focus their response where they most need it
£1 million to support delivery of faster and more effective global humanitarian action, including in response to climate-related disasters
But there is also the question of whether rich nations should pay reparations to vulnerable countries for damage already caused by climate change.
Wealthy nations have never acknowledged legal liability for the impact of their emissions – because the bill could run into trillions.
So far, Scotland is the only country promising to donate to a compensation fund for countries whose economies have been damaged by climate change with a £1m pledge.
Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, said Scotland’s pledge is the first time any developed nation has tacitly admitted responsibility for contributing to global warming – and he believed it will not be the last.
Tough week ahead
The Glasgow COP isn’t really one conference – in effect it’s two processes in parallel.
One is a series of daily events organised by the British presidency of the COP. This innovation has already conjured welcome initiatives on forests, finance, methane and technology. This week it’ll unveil pledges on transport, cities and science. They’ll be significant if they’re carried through.
Meanwhile in parallel the tangled talks of the formal UN process labour on.
There are disagreements over the rules governing climate deals, whether rich countries will offer more cash to poorer countries already suffering from dangerous heating – and whether given the urgency of climate disruption, nations should raise their carbon-cutting ambitions in two years instead of five.
There’s also a question of reparations for nations harmed by emissions they didn’t cause. So far the only contribution to the fund is £1m from Scotland.
It’ll be a tough week.
Charity Christian Aid said some of the world’s poorest countries could suffer an average 64% hit to their economy by the end of the century under current climate policies.
Mohamed Adow, director of Kenyan climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, described the “scale of the economic disaster” as “deeply unjust”.
“The fact rich countries have consistently blocked efforts to set up a loss and damage fund to deal with this injustice is shameful”, he added.
The first week of the climate talks have led to a variety of pledges, including a major deal to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, and to cut methane emissions.
President of COP26, Alok Sharma, said the pledges made “must be delivered on and accounted for” by all nations.
Former US President Barack Obama is expected to speak in Glasgow later about the progress made in the five years since the Paris Agreement took effect.
Judging from how often the H-word came up during this week’s marathon dialogues held to discuss the energy transition in Asia, it is clear that hydrogen is having its big moment.
Even as players in the region acknowledge that it might take some time before their investments in low-carbon hydrogen pay off, many are pinning their hopes on the hydrogen economy redrawing the energy map of tomorrow.
At two separate conferences this week, high-level representatives from energy institutes based in Japan and Australia were especially bullish on the prospects of hydrogen. Both countries are leading the charge in Asia to roll out technological solutions to promote the alternative fuel as part of their energy transition strategies.
Speaking at the APAC Energy Conversations, a virtual event organised as part of the Energy Industries Council (EIC)’s biannual flagship conference, Miranda Taylor, who leads National Energy Resources Australia (NERA), said that her organisation is particularly focused on “the hydrogen journey”.
Australia’s energy institutes are now focused on helping the island continent build a renewable hydrogen industry, said Miranda Taylor, chief executive of NERA (top right in picture) at the recent EIC-APAC Energy Conversations. NERA is also working with authorities to ensure that the decommissioning of coal in Asia is up to standard. [Click to enlarge] Source: GE Gas Power
NERA is a non-profit working to support the island continent’s energy transition, by coordinating the provision of seed funding for companies and innovators. “Within the industry, we all know that the hydrogen story is a complex one. It is also an ‘unproven’ story, because there are doubts about how clean the fuel will finally be. Nonetheless, considerable investments in hydrogen are pouring in,” she said.
Professor Tatsuya Terazawa, chairman and chief executive of Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, similarly believes that green hydrogen – hydrogen generated from renewables – is the answer if Asia is seeking a “pragmatic approach”.
Not cheap nor lucrative yet
The region, unfortunately, cannot enjoy the growth potential of solar and wind power, due to its land and weather limitations, said Terazawa, at a Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) dialogue session on Monday. “There are also no transmission lines connecting Asia with regions rich in these renewables. But we can innovate and find a way to lower the costs of transporting hydrogen and it will alter the calculus of the energy transition in Asia,” he said.
It remains unclearhow clean or lucrative hydrogen can be. Hydrogen has been the promised fuel of the future since the 1970s but there have been many false starts in the past decade. More than 95 per cent of the hydrogen used today, commonly known as ‘grey hydrogen’, is extracted from natural gas. The process of manufacturing hydrogen involves electrolysing water to separate hydrogen atoms from oxygen and is hugely water and energy-intensive.
