COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber has urged governments to agree on global goals to triple renewables capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.
This call from Al-Jaber is supported by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and political momentum is building.
This month, a US-China joint statement on climate change backed tripling renewables to substitute coal, oil and gas power and bring about “post-peaking meaningful absolute power sector emission reduction”.
The context for these targets is a world that remains dramatically off course against global climate goals, with recent assessments pointing to warming of 2.4-2.7C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
In its recent report on how to get back on track, the IEA said tripling renewables, doubling efficiency and slashing methane emissions 75% by 2030 would provide 80% of the emissions cuts needed for 1.5C.
This Q&A explains what tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency means – and why they are the two biggest actions the world can take to get back on track for 1.5C, even though they would be insufficient on their own to meet the target.
It also looks at what governments would need to do to deliver these goals and the likelihood of them being agreed at COP28.
- Why tripling renewables and doubling efficiency are key to 1.5C?
- What does ‘tripling renewables’ mean?
- What does ‘doubling energy efficiency’ mean?
- Is tripling renewables possible?
- What would governments need to do?
- The road to COP
Why tripling renewables and doubling efficiency are key to 1.5C?
In the IEA’s latest pathway to keeping warming below 1.5C, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy use fall by 35% by 2030, compared to 2022.
Yet the latest analysis from UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) shows that global emissions are set to fall by just 2% below 2019 levels by 2030, if countries continue to follow their current pledges.
The IEA set out five “pillars” to achieve deep emissions reductions by 2030 and keep the path to 1.5C open, which it suggests should be adopted at COP28. It states that tripling of global renewable capacity is the “single largest driver” of emissions reductions to 2030 in its roadmap.
The other pillars are doubling the rate of global energy efficiency improvements by 2030, cutting methane emissions from fossil fuel production 75% by the same date, developing “innovative, large-scale financing mechanisms” to support such changes in developing countries and measures to ensure an “orderly decline in the use of fossil fuel”, such as no new coal power being approved.
As the chart below shows, renewables growth and improved energy efficiency account for almost three-quarters (72%) of the total CO2 emissions cuts needed by 2030 in the IEA pathway.
Although tripling renewables is the single largest, energy efficiency – when combined with electrification – makes a slightly larger contribution.
The next largest contribution in the IEA’s roadmap would come from slashing the amount of methane released during the extraction of fossil fuels.
The leftmost column in the chart below shows global energy-related CO2 emissions in 2022. The black wedge shows how this would be expected to increase out to 2030 as a result of economic growth.
The next wedges show how expanding renewables (red), boosting energy efficiency (dark blue) and other mitigation measures (yellow) would cut emissions by 2030. The light blue wedge shows the additional contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions from tackling methane.
Renewables would in fact have a hand in both doubling efficiency and slashing methane emissions. Renewables would help to power emissions savings from electric cars and heat pumps, which are both counted in the “efficiency” wedge because they are much more efficient than petrol cars and gas boilers.
Furthermore, tripling renewables would halve the need for coal power, which would in turn deliver almost half of the reduction in coal mine methane required under the IEA’s 1.5C pathway.
Ember’s analysis of the IEA’s 1.5C pathway, shown in the chart below, finds that just under half of the increase in renewable generation to 2030 would be used to displace fossil fuel electricity, while just over half would be used to meet rising electricity demand.
The large majority of the rise in electricity demand to 2030 would come from electrifying buildings, transport and industry. Another sizable part of the rise in electricity demand would power electrolysers to manufacture “green hydrogen”.
The leftmost column shows global renewable electricity generation in 2022. The second set of wedges shows increases in demand due to electrification (red), production of green hydrogen (yellow) and underlying electricity demand growth (dark blue).
The third set shows the displacement of electricity generated from coal (black), as well as oil and gas (light blue). The final wedges show contributions from other low-carbon sources, including nuclear (sky blue), hydrogen or ammonia (purple) and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage (orange). The rightmost column shows electricity generation from renewables in 2030 under the IEA pathway.
The chart above also illustrates why energy efficiency improvements are also critical. Without efficiency, total electricity demand would rise substantially faster, meaning there would be much less additional renewable power to displace coal and gas-fired generation.
What does ‘tripling renewables’ mean?
The target of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 was not initially clearly defined, with different groups and different pathways implying slightly different goals.
The COP28 presidency is now explicitly calling for a target of 11,000 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity by 2030, which would mean a tripling of the 3,629GW installed by the end of 2022.
This target is similar to the levels installed by 2030 in 1.5C pathways from the IEA and IRENA, which reach 11,008GW and 11,174GW respectively.
