China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024 in the first quarterly fall since the country re-opened from its “zero-Covid” lockdowns in December 2022.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows China remains on track for a decline in annual emissions this year.
This annual outlook depends on electricity demand growth easing in the second half of the year, as expected in projections from sector group the China Electricity Council.
However, if the latest trends in energy demand and supply continue – in particular, if demand growth continues to exceed pre-Covid trends – then emissions would stay flat in 2024 overall.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
- China’s energy demand grew by 4.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024. This is slower than the growth seen in 2023 and in the first quarter of this year, but is still much higher than the pre-Covid trend.
- CO2 emissions from energy use and cement production fell by 1% in the second quarter. When combined with a sharp 6.5% increase in January-February and a monthly decline in March, there was a 1.3% rise in CO2 emissions across the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2023.
- Electricity generation from wind and solar grew by 171 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half of the year, more than the total power output of the UK in the same period of 2023.
- China’s carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – only improved by 5.5%, well short of the 7% needed to meet the country’s intensity target for 2025.
- This was despite a one-off boost from China’s hydropower fleet recovering from drought.
- Compared with a year earlier, the increase in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on China’s roads cut demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.
- Manufacturing solar panels, EVs and batteries was only responsible for 1.6% of China’s electricity consumption and 2.9% of its emissions in the first half of 2024.
A slew of recent policy developments, summarised below, hint at a renewed focus in Beijing on the country’s energy and climate targets.
Yet the precise timing and height of China’s CO2 emissions peak, as well as the pace of subsequent reductions, remain key uncertainties for global climate action.
First post-Covid fall in CO2
China’s CO2 emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024, the first quarterly fall since the country re-opened from zero-Covid, as shown in the figure below.
Within the overall total, power sector emissions fell by 3%, cement production fell by 7% and oil consumption by 3%.
The reduction in CO2 emissions was driven by the surge in clean energy additions, which is driving fossil fuel power into reverse. (See: Clean energy additions on track to top 2023 record.)
However, rapid energy demand growth in sectors such as coal-to-chemicals diluted the impact of changes in the electricity sector. (See: Rapid energy demand growth.)
Clean energy additions on track to top 2023 record
The additions of new clean power capacity in China have continued to boom this year.
China added 102 gigawatts (GW) of new solar and 26GW of wind in the first half of 2024, as shown in the figure below. Solar additions were up 31% and wind additions up 12% compared with the first half of last year, so China is on track to beat last year’s record installations.
As a result of the strong capacity growth – and despite poor wind conditions – solar and wind covered 52% of electricity demand growth in the first half of 2024 and 71% since March. (The fall in wind speeds can be seen from NASA MERRA-2 data averaged for all of China.)
Indeed, the increase in power generation from solar and wind reported by the National Energy Administration in the first half of the year, at 171 terawatt hours (TWh), exceeded the UK’s total electricity supply of 160TWh in the first half of 2023.
Rapid demand growth in January–February, at 11%, had outpaced even the clean energy additions. But combined with a rebound in hydropower generation, the increase in non-fossil electricity supply exceeded power demand growth in the March to June period.
These shifts are shown in the figure below, illustrating how clean power expansion started to exceed electricity demand growth in recent months, pushing coal and gas power into reverse.
After stopping the publication of capacity utilisation data by technology in May, the National Energy Administration released data in July on power generation by technology for renewable sources – solar, wind, hydro and biomass.
The NEA’s data shows renewable electricity generation covering 35% of demand in the first half of 2024 and growing 22% year-on-year. This is much higher than the previously-published National Bureau of Statistics numbers – which under-report wind and particularly solar power generation – but is closely aligned with estimates previously published by Carbon Brief.
In terms of other clean energy technologies, the production of electric vehicles, batteries and solar cells – the so-called “new-three” due to their recently acquired economic significance – continued to grow strongly in the first half of the year, at 34%, 18% and 37%, respectively.
This growth in production indicates strong demand from China and overseas. The growth of solar cell production halted in June, however.
Rapid energy demand growth
While clean technologies continue to surge in China, energy consumption has also continued to grow at a fast rate relative to GDP. This indicates that the energy-intensive growth pattern that China followed during zero-Covid is continuing.
