2024, What now?
5 min read. All views are the author’s own.
The dust has settled on COP28, so as we begin 2024, where are we left?
Firstly, its worth reminding ourselves why the world of climate negotiations and the energy transition matter. 2023 was by all accounts the hottest year on record, roughly 1.46degC above pre-industrial average, and other ominous records have been shattered.
At COP28 the UAE Consensus had some historical firsts, and some glaring omissions. We covered the final text in detail in this blog post (here) and will look at the other agreements made in further posts (such as the Loss and Damage fund).
What will 2024 bring?
Without staring too deeply into a crytal ball, here are a few things we know will happen this year that will affect the world of climate action.
COPs will continue
The UNFCCC Conference of Parties process will continue, with Azerbaijan hosting in November. The host country is picked from a different geographic area each year and has to be chosen unanimously. An oil-dependent state, Azerbaijan was chosen because Russia promised to veto any country that has taken a public stand against their invasion of Ukraine, such is the nature of international negotiations. They have, like the UAE in 2023, elected a former oil executive to lead the talks. Without a showpiece decision or event like the Global Stocktake COP29 is likely to be a lower profile affair, mainly focussed on fleshing out the financing of climate funds and setting up for a very consequential COP30 in Brazil.
We will cover our views on the future of the COP process, its flaws and misunderstandings, in an upcoming blog.
The climate will continue to change
Emissions have not yet stopped rising, in fact they continue to reach record levels, and as such it is no surprise that the globe will continue to warm. Extreme weather events will likely occur this year, as we moved from a cooler La Niña in 2022 to El Nino in 2023.
Key elections will take place
In 2024 more people will vote in elections than at any time in history. Given the outsized role of national governments in setting the direction and pace of climate policy these elections will have an impact on our fight against climate change. Some of the most consequential elections will be in; the UK, USA, South Africa, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Taiwan, & The EU.
What do we need to do?
The Global Stocktake showed us that we are woefully off track. The Production Gap shows our emissions are still far too high for a 2 degree future, let alone a 1.5 degree one. And the pledges countries have made are not yet enough – there are gaps between our actions, our ambitions, and the trajectory we actually need to be on. So what can the world do?
There are myriad ways for us to collectively continue to fight climate change and halt global warming, we can’t hope to cover them in a single blog but here are some key areas that, in the author’s opinion, we should be focusing on:
Coal
Methane
Fossil Fuel Demand Destruction
Accelerating the Energy Transition
Improving Climate Finance
De-politicising Climate Action
& Taking Action Ourselves
Coal
Coal is the dirtiest way to produce electricity, and yet it is the backbone of the grid of many developing countries. It is a dying industry in much of the developed world, in the US and the UK coal power is no longer cost competitive. But in developing nations like China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and even European countries like Poland, dependency on coal is very high. These countries need to be supported, encouraged, or cajoled, into reducing that dependency soon and the UAE consensus of “Accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power” needs to be undertaken at pace. Here partnerships like the South African one announced at COP26 have real potential.
Methane
Methane emissions are another area that needs to be addressed now. Methane (CH4) has contributed to 30% of our warming since industrialisation it has a shorter lifespan in our atmosphere than Carbon Dioxide (CO2) but is more potent. It is emitted from agriculture, as well as in the production of oil, natural gas, and coal. It is a tricky thing to measure, so efforts like the Global Methane Tracker need support, and anything we can do to reduce the emissions of methane from human sources should be a priority, and once again the UAE consensus text that “accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030” needs to be strictly followed.
Fossil Fuel Demand Destruction
A lot of focus, from activists to journalists covering COP, has been on ending fossil fuel production - phasing out fossil fuels. Organisations like the IEA have led credibility to the idea that no new oil and gas facilities need to be brought online if we are going to burn the little allowance we have to stay within 1.5 degrees of warming. At the same time oiI & gas majors have (rightly) been criticized for turning their back on their initially promising climate pledges in order to chase short term profit windfalls from the Ukraine war and its subsequent energy crisis. BP & Shell have watered down transition plans, and state owned companies like Aramco and ADNOC have plans to increase oil production – as their CEO and COP president Dr Sultan Al Jabeer told reporters as the COP concluded “at the end of the day, remember, it is the demand that will decide and dictate what sort of energy source will help meet the growing global energy requirements,”
We should take him at his word, and do everything in our power to reduce demand for fossil fuels.
Accelerating the Energy Transition
It may seem obvious, but reducing demand for fossil fuels is essentially the goal of the energy transition, and this work needs to be accelerated & supported by individuals, corporations, & national governments. The scale up of renewable technologies is very promising, but it has to be paired with a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, otherwise the total amount of emissions won’t budge. This is recognised in the UAE consensus, with the welcome, if slightly vague, call on parties to “contribute to… tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030”.
The key aims of the energy transition are to:
Replace fossil fuel generation assets in our electricity grids with renewables, hydropower, geothermal & nuclear – and provide the corresponding markets, transmission infrastructure, and energy storage assets that this will require.
Increase the energy efficiency of buildings & industrial processes.
