China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 3% in March 2024, ending a 14-month surge that began when the economy reopened after the nation’s “zero-Covid” controls were lifted in December 2022.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, reinforces the view that China’s emissions could have peaked in 2023.
The drivers of the CO2 drop in March 2024 were expanding solar and wind generation, which covered 90% of the growth in electricity demand, as well as declining construction activity.
Oil demand growth also ground to a halt, indicating that the post-Covid rebound may have run its course.
A 2023 peak in China’s CO2 emissions is possible if the buildout of clean energy sources is kept at the record levels seen last year.
However, there are divergent views across the industry and government on the outlook for clean energy growth. How this gap gets resolved is the key determinant of when China’s emissions will peak – if they have not done so already.
Other key findings from the analysis include:
- Wind and solar growth pushed fossil fuels’ share of electricity generation in China down to 63.6% in March 2024, from 67.4% a year earlier, despite strong growth in demand.
- The ongoing contraction of real-estate construction activity in China saw steel production fall by 8% and cement output by 22% in March 2024.
- Electric vehicles (EVs) now make up around one-in-10 vehicles on China’s roads, knocking around 3.5 percentage points off the growth in petrol demand.
- Some 45% of last year’s record solar additions were smaller-scale “distributed” systems, creating an illusory “missing data problem”.
Why did emissions fall in March?
Looking at the first quarter of 2024 as a whole, China’s CO2 emissions increased significantly, based on preliminary data on energy consumption from the National Bureau of Statistics.
January and February of this year still saw large increases from the low base of 2023, when the economy was still subdued by the recent ending of zero-Covid restrictions.
As a result, CO2 emissions during the quarter increased by 3.8% year-on-year, with coal consumption growing 3%, oil 4% and gas 11% compared with the same period in 2023.
The turnaround happened in March, when CO2 emissions fell by 2%, due to a 1% fall in coal use, flat oil demand and a 22% drop in cement production. The reduction in CO2 emissions came despite a 14% rise in gas consumption, as the fuel is a minor part of China’s mix.
As seen in the figure below, China’s CO2 emissions had started increasing in February 2023, after Covid-19 controls were lifted in December 2022.
The year-on-year comparison to January-February 2023 is, therefore, still affected by the low base caused by the last year of zero-Covid, making March the first month to give a clear indication of the emissions trends after the rebound.
The main driver of China’s emissions growth in recent years has been the power sector (see below).
Conversely, the main reason the emissions trend turned into a reduction in March was that power-sector emissions growth slowed down sharply. Emissions from the sector only increased by 1% year-on-year, due to strong growth in solar and wind power generation.
While power-sector emissions stabilised, the largest source of reductions in emissions in March was the continued decline in demand for steel and cement from the construction sector, as illustrated in the figure below.
Steel production fell by 8% and, as a result, there was also a fall in production of the main fuel used by steel mills – coking coal. Cement production fell dramatically, by 22% year-on-year.
These trends seem set to continue, as real-estate investment continued to contract – for the third year – as a result of a government clampdown on excess leverage and financial risk in the sector, and sizable supply resulting from booming construction in the past.
The contraction in construction volumes has not resulted in as large a drop in China’s demand for steel and other energy-intensive metals as might be expected.
The reason is rapid growth and investment in manufacturing, which uses metals for the construction of facilities and the production of industrial machinery.
It is unlikely that this manufacturing growth can continue, as global markets for different goods and commodities become saturated. The government’s economic policy now emphasises “new productive forces”, in the latest attempt to shift economic growth away from traditional heavy industry. The term refers to high-end manufacturing and R&D, which are, for the most part, less energy intensive than China’s traditional industrial sectors.
Looking at other sectors in March 2024, oil demand for transport was unchanged on a year earlier – following months of strong increases – suggesting that the post-Covid rebound could be petering out.
The production of jet fuel (+35%) and petrol (+7%) still increased, indicating growth in demand from passenger transport, but diesel production stagnated (+1%) and total crude oil refining volumes also only increased 1%.