In the second quarter of 2024, total energy consumption increased by 4.2%, while GDP grew by 4.7%, marking an energy intensity gain of only 0.5%. This energy demand growth is much faster than the pre-Covid trend.
China’s target is an annual improvement of 2.9%, a rate that was exceeded consistently until Covid-era economic policies shifted the country’s growth pattern. Economic growth during and after zero-Covid has been reliant on energy-intensive manufacturing industries.
The main structural drivers of recent energy consumption growth were the coal-to-chemicals industry, and industrial demand for power and gas.
The coal-to-chemicals industry produces petrochemical products from coal instead of oil, supporting China’s energy security goals but at a great cost to climate goals, as the coal-based production processes have far higher carbon footprints.
China’s energy security drive and falling coal prices relative to oil prices have driven a boom in this industry. When coal supply was tight in 2022–23, the government was controlling coal use by the chemical industry to increase supply to power plants. As the coal supply situation has eased in 2024, this has enabled coal-to-chemicals plants to increase production, with coal consumption in the chemical industry growing 21% in the first half of the year.
Gas consumption increased 8.7% in the first half of the year, with industrial and residential gas consumption rising strongly, even as power generation from gas fell. Residential demand was driven up by extreme cold in the winter, however, rather than by structural factors.
On the flipside, the demand for oil products continued to fall, with a 3% drop in the second quarter that accelerated in the summer.
There are multiple factors driving the reduction: the shift to electric vehicles is contributing to the drop, with the share of EVs in cumulative vehicle sales over the past 10 years – an indicator of the mix of vehicles on the road – reaching 11.5% in June, up from 7.7% a year ago. This means that the increase in EVs cut the demand for transport fuels by approximately 4%.
The ongoing contraction in construction volumes, which is apparent in the fall in cement production, also affects oil demand, as the construction sector is a major source of demand for oil products for freight and machinery.
Another key driver is weak demand for oil as a petrochemical feedstock, which the rapidly increasing coal-to-chemicals production attempts to displace with the use of coal, albeit at a cost of increased CO2 emissions.
The contraction in construction volumes, caused by a slowdown in real estate that began in 2021, is weighing on the demand for cement and steel. Besides the direct effect of less real estate construction, local government revenues are dragged down by a fall in land sales, affecting their ability to spend on infrastructure construction.
These changes in demand for energy can been seen in the figure below, which shows contributions to the change in China’s CO2 emissions in the second quarter of this year.
While CO2 emissions did fall in the second quarter, the rate of CO2 intensity improvements fell short of the level needed to meet China’s 2025 carbon intensity commitment.
The country’s goal is to reduce emissions relative to GDP by 18% from 2020 to 2025, with progress until 2023 falling far short of the target.
As reported GDP growth slowed to 4.7% in the second quarter, and CO2 emissions fell by 1%, CO2 intensity improved by 5.5%, short of the 7% annual improvement needed in 2024-25 to get back on track.
Improvements are also easier to achieve this year than they will be in 2025, as the rebound of hydropower from the low availability in 2022–23 helps reduce emissions. This is a one-off tailwind that is not likely to be present in 2025.
One part of the energy-intensive industry that China has been relying on to drive economic growth is the manufacturing of clean energy technologies. In response, some commentators have exaggerated the CO2 impact of Chinese factories making solar panels, EVs and batteries.
In reality, however, the manufacturing of these goods was responsible for 1.6% of China’s electricity consumption and 2.9% of its emissions in the first half of 2024, based on calculations using publicly available data.
The same calculations show that their CO2 emissions and electricity consumption increased by approximately 27% in the same period, contributing a 0.6% increase in China’s total fossil CO2 emissions and 0.4% increase in electricity consumption.
Looking ahead to the rest of this year, energy consumption growth is expected to cool. The China Electricity Council projects electricity demand growth of 5% in the second half of the year, compared with 8.1% in the first half, and the National Energy Administration expects full-year gas demand growth to moderate to 6.5–7.7%, from 8.7% in the first half.
If these projections are accurate, then the continued growth of clean energy consumption would be sufficient to push China’s CO2 emissions into decline this year.