A global tripling would not mean every country being required to achieve a tripling of domestic capacity. Each country’s renewable capacity today affects how ambitious it would be to individually achieve a tripling – and the target is defined at a global level, rather than nationally.
With this in mind the Nairobi Declaration for example, targets a fivefold increase in Africa’s renewables capacity, subject to access to financing.
Solar is expected to be the main technology used for tripling capacity. It provides two-thirds of the rise in renewables capacity out to 2030 and half of the increase in generation in the IEA’s 1.5C scenario.
This would see solar capacity increasing fivefold from 2022-2030. Combined with a threefold increase in wind , wind and solar would provide 92% of the tripling target.
New hydro, bioenergy, geothermal, marine and other technologies are still significant though, accounting for 8% of new renewable capacity and 15% of the rise in renewable generation.
The figure below shows the increase in capacity expected from solar, wind and other renewables under the IEA’s 1.5C pathway, illustrating the dominant role of wind and solar.
New nuclear and, to a lesser extent, fossil-fired generation with carbon capture and storage, have a much smaller role to play in 2030 under the IEA’s 1.5C pathway.
The increase in global nuclear capacity increase by 2030 would be equivalent to just 2% of that for renewables – though this would be equivalent to 9% of the rise in renewables generation.
What does ‘doubling energy efficiency’ mean?
The proposed target of doubling energy efficiency is a shorthand for saying that the rate of energy efficiency improvements would need to double by 2030, compared with 2022 levels.
Specifically, as proposed by the IEA, the target refers to the rate of improvement of global energy intensity, the amount of energy needed to generate each unit of economic output.
This stood at 2% per year in 2022 – already nearly double the average rate of the previous five years, according to the IEA. In the IEA’s 1.5C pathway, this rate continues to rise, reaching 4% per year in 2030.
According to the IEA, doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements could be achieved through four pillars, shown in the chart below.
First, electrification and renewables. Electric vehicles use two-to-four times less energy than internal combustion engine vehicles; meanwhile, heat pumps use three-to-five times less energy than fossil fuel boilers. Moving to a more electrified economy would substantially reduce overall energy demand.
Second, clean cooking. Traditional use of biomass is extremely inefficient compared to modern improved cooking stoves. Over two billion people today lack access to clean cooking, and the IEA assumes this falls to zero by 2030 in its 1.5C pathway.
Third, technical efficiency. Focusing on the best available technologies for all electrical appliances, especially air conditioners, makes for the largest increase in efficiency of all the pillars.
Fourth, behavioural changes by individuals. The IEA makes relatively stretching assumptions here, including on heating and cooling homes less, reducing demand for flights and shifting surface transport away from cars.
Energy demand globally has been consistently increasing – but at a slower rate than GDP. This has resulted in large gains in energy intensity over at least the last half-century.
However, the IEA net-zero scenario shows that to stay below 1.5C, the world would need to do something new: reduce primary energy demand, even as GDP rises.
Achieving the rise in energy intensity to 4% per year would mean global primary energy demand in 2030 would be nearly 10% lower than in 2022.
Crucially, however, greater energy efficiency would mean the world could generate higher levels of energy services – warm homes, miles driven and so on – even as primary energy demand falls.
Is tripling renewables possible?
While tripling renewable energy capacity in just eight years might seem like an impossibly ambitious target, it’s worth reflecting on progress to date.
According to IEA figures, global renewable energy capacity reached 3,629GW in 2022, nearly triple the level seen in 2010. Moreover, within that total, solar capacity increased 29-fold.
(IRENA figures, reflected in the figure below, record a slightly lower total of 3,372GW.)
Both the IEA and IRENA’s modelling on what it would take to stay below 1.5C include renewable capacity tripling to at least 11,000GW by 2030. While the scenarios do not test what is possible, they are based on the agencies’ assessments of what it would be reasonable to achieve, in each country and sector of the global economy.
Another way to answer the question of whether the tripling target is possible is to look at current government plans to expand renewable energy capacity.
An analysis by Ember of 57 country-level renewable policies for 2030, covering 90% of global electricity generation, shows that the world is already targeting more than a doubling of renewable capacity to 7,250GW by 2030.
This would be roughly equivalent to repeating the record annual additions expected in 2023 – some 500GW, up from 300GW last year – every year for the rest of the decade, as shown in the figure below.
Still, tripling renewable capacity within eight years would require even more rapid growth, as the chart illustrates. Annual additions would need to rise from 500GW in 2023 to 1,500GW in 2030, an annual growth rate of 17%. It is worth adding that the average growth rate from 2016-2023 was also 17%.
