News: Axios Generate: Climate diplomats have 2030 in their sights

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Axios Generate: Climate diplomats have 2030 in their sights

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By Ben Geman ·Mar 24, 2021

Hello readers! Today's Smart Brevity count is 1,092 words, 4 minutes.

🎶 And this month in 1994, A Tribe Called Quest released a brilliant single from "Midnight Marauders" that's today's intro tune...

1 big thing: 2030 is the new 2050

Illustration of a hand placing a number three card over the number 2050

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

2030 is so hot right now.

The big picture: Pledges to end net emissions by midcentury are now commonplace for big countries and companies, but several looming summits are putting a fresh focus on a much closer horizon.

What's next: U.S. officials intend to unveil a 2030 greenhouse gas emissions-cutting target under the Paris deal by April 22 — the date of a big summit Biden is hosting.

And more broadly, the next major UN climate conference in Scotland late this year is aimed at showcasing nations' updated medium-term pledges — and how they'll breathe life into them.
China, the world's largest emitter by far, is under lots of scrutiny because it has not yet unveiled policy specifics behind its vow to have its emissions peak before 2030.
Nikkei Asia reported Tuesday that Japan plans to unveil a more ambitious 2030 target before the G7 summit in June.

Where it stands: John Kerry, President Biden's climate envoy, used a multilateral meeting Tuesday to call for countries to show "concretely" how they'll meet those midcentury pledges with nearer-term steps.

"The scientists tell us it just doesn't work to issue a mid-century goal without reducing sufficiently between now and 2030," Kerry said at the annual Ministerial on Climate Action hosted by China.
"Without that, and without a miracle, it's as highly improbable as it is highly implausible that you could ever get to 2050 net zero in a way any country would ever choose," Kerry said.
Separately, new analysis from the investor network Climate Action 100+ finds that among scores of the world's largest carbon-emitting companies, there's a "critically important" need for "more robust" medium-term targets (i.e. the 2026-2035 range). Reuters has more.

The intrigue: A deeply reported Washington Post story gets to the dilemma facing U.S. officials — crafting a 2030 pledge over the next few weeks that's ambitious but not just a paper tiger.

That's especially tricky because while Biden is looking to leverage executive actions at agencies government-wide, his push for deep cuts will require lots of help from the narrowly divided Congress.
"Nobody will be satisfied with good targets without anything backing it up," Laurence Tubiana, a former French climate diplomat who now heads the European Climate Foundation, tells the paper.

Why it matters: Any hope of meeting the Paris Agreement's longshot target of limiting warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial means steep cuts need to be happening now.

The UN's science panel estimates that a path toward that goal would mean greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 need to be 45% below 2010 levels.
UN officials made that point when releasing a late February report finding that medium-term pledges thus far don't create anything close to a pathway to those cuts.

2. One reason 2020 was only a brief carbon pause

Reproduced from IEA; Chart: Axios Visuals

New International Energy Agency analysis of coal consumption helps explain why global carbon emissions have rebounded so quickly from the pandemic-fueled drop.

The big picture: It notes that overall global coal consumption fell 4% in 2020, with reductions concentrated in the early part of the year.

"By the end of 2020, demand had surged above pre-Covid levels, driven by Asia where economies were fast rebounding and December was particularly cold," the analysis states.
Global coal use in the fourth quarter was several percentage points higher than the same period in 2019, "contributing to a resurgence in global CO2 emissions."

3. Oil gains ground after Suez mishap

Workers next to a container ship that was hit by strong winds and ran aground in Suez Canal, Egypt. Photo: Suez Canal Authority via Reuters

The maritime traffic jam caused by a huge container ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal has halted and somewhat reversed this week's plunge in crude oil prices.

Driving the news: The global benchmark Brent crude is trading at $62.25 this morning, up over 2%, after dropping by over $2 per barrel earlier in the week and steep declines last week, too.

But prices are still back to where they were in mid-February before several weeks of generally upward motion.

Why it matters: The Suez is among the world's major transit regions for oil tankers, with millions of barrels per day of crude and petroleum products traversing the narrow sea lane.

"Price support is coming courtesy of a transport blockage," Stephen Brennock of the oil broker PVM tells Reuters.

Yes, but: Sophie Griffiths, an analyst with Oanda, said in a note that "lingering concerns over the Covid picture in Europe could keep the price depressed," with U.S. prices under $60 per barrel (WTI's at $59.19 this morning).

"After some consolidation around these levels another leg lower isn't out of the picture, particularly if any travel restrictions look set to continue well into the summer months," she wrote.

The big picture: Getting back to the Suez, "By Wednesday morning, more than 100 ships were stuck at each end of the canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and carries roughly 10 percent of worldwide shipping traffic," the New York Times reports.

What we don't know: How long it will take to fully dislodge the container ship, but Reuters, citing port agent GAC, reports this morning that it has been "partially refloated" and traffic is expected to resume soon.

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4. The next step in the Fed's climate work

Federal Reserve board member Lael Brainard said the Fed is creating a "Financial Stability Climate Committee" (FSCC) to, as the name suggests, "identify, assess, and address climate-related risks to financial stability."

Why it matters: The group, announced in a speech Tuesday, is just the latest in a widening series of moves by the central bank to get a better handle on climate-related financial risks.

It comes two months after the Fed announced a separate body called the "Supervision Climate Committee" (SCC).
And late last year, for the first time, the Fed included climate among the risks described in its formal Financial Stability Report.

The intrigue: Brainard said the two committees will work in "close coordination" and her remarks delved into how they differ.

The FSCC's approach will take a macro-level approach to assess risk, exploring the "potential for complex interactions across the financial system."
The SCC, meanwhile, examines climate risks to specific financial institutions to help "develop an appropriate program to ensure the resilience of our supervised firms to those risks."

5. Catch up fast: White House, banks, Tesla

People: "Ali Zaidi, one of President Biden's top climate aides, did legal work for a number of fossil fuel energy companies." (E&E News)

Finance: "Global banks provided $750bn in financing to coal, oil and gas companies last year, despite many having pledged to back the Paris climate accord and cut their funding for fossil fuels, according to a new study by an activist group." (Financial Times)

Bitcoin: "Tesla Inc customers can now buy its electric vehicles with bitcoin, its boss, Elon Musk, said on Wednesday, marking a significant step forward for the cryptocurrency's use in commerce." (Reuters)