However, the faster-than-expected energy demand growth in the first half of the year dilutes the emission reductions from the country’s record clean energy additions, and adds uncertainty to whether China’s emissions will indeed fall in 2024 compared with 2023.
If the growth rates of energy demand, by fuel and sector, seen in the second quarter of this year continue into the third and fourth quarter, with similar continuity in the growth rates of non-fossil electricity generation, then China’s emissions would stay flat in 2024 overall.
Recent policy developments
Energy consumption growth could also be moderated by a renewed policy focus on energy and climate targets. In May of this year, the State Council, China’s top administrative body, issued an action plan on energy conservation and CO2 emission reductions in 2024–25.
This plan is notable both for the unusual time period, covering the last two years of the five-year plan period, and for its high-level nature – energy conservation would normally fall under the jurisdiction of the energy and environmental regulators, rather than the State Council.
This suggests that the government recognises the shortfall against the 2025 carbon intensity and energy intensity targets. The action plan calls for meeting both of these targets, and lists numerous measures to be undertaken in response.
Yet the plan did not set numerical targets for 2024 that would be consistent with meeting the 2025 targets, which could be seen as taking a hedged approach of pushing for more action but not guaranteeing that sufficient results will be achieved.
Another State Council plan, released in late July, calls for speeding up the creation of a “dual control system” to control total CO2 emissions and emissions intensity. (Historically, China has never set numerical targets for total CO2 emissions, only aiming to limit CO2 intensity.)
According to the July release, the 15th five-year plan will set a binding carbon intensity target in the 2026-30 period, in line with previous five-year plans. For the first time, there will also be a non-binding, “supplementary” target for China’s absolute emissions level in 2030. Then, for each of the following five-year periods, there will be a binding absolute emissions target.
After the shortfall against the 2025 intensity target, the 15th five-year plan period would need to set a demanding intensity target to fulfil China’s 2030 commitments under the Paris Agreement.
The most important political meeting of the year, the “third plenum” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, took place in July. The readout of the meeting mentioned carbon emissions reduction for the first time, but did not signal a shift to stimulating consumption. This could have driven less emissions-intensive economic growth, reducing reliance on higher-carbon manufacturing or infrastructure expansion.
The key focus of the meeting was promoting “new quality productive forces”, meaning advanced manufacturing and innovation. In practice, this likely implies a continued emphasis on manufacturing, with the potential for the energy-intensive economic growth pattern to continue.
Another indication that carbon emissions are receiving more policy emphasis is that the government appears to have stopped permitting new coal-based steelmaking projects since the beginning of 2024.
Hundreds of coal-based “replacement” projects were permitted in previous years, preparing to replace up to 40% of China’s existing steelmaking capacity with brand-new furnaces.
The shift away from new coal-based capacity is consistent with China’s target of increasing the use of electric arc furnaces – but progress towards that target had been lagging.
On coal-fired power, the government issued a new policy on “low-carbon transformation” of coal plants, aiming to initiate “low-carbon” retrofitting projects of a batch of coal power plants in 2025, with the target of reducing the CO2 emissions of those plants 20% below the average for similar plants in 2023, and another batch in 2027 aiming for emission levels 50% below 2023 average.
Under this transformation plan, emissions reductions at targeted coal plants are supposed to be achieved by “co-firing” coal with either biomass or “green” ammonia derived from renewables-based hydrogen, or by adding carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).
However, there are no targets for how many coal plants should be retrofitted, or what the incentives will be to do that, which will obviously determine the direct impact of this policy.
The impact could be small as biomass supply is limited, while the costs of ammonia and CCUS are high. For example, the International Energy Agency – among the more optimistic on power generation from biomass – sees its share rising from 2% in 2022 to 4.5% in 2035, if China meets its pledges on energy and climate IEA’s.
Furthermore, much of China’s coal-fired generation is already unprofitable, with almost half of the firms in the sector operating at a loss – even before taking on costly new measures.
The policy does however constitute Beijing’s first attempt at reconciling the recent permitting spree of new coal-fired power plants with its CO2 peaking goal for 2030, and looking for alternatives to early closure or under-utilisation of at least a part of the coal power fleet.