Electrify transportation – the replacement of petrol & diesel cars with electric vehicles will have the single greatest impact on global oil demand. Be careful of misinformation about EVs, there seems to be a concerted effort to persuade people they aren’t good for the climate or that we won’t have enough minerals to make them.
Electrify home heating – district heating and heat pumps seem to be the answers to decarbonising home heating. Home heating hydrogen trials are struggling, despite heavy industry lobbying, but heat pump sales are soaring.
Find & scale solutions to slashing emissions in the harder to abate sectors, like aviation, shipping, steel, & cement – investment needs to continue in the technologies that show the most promise, like sustainable aviation fuels, ammonia & methanol powered ships, green hydrogen & alternative building materials & industrial processes.
Improving Climate Finance
The worlds financial system has been slowly coming around to the realisation that climate change threatens a lot of the assumptions that our world is built on, and that risks from climate change should be part of prudent planning. But a lot of the international system still works against action, with around $7 trillion (7.1 percent of GDP in 2022) being put into subsidies for fossil fuels each year, this, along with financing for new fossil fuel exploration & coal plants, needs to end.
Insurance companies are already re-assessing operating in the hardest hit areas of the world from natural disasters, like Florida and California. As an industry built on assessing risk they are a leading indicator, and this should focus the minds of anyone working in finance to the risks of leaving climate action too late.
A pushback against “corporate wokeism” has already begun among right leaning political figures, with criticism of Blackrock for suggesting climate was a real risk. This needs to be resisted with brave, calm, assured clarity, grounded in the science.
Funding for the developing world also needs to change. Countries that want to transition, like Columbia, even faced penalties for not using their fossil fuel assets. That madness needs to be corrected, and reforms like those proposed by Mia Motley of Barbados in the Bridgetown Initiative show real promise for levelling the playing field and allowing developing nations to decarbonise and improve the standard of living for their citizens
De-politicising Climate Actions
How climate change and climate actions are best framed in the political environment differs depending on where you live.
In my home country of the UK, it is not a deeply partisan issue, despite widespread misreadings of a by-election involving a low emissions zone. In this case attempts by more populist leaders to make climate actions into a “culture war” topic should be resisted at all costs.
In the US, where I live and work, unfortunately climate has been a partisan issue for some time. The lines are entrenched. Here, it is sometimes better to frame climate actions as having more to do with jobs, infrastructure, clean air, or even national competition against China. In the end the lowering costs of renewables will win out, which is why a deeply conservative state like Texas is now a wind energy powerhouse. I believe the Biden administration understands this point, the biggest climate bill in US history is called the Inflation Reduction Act, not the Climate Change Act, and so far the overwhelming beneficiaries of funding from the act have been so-called “red states”.
Taking Action Ourselves
A sometimes controversial topic, individual actions like calculating our carbon footprint can sometimes feel like futile exercises when compared to, for instance, the building of new coal plants in China or the re-opening of North Sea oil drilling. At The Borrowed Earth Project we are uneasy about putting the onus on individuals to solve the climate crisis, especially given how often it can be turned back on people by bad-faith actors with arguments along the lines of “you can’t care about climate change – you flew on holiday last year.”
But at the same time, individual actions can help fight the feeling of doom, and can make a difference if enough people take them. Just look at how young climate activists have changed the dial on discussions around 1.5 degrees. People can still make an outsized impact on the discourse around climate and energy topics, and, especially in democracies, can influence the law and policies.
So if you are minded to make individual actions on climate change part of your New Year’s resolutions, here are a few things you can do yourself:
Be an example – if you lucky enough to be in a position where you can make lifestyle choices that reduce your fossil fuel demand, then you should go for it. Think about a heat pump next time your boiler fails, look into buying an EV next time you need a car, see if you can eat less red meat, fly less for business, improve your home insulation.
Put your money where your mouth is – if you have investments, like a pension, or a 401K if you are based in the US, have a look at who you are invested in, and see if you can reallocate that capital to companies who want to be part of the solution not the problem (a process called divestment).
Use the law – we have covered a number of fascinating ways people from across the world are pushing climate action through the legal system - see if you can join them.
Vote & campaign – if you are lucky enough to live in a democracy then make sure your lawmakers know that climate is something that you care about, and that they should care about as well.
Keep learning – if you are already a follower of The Borrowed Earth project then great! You must be interested in the topics we discuss, but there is always scope to learn more about our climate and how we can make a difference. Sign up to our newsletter (link below) to see our monthly recommendations for things to read, listen to, and watch.
Talk about it – one of the biggest things we can do to flight climate change is to talk about it. Depending on who you are talking to there are better and worse ways of doing this. One of the best guides out there is Dr Katherine Hayhoe – her book Saving Us is full of great ways of communicating climate change to those around us, and why that matters.
Don’t give in to doom & gloom – of course we should be outraged by the inactions, lies and deceits of many individuals, corporations and governments, but there is real progress being made at the same time, we are not doomed, every decimal point of a degree of warming will make a difference to our living standards and the impact on the natural world and we need to have hope to make any impact