The rise in the share of electric vehicles (EVs) is making a meaningful dent in oil demand, with the share of electric vehicles out of all vehicles on the road increasing to 10.5%, from 7.0% a year ago, as estimated on the basis of cumulative sales over the past 10 years. This indicates that EV adoption lowered petrol demand growth by 3.5 percentage points.
Gas demand rebounded sharply, increasing 14% year-on-year, after a drop caused by high gas prices. Growth in gas consumption came predominantly from industry and households.
Power-sector gas consumption increased 8%, as the utilisation of gas-fired power plants recovered, but this only contributed a small fraction of the overall growth.
The share of gas in China’s energy mix fell from 2021 to 2023, after more than two decades of continuous increases, and has only now started to resume growth.
One recent driver of emissions increases continued: coal consumption in the chemical industry increased 14%, extending the double-digit growth seen in 2022 and 2023.
While there is not yet enough data to estimate CO2 emissions in April, industrial data for the month indicates that the trends seen in March continued.
Thermal power output – mostly from coal – grew at a slow rate of 1.3%, with most demand growth being covered by solar. Steel, cement and coke output fell by 8%, 9% and 7%, respectively, reflecting continued decline in construction volumes. Oil refining volumes fell 3%.
Domestic coal mining output fell 3% while imports increased 11%, meaning total supply fell 5%.
Gas demand saw further strong growth, with imports increasing 15% and domestic production 3%. Among energy-intensive industries, the chemical and non-ferrous metal industries continued rapid output growth.
Solar and wind covering demand growth
The stabilising emissions in the power sector are notable because electricity demand growth continued at a high rate of 7.4% – and hydropower utilisation stayed below the long-term average, affected by a prolonged drought.
Electricity demand growth has been exceptionally fast during the past few years, driven predominantly by industrial power use. In March, industrial demand growth slowed down, but a rebound in the service sector sustained overall growth.
Half of demand growth came from industry, with non-ferrous metals, chemicals, machinery and electronics the largest growth areas. One third came from services, with wholesale and retail trading the largest growth driver, and one sixth from households.
Household power demand has also seen a surge in the past couple of years, driven by a wave of air conditioning unit purchases triggered by the historic heatwave in 2022, especially in lower-income households that lacked air conditioning before.
Despite rapid growth in electricity demand, the rate of growth for large-scale power generation slowed to 3%, due to rising distributed solar power generation.
(Distributed solar refers to smaller-scale installations, often on the rooftops of homes and businesses, in contrast to the large, centralised solar farms.)
Overall, the record addition of solar and wind capacity in 2023 enabled these sources to deliver 22% of power generation and almost 90% of year-on-year growth in March, as shown in the figure below. The share of non-fossil power generation rose to 36.2%, from 32.6% last year.
The growing contribution of distributed solar power to generation has been somewhat hidden by the way that China’s monthly electricity data is reported. The National Bureau of Statistics only reports monthly power generation from very large-scale solar and windfarms. It has also made systematic upward revisions of previous year’s data, suggesting it had not captured output from new firms entering the market in real time.
As 45% of last year’s record solar additions were distributed generation, the exclusion of small solar installations is affecting these numbers a lot more than it used to.
This has caused a lot of confusion in China and overseas, especially as the reported electricity consumption became much larger than generation – an apparent impossibility. Bloomberg even called this a “missing data problem”.
The widening gap between electricity consumption and large-scale power generation makes it clear, however, that distributed solar is increasingly contributing to meeting electricity demand.
Unlike the monthly figures, there is no “missing” data in China’s annual reporting, as the yearly statistics include all power plants regardless of size. In 2023, for example, the annual statistics reported twice as much solar and 10% more wind power generation than the monthly statistics.
Indeed, calculating generation from reported installed capacity and utilisation hours of the capacity on a monthly basis reproduces the annual numbers closely. This makes it clear that the expansion of small-scale solar is contributing substantially to meeting electricity demand, even if the statistics bureau’s monthly data does not cover the power generation.
Clean energy boom continues
The fall in emissions in March was enabled by last year’s massive solar and wind power additions, with almost 300 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity connected to the grid. This boom accelerated in the first three months of 2024, with a 40% increase compared with the year before.