Prospects for a 2023 emissions peak and beyond
China’s emissions fell year-on-year in March and in the second quarter, as expected in my analysis for Carbon Brief last year.
Faster-than-expected growth in coal demand for the chemical industry, however, as well as industrial demand for power and gas, has diluted the emission reductions from the power sector, making the fall in emissions smaller than expected.
Nevertheless, China is likely still on track to begin a structural decline in emissions in 2024, making 2023 the peak year for CO2 emissions.
In order for this projection to bear out in reality, clean energy growth would need to continue and the expected cooling in energy demand growth in the second half of the year would need to materialise, with the new policy focus on energy savings and carbon emissions proving lasting.
The trends that could upset this projection include the economic policy focus on manufacturing, and the expansion of the coal-to-chemicals industry.
The surge in coal use for coal-to-chemicals is also a demonstration that even if power sector emissions begin to fall, as long as China’s climate commitments allow emissions to increase, there is the potential for developments that increase emissions in other sectors.
China has committed to updating its climate targets for 2030 and releasing new targets for 2035 early next year. These targets will be key in cementing the emissions peak and specifying the targeted rate of emission reductions after the peak – both of which have seismic implications for the global emissions trajectory and the level at which temperatures can be stabilised.
About the data
Data for the analysis was compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Energy Administration of China, China Electricity Council and China Customs official data releases, and from WIND Information, an industry data provider.
Wind and solar output, and thermal power breakdown by fuel, was calculated by multiplying power generating capacity at the end of each month by monthly utilisation, using data reported by China Electricity Council through Wind Financial Terminal.
Total generation from thermal power and generation from hydropower and nuclear power was taken from National Bureau of Statistics monthly releases.
Monthly utilisation data was not available for biomass, so the annual average of 52% for 2023 was applied. Power sector coal consumption was estimated based on power generation from coal and the average heat rate of coal-fired power plants during each month, to avoid the issue with official coal consumption numbers affecting recent data.
When data was available from multiple sources, different sources were cross-referenced and official sources used when possible, adjusting total consumption to match the consumption growth and changes in the energy mix reported by the National Bureau of Statistics for the first quarter and the first half of the year. The effect of the adjustments is less than 1% for all energy sources, and the conclusion that emissions fell in the second quarter holds both with and without this adjustment.
CO2 emissions estimates are based on National Bureau of Statistics default calorific values of fuels and emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, for the year 2018. Cement CO2 emissions factor is based on annual estimates up to 2023.
For oil consumption, apparent consumption is calculated from refinery throughput, with net exports of oil products subtracted.
The post Analysis: China’s CO2 falls 1% in Q2 2024 in first quarterly drop since Covid-19 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: China’s CO2 falls 1% in Q2 2024 in first quarterly drop since Covid-19
Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon have warned that stopping the expansion of oil drilling into their territories will be a crucial test for a growing international coalition committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
As 60 countries discussed at a landmark conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, pathways to end the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, Indigenous groups said the process risks losing credibility if governments continue opening new oil frontiers in the Amazon.
Their central demand was the establishment of fossil fuel “exclusion zones” across Indigenous territories and biodiverse areas of the rainforest, permanently barring new oil and gas expansion in one of the world’s most critical ecosystems. Indigenous representatives proposed establishing protected “Life Zones”, which they said would provide legal safeguards against governments and companies seeking to expand extraction into their lands.
But Indigenous delegates left the conference frustrated as the final synthesis report drafted by co-chairs Colombia and the Netherlands failed to include the proposal.
In a statement at the end of the conference, Patricia Suárez, from the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), said formally declaring Indigenous territories – especially those inhabited by peoples in voluntary isolation – as exclusion zones for extractive industries was “an urgent measure”.
“If the heart of the conference does not begin there, it risks remaining a set of good intentions that fails to respond to either science or our Indigenous knowledge systems,” she added.
Pushing for a new oil frontier
Campaigners say the pressure on the Amazon is intensifying just as scientists warn the rainforest is nearing irreversible collapse. Around 20% of all newly identified global oil reserves between 2022 and 2024 were discovered in the Amazon basin, fuelling renewed interest from governments and companies seeking to develop the region as the world’s next major oil frontier.