The latest IEA assessment of government policies is more optimistic than Ember’s, showing global renewable capacity reaching 8,611GW by 2030 or 9,786GW if countries meet their climate pledges.
Moreover, Ember’s country-level analysis highlights that many national targets were set before the record renewable progress in 2023, meaning their ambition is perhaps lower than it could be.
Nevertheless, it is clear that a tripling target would entail significantly higher ambition than governments are currently envisaging.
What would governments need to do?
Tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency is achievable, according to a recent flagship report by IRENA, the COP28 presidency and the Global Renewables Alliance.
However, meeting the targets would require significant effort at a national and international level, the report says. It identifies the key enablers to unlock a large-scale increase in renewables and energy efficiency through decisive action from policymakers.
The policy priorities in the report include: standards for new appliances and buildings or bans on the least efficient options; reform of tax incentives and subsidy reform, including of direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies; electricity market redesign, recognising the shift towards systems largely based on zero marginal cost renewables; streamlined permitting, particularly for wind, solar and electricity networks; and efforts to maximise social benefits, via community benefit schemes and other measures.
These policy interventions are needed across the whole of government – not just the climate and energy ministries – according to the report, meaning their implementation would require supporting all government departments to deliver the energy transition.
Expanding low-carbon energy sources in line with the tripling target relies on a fast build-out of new infrastructure. This includes building power grids faster, developing more energy storage, and ensuring smart electrification. In many countries, electricity grids are holding back not just the deployment of renewables, but also the connection of electric cars and heat pumps.
Energy storage will be a key flexibility measure, the report continues, and long-duration storage is highlighted as a major priority, although flexibility would need to be improved everywhere. For example, it highlights that electrification would need to be “smart” so that electric cars and heat pumps are used most when there is abundant sun and wind.
Finally, finance support is critical, the report says. Only 20% of renewables investment happens outside China and developed economies, with access to competitive finance being a major barrier.
The IEA suggests $80-100bn in annual concessional funding is needed by the early 2030s to lower the cost of finance and mobilise private capital in lower income countries.
Andreas Sieber, of environmental NGDO 350.org, suggests that even more funding would be required, suggesting debt cancellation at scale, as well as $100bn in concessional finance and $200bn in grants yearly.
The road to COP
Support for the targets of tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency is building ahead of COP28, but many hurdles remain.
More than 60 countries, including the EU, US and COP28 hosts the UAE have now said they would support a pledge to triple global renewables, a draft of which would also commit to doubling efficiency.
However, this would have a different status to a deal backed by all countries within the final COP28 text.
The recent US-China climate statement committed both countries to support a global tripling of renewables, but overlooked a doubling of energy efficiency, mirroring the G20 position. It remains to be seen if the agreement reached at COP will include either target.
If the targets are agreed, there would also be a need for action to meet them.
The COP presidency is already urging countries to come to COP with “tangible commitments” to achieve the renewable and efficiency goals. After that, a post-COP review process would deliver accountability for the achievement of the targets.
Beyond the renewable and efficiency targets, COP28 is likely to be debating text in other related areas, including whether to phase down or phase out fossil fuels.
As the charts above show, delivering on renewables and efficiency would yield major reductions in fossil fuel use this decade. However, they are only two parts of the IEA’s recipe for staying below 1.5C.
As IEA executive director Dr Fatih Birol told Carbon Brief in September, implementing some but not all of those ingredients would not be sufficient to get back on track.
In particular, Birol noted the importance of “giving a signal to the markets and the governments and companies around the world that in order to reach this 1.5C target, we have to see fossil-fuel use decline”. A target on renewables alone would be “far from being enough” for 1.5C, he said.
The post Q&A: Why deals at COP28 to ‘triple renewables’ and ‘double efficiency’ are crucial for 1.5C appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: Why deals at COP28 to ‘triple renewables’ and ‘double efficiency’ are crucial for 1.5C
Climate Change
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Absolute State of the Union
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world
- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
$467 billion
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight
Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?
This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shift
For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?
All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
Coming up
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.
The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.
In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.
“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.
The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.
US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’
The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.
The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.
This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.
The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.
-
IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it -
US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal
The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned
The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.
“It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.
Patchwork of levies
While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.
After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.
If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.
This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.
Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.
“With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.
“It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”
The post Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen
Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.
Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.
Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.
He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.
The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.
Another case of diluted green rules?
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”.
The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.
“You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.
While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.
EU and UK stand by SAF targets
But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.
UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.
“We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.
SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel.
Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.
David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.
“That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.
Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.
Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters
In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.
David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.
The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.
Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
SAF and energy security
SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.
Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.
Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.
Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.
He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.
The post Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn appeared first on Climate Home News.
Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn
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