An overview map of where different countries are at developing a hydrogen strategy. Investment in hydrogen production projects worldwide is increasing and the number of countries that already have strategies for the use of the fuel has increased from just three in 2019 to 17 today. Image: World Energies Council
Over the past few years, the industry has been turning to low-carbon energy sources such as renewables and nuclear power to extract hydrogen, but it is still prohibitively expensive. Within the region, countries like Singapore are opting to develop subsea cables to import renewable energy from its neighbours, rather than hedge bets on hydrogen.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), in the Global Hydrogen Review, its new annual publication focused on tracking progress in hydrogen production and demand, estimates that putting the hydrogen sector on a path consistent with global net zero emissions by 2050 requires US$1.2 trillion in investments by 2030.
To curb climate change, about US$90 billion of public money needs to be channelled into clean energy innovation worldwide as quickly as possible – with around half of it dedicated to hydrogen-related technology, the report said.
Within the industry, we all know that the hydrogen story is a complex one. It is also an ‘unproven’ story, because there are doubts about how clean the fuel will finally be.
Miranda Taylor, CEO, National Energy Resources Australia (NERA)
In Asia, Japan is spearheading the Hydrogen Energy Ministerial (HEM) meeting, a multilateral initiative organised to create consensus on hydrogen-related collaborations. According to the Institute of Energy Economics, for the region to realise net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, annual costs could go up to 2.9 per cent of each country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“It is difficult to get a region that is the growth centre of the world to give up on growth,” said Terazawa.
Japan is banking on transforming hydrogen into ammonia to make it much less expensive to carry in the absence of transmission pipelines, and Terazawa thinks it is the right way forward. To transport hydrogen as a liquid, it needs to be cooled to a temperature of -252 °C, while ammonia can be carried as a liquid at just -33 °C, explained Terazawa.
“It will be the cheapest option for Asia if it wants to decarbonise,” he said.
Where will the gold rush lead to?
Referring to Malaysia’s energy ministry’s announcement this week that it will limit renewable energy exports to Singapore, Andrew Bedford, director of energy transition at US-based consultancy Jacobs, said that governments in Asia are feeling the heat to meet their net-zero targets. This might fuel a more nationalistic mindset when it comes to the way they think about renewables and energy, he said.
“At the same time, it means that [countries that used to be] major energy importers now have an opportunity to invest in emerging areas of opportunities, diversify their energy mix and own a share of a new market,” said Bedford.
Describing the surge of investments in hydrogen-related infrastructure as a “green gold rush”, Bedford said that bigger players are now snapping up “the best areas of land” that are suited to such development.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that hydrogen will become an important part of the Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) scenario, though the fuel forms only one part of the puzzle. [Click to enlarge] Image: IEA
In terms of coming up with comprehensive hydrogen plans, Southeast Asia still has a lot of catching up to do, said Bedford. The number of countries with hydrogen strategies has increased from just three in 2019 to 17 today, but none are from the region.
Singapore is working on one right now, though it is also taking a cautious approach in doing so. The island state announced on Monday that it will be awarding S$55 million to research projects that are focused on improving the technical and economic feasibility of low-carbon technologies, particularly hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), to enable local deployment in the future.
By 2035, Singapore aims to import up to 30 per cent of its power supply by 2035 in a bid to diversify the gas-dependent nation’s energy mix with renewables.
Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong, delivering a speech at SIEW, spoke about low-carbon hydrogen’s potential to “be a game-changer for Singapore’s energy transition”.
Speaking at the opening of Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW), Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said that the move to import low-carbon energy will be a “key needle mover” in Singapore’s energy transition in the near to medium term. Image: SIEW
For hydrogen to be deployed meaningfully, especially for the power sector, global supply chains and proper infrastructure for hydrogen need to be established and the costs of hydrogen transport, storage and use need to be competitive, said Gan.
Consigning coal to history
Experts at the energy dialogues said that while the viability of green hydrogen is being hammered out, gas is likely to play a role as a bridging fuel in the region’s energy transition.
Shantanu Som, engineering director for GE Gas Power, advocates for a more measured approach. “Companies are getting mixed signals on where they should be headed for. On one hand, Australia is aspiring to be the hydrogen hub for Asia and the government is taking very bold steps. On the other hand, you have China, which has a five-year plan but is just putting small stepping stones in-between in a very cautious manner,” he said.
China’s new road map, launched on Tuesday, pledged to hit peak greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade but stopped short of firm commitments to reduce reliance on coal.
When leaders gather at the COP26 summit in Glasgow this weekend, hydrogen is unlikely to prominently feature on their discussion agenda. The world needs to work on phasing out coal first, said energy experts.
Organisations working with authorities on pushing for the energy transition will need to have the capacity to make sure that coal decommissioning is done to the highest standards, said Taylor.