Ecuador has moved ahead with the auction of new oil blocks in the rainforest, while the country’s right-wing president Daniel Noboa has promoted the region as a “new oil-producing horizon” and backed efforts to expand fracking with support from Chinese companies.
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In Santa Marta, a coalition of seven Indigenous nations from Ecuador issued a declaration condemning the government, which did not participate in the conference.
“While the world talks about energy transition, our government is pushing for more oil in the Amazon,” said Marcelo Mayancha, president of the Shiwiar nation. “Throughout history, we have always defended our land. That is our home. We will forever defend our territory.”
Indigenous groups also warned that Peru – another South American nation absent from the conference – plans to auction new oil blocks in the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, a highly sensitive region along the Brazilian border that contains the world’s largest known concentration of Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.
COP30 host under scrutiny
Indigenous leaders also criticised Brazil, arguing that despite its international climate leadership, the country is simultaneously advancing major new oil projects in the Amazon region.
Luene Karipuna, delegate from Brazil’s coalition of Amazon peoples (COIAB), said the oil push threatens the stability of the rainforest. Not far from her home, in the northern state of Amapá, state-run oil giant Petrobras is currently exploring for new offshore oil reserves off the mouth of the Amazon river.
Brazil participated in the Santa Marta conference and was among the countries that first pushed for discussions on transitioning away from fossil fuels at COP negotiations. Yet the country is also planning one of the largest expansions in oil production in the world, according to last year’s Production Gap report.
Veteran Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre told Climate Home that the country’s participation at the Santa Marta conference contrasted with its oil and gas production targets. “It does not make any sense for Brazil to continue with any new oil exploration,” he said, and noted that science is clear that no new fossil fuels should be developed to avoid crossing dangerous climate tipping points.
He added that the Brazilian government faces pressures from economic sectors, since Petrobras is one of the countries top exporting companies. “They look only at the economic value of exporting fossil fuels. Brazil has to change.”
The COP30 host also promised to draft a voluntary proposal for a global roadmap away from fossil fuels, which is expected to be published before this year’s COP31 summit.
“In Brazil, that advance has caused so many problems because it overlaps with Indigenous territories. Companies tell us there won’t be an impact, but we see an impact,” Karipuna said. “We feel the Brazilian government has auctioned our land without dialogue.”
For Karipuna and other Indigenous leaders, establishing exclusion zones across the Amazon is no longer just a regional demand, but a prerequisite to prevent the collapse of the rainforest.
“That’s the first step for an energy transition that places Indigenous peoples at the centre,” she added.
The post Indigenous groups warn Amazon oil expansion tests fossil fuel phase-out coalition appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/08/indigenous-amazon-oil-expansion-fossil-fuel-phase-out-coalition-santa-marta/
African leaders have intensified calls for governments to stop exporting raw minerals and step up efforts to align their policies, share infrastructure and coordinate investment to add value to their resources and bring economic prosperity to the continent.
In a speech to the inaugural Kenya Mining Investment Conference & Expo in Nairobi this week, Kenyan President William Ruto became the latest African leader to confirm the country will end exports of raw mineral ore. The East African nation has deposits of gold, iron ore and copper and recently launched a tender for global investors to develop a deposit of rare earths, which are used in EV motors and wind turbines, valued at $62 billion.
Kenya is among more than a dozen African nations that have either banned or imposed export curbs on their mineral resources as they seek to process minerals domestically to boost revenues, create jobs and capture a slice of the industries that are producing high-value clean tech for the energy transition.
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“For too long we have extracted and exported raw materials at the bottom of the value chain, while others have processed, refined, manufactured and captured the greater share of economic value,” Ruto told African ministers and stakeholders gathered at the mining investment conference in Nairobi.
As a result, Africa currently captures less than 1% of the value generated from global clean energy technologies, he said. To address this, Kenya, in collaboration with other African nations, “will process our minerals here in the continent, we will refine them here and we will manufacture them here”, he added.
Mineral export restrictions on the rise
Africa is a major supplier of minerals needed for the global energy transition. The continent holds an estimated 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including lithium, cobalt and copper. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70% of global cobalt, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, while countries such as Guinea dominate bauxite production, and Mozambique and Tanzania hold significant graphite deposits.
