DUBAI, Dec 12 (IPS) – One of the most heated debates at the annual climate summit that concluded in this United Arab Emirates city revolved around the wording of the final statement on the ‘phasing out’ or ‘phasing out’. of fossil fuels within a certain time frame.
This is an essential calculation for the decommissioning of refineries, pipelines, power plants and other infrastructure that in some cases has been in operation for years, as discussed at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ).
Experts who spoke to IPS at the summit agreed on the size of the bill, which could be unaffordable for some Latin American countries.
Brazil’s Fernanda Carvalho, global lead for energy and climate policy at the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund (WWF), referred to the amount without specifying a figure.
“Financial support will be needed. There has to be a differentiated approach, a differentiated timing, and the developed countries have to come up with the resources,” said the expert, who attended COP28, held at Expo City on the outskirts of Dubai.
COP28 has been embroiled in a bitter debate between phase-out and phase-out, with a definitive date, of oil, gas and coal, which has already expected a disappointing end in Dubai, which, in line with tradition at these summits, extended its negotiations for one year. one more day, ending on Wednesday, December 13.
The ‘phase-down’ concept has been in the climate-energy jargon for years, but it only really took off at the 2021 COP26 in the Scottish city of Glasgow, where the Climate Pact alludes to the reduction in coal production that continues produced and the elimination of coal. inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
At climate summits since 1995, developing countries have pushed for differentiated measures for them, according to their own situation, the need for financing from developed countries and the transfer of technology, especially energy alternatives.
Enrique Maurtúa of Argentina, senior diplomacy advisor for the Independent Global Stocktake (iGST) – an umbrella data and advocacy initiative – said they were hoping for a political signal to adopt regulations or market measures regarding a phase-out or phase-out.
‘If no target date has been set, there is no signal. If you set out a phase-out for 2050, that is a transition path. A deadline allows the market to respond. And then each country must evaluate its specific context. ‘, the expert told the IPS in the COP28 Green Zone, where civil society organizations were present at the summit.
Available scientific knowledge shows that the majority of proven hydrocarbon reserves must remain unexploited by 2030 to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold agreed in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to prevent massive disasters.
Failed attempts
In the Latin American region, there are failed precedents of fossil fuel phasing out.
In 2007, then-President of Ecuador Rafael Correa (2007-2017) launched the Yasuní-Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini Initiative, which sought care for the Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, in exchange for money from governments, foundations , companies and private individuals need to have around $3.6 billion by 2024 to keep the oil in the ground.
The goal was to leave 846 million barrels of oil underground untouched. But a special fund set up by Ecuador and the United Nations Environment Fund has raised only $13 million, according to the Ecuadorian government. That is why Correa decided to stop the initiative in 2013, at a time when sustainable energy had not yet really taken off.
In a referendum held in August, Ecuadorians decided to halt oil extraction in a block in Yasuní that would produce 57,000 barrels per day by 2022 – the same result Correa sought, but without foreign funds.
The referendum result must be implemented within a year, although the position of the government of the current president, banana magnate Daniel Noboa, who took office on November 23, is still unclear.
Meanwhile, in Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has put the brakes on new oil and coal exploration contracts, a promise from his 2022 election campaign.
In addition, on December 2 in Dubai, the president announced that his country would join nine other countries promoting the formal start of negotiations on a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.
Colombia will become the first Latin American country and largest oil and coal producer to join the initiative that first emerged in 2015, when several Pacific Island leaders and NGOs raised the urgent need for an international mechanism to phase out fossil fuels.
To undertake a just energy transition to cleaner fuels, Petro estimates an initial bill of $14 billion from governments of the developed North, multilateral organizations and international funds.
The last summit of climate hope started on November 30 in this Arab city under the slogan ‘Unite. Act. Deliver’ – the least successful in the history of the COPs since the first, held in Berlin in 1995.
This hope included commitments and voluntary declarations on renewable energy and energy efficiency; agriculture, food and climate; health and climate; climate finance; cooling; and just transitions with a gender focus.
In addition, there were financial commitments of around $86 billion, without specifying whether it is all new money, to be spent on these issues.
Billions
Given the production and exploration plans of the region’s major hydrocarbon producing countries, the scale of the challenge in the medium and long term is enormous.
In October, Brazil, the region’s largest economy and the world’s 11th largest, extracted 3.543 billion barrels of oil and 152 million cubic meters (m3) of gas per day.
This represented about two percent of the domestic economy that month.
Mexico, the region’s second-largest economy, extracted 1.64 million barrels and 4.971 billion m3 of gas per day in October, for a turnover of $52 million.
Meanwhile, Colombia produced 780,487 barrels of oil and 1,568 cubic feet of gas per day in the first eight months of 2023, equivalent to 12 percent of government revenues.
“We need to think about measures to decarbonize the economy. We want Latin America to become a clean energy powerhouse,” said Carvalho.
According to the Global Oil & Gas Exit List of German non-governmental organization Urgewald, Brazilian oil giant Petrobras was working to acquire 9.571 billion barrels of oil equivalent in September.
This represents a 94 percent excess over the limit set in the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, Mexican state oil company Pemex is producing 1.444 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 56 percent above the threshold set in the Paris Agreement.
Finally, the government-owned Ecopetrol, which is majority owned by the Colombian state, is working to obtain 447 million barrels, 98 percent above the Paris Agreement limit, Urgewald said.
Moreover, the costs of action against the climate crisis are not affordable for any Latin American country.
For example, Mexico estimated that implementing 35 measures, including in the power, gas and oil generation sectors, would cost $137 billion by 2030, but the benefits would total $295 billion.
But Maurtúa says the budget issue is only relative. “There is a lot of public money with which many things can be done,” supplemented by international resources, he argued.
© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