“The Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, has a considerable amount of offshore oil and gas infrastructure, which will need to be decommissioned or repurposed in the next decades. For a just transition to happen, we have to be realistic and make sure that workers are retrained, that they will be equipped with different skills and capabilities to work in a different industry,” she said.
Christchurch leaders are considering joining a United Nations-linked climate change initiative that could lead to parts of the city becoming “zero emission zones”, meaning no petrol-guzzling cars, by 2025.
Christchurch City Council staff have recommended signing up to the Race to Zero climate initiative, following an invitation from Auckland mayor Phil Goff. Auckland and Wellington are both part of the initiative, which encompasses more than 730 cities worldwide.
The initiative encourages cities to pledge to reduce carbon emissions, come up with interim and long-term targets, take action on those targets, and produce annual reports showing their progress.
Councillor Sara Templeton backed the initiative, saying cities needed to work together while Cr Aaron Keown said it was just more virtue signalling.
Council staff say joining the initiative would reinforce the council’s commitment to “strong climate action” – but also admit that joining would be a “largely a symbolic move” and it would not require any significant additional council resources.
Keown said the initiative “was another group-think on how we’re going to change the planet without changing the planet”.
“Action leads to action,” he said. “You saying to me ‘I’m going to be an All Black’ – but you aren’t even playing rugby at the moment – isn’t going to get you to be an All Black.”
Cr Aaron Keown says joining the Race to Zero climate initiative will be more virtue-signalling. “Action leads to action,” he says. JOE JOHNSON/STUFF
“The actions are way more important than words on a piece of paper, but joining with others and working together is also really important, and we can’t do it alone,” she said.
“Being able to share resources, having those contacts, and reaffirming our commitment are really important.”
Cr Sara Templeton says while actions are more important than words, working with other cities is also really important. CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF
Council staff noted the practical benefit of the initiative would be accessing information and lessons from other cities involved.
If councilors decided to join the initiative, they must also select at least one action from a list of 23 to undertake before the end of the year.
Council staff recommended selecting a single action, one that called for the expansion of access to walking, cycling, and other transport methods as well as identifying areas suitable for becoming “zero emission zones” by 2025.
Staff said this action was “a direction the council already supports”, but noted identifying the zero emission zones would be a new piece of work. Identifying potential zones did not necessarily mean they would be implemented.
The council’s head of strategic policy, Emma Davis, said the zones would be areas promoting zero emission transport, such as walking, cycling, public transport or electric vehicles.
Residents and businesses in the zone would benefit from cleaner, healthier air and quieter streets, she said.
“The size and location of any potential future zero emission zones have not yet been identified”. Davis said the staff recommendation presently was only to explore the merits of these zones.
The European Council adopted a climate change law Monday that legally obliges its 27 nations to collectively slash greenhouse emissions by 55% by 2030 — from 1990 levels — and to become a net-zero-emissions economy by 2050.
The European Union and several other nations increased pledges to cut greenhouse gases and reach carbon neutrality at a virtual climate change summit hosted by US President Joe Biden in April. But there have been concerns over whether world leaders would win the backings of their parliaments to actually enshrine the pledges into law.
Until Monday, only five countries had actually made their pledges legally binding, according to Climate Watch Data: The United Kingdom and New Zealand, as well as EU members Hungary, Luxembourg and France.
Monday’s approval of the package of policies is the final seal on the climate law, which the EU’s parliament passed last week. The EU has been working toward this law since it launched its vision, under the European Green Deal, in 2019.
“I warmly welcome this final step of the adoption of the EU’s very first climate law which enshrines into legislation the 2050 climate neutrality objective,” said Portuguese Minister of Environment and Climate Action João Pedro Matos Fernandes in a statement. Portugal is currently holding the presidency of the EU.
“An agreement on the European climate law has been a priority for the Portuguese Presidency and I am glad that we have successfully brought it over the finishing line.”
Net zero is a scenario where the number of greenhouse gases emitted are no greater than the amount removed from the atmosphere, largely through a method known as carbon capture. Some scientists and environmentalists criticize net zero plans for relying too heavily on technology that isn’t fully developed, arguing the world should be aiming to cut the use of fossil fuels entirely and aim for low- or zero-carbon economies.
The new law seeks to limit its reliance on carbon capture by capping the amount to 225 megatons of carbon. It will also seek to become a negative carbon economy — where it removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits — after 2050.
The European Commission also agreed to propose an intermediate climate target for 2040, “if appropriate,” within six months after a first “global stocktake” of emissions carried out under the Paris Agreement. The law states that a scientific board on climate change will be established to advise the EU on its policies.