But African governments have struggled to attract the investment needed to turn their vast mineral wealth into a green industrial powerhouse. Recently Burundi, Malawi, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are among those that have resorted to banning the export of unrefined minerals to incentivise foreign companies to invest in value addition locally.
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This week, Zimbabwe exported its first shipments of lithium sulphate, an intermediate form of processed lithium that can be further refined into battery-grade material, from a mine and processing plant operated by Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.
After freezing all exports of lithium concentrate – the first stage of processing – earlier this year, the government introduced export quotas and will ban all exports from January 2027.
Export restrictions on critical raw materials have grown more than five-fold since 2009, found a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published this week. In 2024, a more diverse group of countries, including many resource-rich developing economies in Africa and Asia, introduced restrictions, including Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Angola.
This is “a structural shift in the wrong direction,” Mathias Cormann, the OECD’s secretary-general, told the organisations’ Critical Minerals Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, this week.
“We understand the motivations: building local industries, managing environmental impacts, capturing greater value domestically. But our research is quite clear. Export restrictions distort investment, reduce volumes and undermine supply security often while delivering limited gains in value added,” he said.
In-country barriers to success
Thomas Scurfield, Africa senior economic analyst at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Climate Home News that export restrictions “can look like a promising route to local value addition” for cash-strapped African mineral producers but have “rarely worked” unless countries already have reliable energy, infrastructure and competitive costs for processing.
“Without those conditions, bans may simply push companies to scale back mining rather than scale up processing,” he said.
Alaka Lugonzo, partnerships lead for Africa at Global Witness, identified gaps in practical skills and infrastructure as other major barriers. “You need engineers, geologists, marketers,” Lugonzo said, warning that graduates are increasingly unable to match the pace of industry change.
On infrastructure, she said that plentiful and stable energy supplies are vital and while Kenya has relatively robust road networks, they are insufficient for industrial-scale operations.
“Meaningful value addition and real industrialisation requires heavy machinery… and you will need better infrastructure,” she said, highlighting persistent last-mile challenges in mining regions where “there’s no railway, there’s no electricity, there’s no water”.
Export capacity is another concern, she said, particularly whether existing port systems could handle increased volumes of processed minerals.
Regional approach recommended
Scurfield said that through regional cooperation – including pooling supplies, specialising across different stages of refining and manufacturing, and building larger regional markets – “African countries could overcome many domestic constraints that make going alone difficult”.
That’s what close to 20 African governments are working to deliver as part of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, which was set up by African ministers and is dedicated to foster cooperation among African nations to build mineral value chains and better benefit from the energy transition.
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Nigerian Minister of Solid Minerals Dele Alake, who chairs the group, said “true collaboration” between countries, including aligning mining policies, sharing infrastructure, coordinating investment strategies and promoting trade across the continent, will create the conditions for long-term investments that could turn Africa into “a formidable and competitive force within the global mineral supply chain”.
“The time has come for Africa to redefine its place within the global mineral economy and that transformation must begin with regional integration and regional cooperation,” he told the mining investment conference in Nairobi.
Lugonzo of Global Witness agreed, saying that value-addition would benefit from adopting a continental perspective. “Why should Kenya build another smelter when we can export our gold to Tanzania for smelting, and then we use the pipeline through Uganda to take it to the port and we export it?” she asked.
To facilitate that, there is a need to operationalise the Africa Free Trade Continental Agreement (AFTCA), she added. “That agreement is the only way Africa is going to move from point A to point B.”
The post Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/04/30/kenya-seeks-regional-coordination-to-build-african-mineral-value-chains/
The future of the global shipping industry – and its 3% share of global emissions – will be decided in three weeks of talks in the third quarter of this year, after a decision taken in London on Friday.
At the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters this week, governments largely failed to substantively negotiate a controversial set of measures to penalise polluting ships and reward vessels running on clean fuels known as the Net-Zero Framework. The green shipping plan has been aggressively opposed by fossil fuel-producing nations, in particular by the US and Saudi Arabia.
This week, countries delivered statements outlining their views on the measures in a session that ran from Wednesday into Thursday. Then, late on Friday afternoon, they discussed when to negotiate these measures and what proposals they should discuss.