The current increase in pledges from the EU — as well as other countries, including the US and UK — are aimed at keeping average global temperature rises within 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial levels and well below 2 degrees. The International Panel of Climate Change paints a catastrophic picture in a 2-degree-rise scenario, where 1.7 billion more people experience severe heatwaves at least once every five years, sea levels rise by another 10 centimeters and coral reefs are all but wiped out, among other impacts.
But some environmentalists have warned that even the more ambitious pledges do not go far enough, and are not enough to keep temperature rise to 1.5C.
Around the world, there are teams of people who are working to track down and destroy hidden sources of greenhouse gases – stopping them from harming the planet. Some of the gases, which are used in refrigeration, have many times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
On the outskirts of Guatemala City, Ángel Toledo runs a waste disposal company dealing with metal, plastic and glass.
For the last three years they’ve also started dealing with refrigerant gases – which contribute to climate change. He siphons the gases from household appliances like fridges into refrigerant recovery machines.
They are then transferred to a huge tank that’s taken to be destroyed once it’s full.
It’s a tangible measure of what Ángel has helped save.
“I feel fulfilled,” he says. “I’ve had this plant for 16 years working with plastic and glass and other waste but I’ve been working on refrigerants for the last three years.
“I feel it’s like a dream, helping the environment. Avoiding these gases from reaching the atmosphere. It’s an ecstasy being able to help the planet through this work. It’s very important for me.”
But not everyone is disposing of refrigerant canisters or fridges in the right way.
Workers make sure the gases used in old appliances are disposed of safely Source BBC
“Unfortunately, you see that a lot and one of the biggest challenges we face is having to change the common practice. You see the cylinders on the street,” he explains.
“They vent the gases as they’re dealing with equipment or the cylinders and it’s going to the atmosphere.”
Ángel is part of a chain of people working to stop these gases causing damage to the planet. Teams from Tradewater, a company funded through climate offsetting, are working around the world negotiating with governments, private companies and individuals to find ways to find, secure and destroy the gases safely.
Once they get an agreement from the owner and local authorities, they take them somewhere they can be disposed of safely.
These teams are jokingly referred to as “ghostbusters”, because of the way their cinematic counterparts gathered up troublesome phantoms and stored them together in large “containment units”. They doggedly track, trap and destroy rogue gases before they can escape and cause climate havoc.
They’re also sometimes known as “chill hunters”.
Almost all fridges and air conditioning units use a gas to transfer the chill or warmth within the unit. This gas is a great insulator – handy in a fridge but not in the atmosphere.
A worker at Ángel’s plant extracts refrigerant gases from an old appliance Source BBC
Over the last century, the most commonly used gases were CFC (chlorofluorocarbons) and HCFC (hydrochlorofluorocarbons). But when it was discovered they were causing a hole in the ozone layer in the 1980s, they were banned under the Montreal Protocol.
Some of them were also potent greenhouse gases: one, called R12 – a CFC – had a global warming potential almost 10,000 times that of CO2. A single 30lb canister of this gas contained the equivalent of 131 tonnes of CO2 in terms of it global warming potential.
This is the equivalent of the average UK car driving just over a million kilometres.
HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) were brought in as replacements, and helped save the ozone layer. But some of the early HFCs were, like the ozone-harming gases banned under the Montreal Protocol, potent greenhouse gases.
Current legal fridge gases are better, but still have global warming potentials many times greater than carbon dioxide.
Scientists estimate that by phasing out HFCs, global warming could be reduced by around half a degree Celsius.
Source BBC
Tradewater searches for gas tanks, intact fridges or industrial chillers often stored in old warehouses and waste disposal sites. Sometimes, however, the team arrives too late, finding only punctured tanks, corroded pipes and gases long released.
Maria Gutiérrez, Tradewater’s director of international programmes, says: “These gases are all over the place – in refrigeration equipment that’s in use or not, but also in huge stockpiles of unused material that were purchased and never used, or confiscated when imported illegally into a country many years ago.”
These chemicals exist in a legal grey area, so stocks are often hidden as owners may hope to sell them in the future. Sometimes the scrap iron value of the canister alone means that the gas is vented and the metal sold on.
Global warming gases are also found in some fridges, freezers and air-conditioners in the UK – which should be disposed of responsibly. It’s another reason why fly tipping can be so harmful.
Tradewater says its global gas recoveries have already prevented the equivalent of 4-5 million tonnes of CO2 from reaching the atmosphere, but the work continues.
Ms Gutiérrez says: “We are only scratching the surface. There is so much more out there.”
The Chill Hunters are featured in 39 Ways to Save the Planet on BBC Sounds and on BBC Radio 4 at 13:45 BST for the next two weeks.