After a lengthy debate, which the talks’ chair Harry Conway joked was confusing, governments agreed to hold a week of behind-closed-door talks from 1 September to 4 September and from 23 November to 27 November.
Following these meetings, which are intended to negotiate disagreements on the NZF and rival watered-down measures proposed by the US and its allies, there will be public talks from November 30 to December 4.
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Last October, talks intended to adopt the NZF provisionally agreed in April 2025 were derailed by the US and Saudi Arabia, who successfully persuaded a majority of countries to vote to postpone the talks by a year.
Those talks, known as an extraordinary session, are now scheduled to resume on Friday December 4 unless governments decide otherwise in the preceding weeks. While this Friday session will be in the same building with the same participants as the rest of the week’s talks, calling it the extraordinary session is significant as it means the NZF can be voted on.
Em Fenton, senior director of climate diplomacy at Opportunity Green said that the NZF “has survived but survival is not a victory” and called for it to be adopted later this year “in a way that maintains urgency and ambition, and delivers justice and equity for countries on the frontlines of climate impacts”.
NZF’s supporters
The NZF would penalise the owners of particularly polluting ships and use the revenues to fund cleaner fuels, support affected workers and help developing countries manage the transition.
Many governments – particularly in Europe, the Pacific and some Latin American and African nations – spoke in favour of it this week.
South Africa said the fund it would create is “the key enabler of a just transition” and its removal would take away predictable revenues from African countries. Vanuatu said that “we are not here to sink the ship but to man it”.
Australia’s representative called it a “carefully balanced compromise”, as it was provisionally agreed by a large majority after years of negotiations, and warned that failing to adopt it would harm the shipping industry by failing to provide certainty.
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Canada’s negotiator said that if it was weakened to appease its critics like the US and Saudi Arabia, this would disappoint those who think it is too weak already like the Pacific islands.
A large group of mainly big developing countries like Nigeria and Indonesia did not rule out supporting the framework but called for adjustments to help developing countries deal with the changes. Nigeria called for developing countries to be given more time to implement the measures, a minimum share of the fund’s revenues and discounts for ships bringing them food and energy.
According to analysis from the University of College London’s Energy Institute, the countries speaking in support of the NZF include five countries which voted with the US to postpone talks in October and a further ten countries which did not take a clear position at that time. Most governments support the NZF as the basis for further talks, the institute said.
Opposition remains
But a small group of mainly oil-producing nations said they are opposed to any financial penalties for particularly polluting ships.
They support a proposal submitted by Liberia, Argentina and Panama which has proposed weakening emission targets and ditching any funding mechanism for the framework involving “direct revenue collection and disbursement”.
Argentina argued that the NZF would harm countries which are far from their export markets and said concerns over that cannot be solved “by magic with guidelines”. They added that, as a result, the NZF itself needs to be fundamentally re-negotiated.
The UCL Energy Institute said that just 24 countries – less than a quarter of those who spoke – said they supported Argentina’s proposal.
While this week’s talks did not see the kind of US threats reported in October, their delegation did leave personalised flyers on every delegate’s desk which were described by academics, negotiators and climate campaigners as misleading.
One witness told Climate Home News that junior US delegates arrived early on Wednesday and placed flyers behind governments’ name plates warning each country of the costs they would incur if the NZF is adopted.
The figures on a selection of leaflets seen by Climate Home News ranged from $100 million for Panama to $3.5 billion for the Netherlands. “They are trying to scare countries away from supporting climate action with one-sided information”, one negotiator told Climate Home News.
They added that the calculations, by the US State Department’s Office of the Chief Economist, ignore the fact that the money raised would be shared to help poorer countries’ transition as well as ignoring the economic costs of failing to address climate change.
Tristan Smith, an academic representing the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, told the meeting that the calculations were “opaque” and flawed as they overstate the contribution of fuel cost to trade costs.
A US State Department Spokesperson said in a statement that they “firmly stand behind our estimates” which were shared “in good faith” and to “provide an additional tool to policymakers as they contemplate the true economic burden over the NZF”.
The post Key green shipping talks to be held in late 2026 appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/01/key-green-shipping-talks-to-be-held-in-late-2026/
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