Solar power installations stood at 46GW, up 36% on year, and wind power installations at 16GW, increasing 50% year-on-year.
The first months of the year tend to be slower in terms of installations – and there are also gaps in reporting that mean that quite a bit of new capacity is only reported at the end of the year.
The strong year-on-year growth indicates that concerns about grid access for new projects have not affected the pace of capacity additions yet. Even if growth rates are tempered for the rest of the year, the numbers to date indicate that last year’s record pace could be maintained in 2024.
Solar panel production grew another 20% in January-March from last year’s already significant numbers, signalling strong demand from China and overseas.
EV production grew 29% while total vehicle production resumed its fall, so the share of EVs continued its rapid climb, reaching 31% in the first quarter compared with 26% the year before.
As the economics of solar and wind projects are strong, the main constraint on capacity additions will be grid access. Numerous provincial grid operators already began to limit additions of new wind and solar last year, as they were concerned that they would not be able to fully integrate the additional generation.
This highlights the shortcomings in China’s grid operation, because such challenges are arising when the share of wind and solar power in China’s power generation is still modest, at 15%, compared with 27% in the EU and 40% in Germany, Spain and Greece.
Action is being taken. The NDRC has begun to relax requirements for the grid access of solar and wind generators. This will increase the uncertainty for investors in wind and solar projects, but makes it easier for grid operators to integrate more capacity and will, therefore, support growth in capacity and generation.
The NDRC also issued a policy on developing electricity storage, pledging that, by 2027, the power system would be able to integrate new solar and wind capacity while keeping the share of their output that is wasted due to grid issues to a low level.
While solar and wind are beginning to cover most or all of power demand growth, investment in coal power is continuing. Additions of thermal power capacity slowed down slightly year-on-year in the first quarter, but provinces’ “key project lists” for 2024 include over 200GW of thermal power projects, which are mainly coal-fired.
Future ambition a major question mark
The fall in China’s emissions in March could mark the turnaround after blistering growth since 2020. As explained in analysis for Carbon Brief published last autumn, the current growth rate of clean energy has the potential to peak the country’s emissions.
Whether the clean energy growth will continue is, therefore, the key question for the future path of China’s emissions. However, views about the pace of future wind and solar developments diverge widely.
The China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) forecasts average annual capacity additions of 225GW from 2024 to 2030 in its “conservative” scenario, a slight increase from the 217GW installed in 2023. Its “optimistic” scenario would see this accelerate to 280GW per year. Under the CPIA’s projections, China’s total installed solar capacity reaches 2200-2600GW in 2030, up from 660GW today.
According to the wind power industry, China needs to install more than 50GW of new wind power capacity annually from 2021-2025 and more than 60GW annually from 2026 onwards, in order to reach the 2060 carbon neutrality target. This is a fairly modest trajectory, since capacity additions in 2023 were already 76GW.
On the other hand, the head of the National Energy Administration (NEA) Zhang Jianhua wrote in a recent article that clean-energy capacity additions should be kept above 100GW per year, less than half of the level achieved in 2023, implying that he views the recent acceleration as an anomaly and not something to be maintained.
Similarly, the NEA’s 2024 workplan targets 170GW of non-fossil power capacity added, as implied by the targets for total generating capacity and the share of non-fossil energy capacity. (Despite the 160GW target in the 2023 workplan, additions reached nearly 300GW.)
These alternative visions of wind and solar expansion are shown in the figure below. The dark blue line shows Zhang’s expectation that annual capacity additions would return to levels seen during 2020-2022, while the light blue and red lines show the renewable industry forecasts of growth broadly being maintained at 2023 levels – or steadily increasing.
The difference between the CPIA and NEA levels of ambition amounts to 1,400-1,800GW of solar and wind power capacity by 2030. If the resulting clean power generation were to replace coal in 2030, the difference in CO2 emissions would amount to 10-15% of China’s current emissions. By 2035, with a continuing trend in wind and solar growth, the CO2 saving would reach 20-25% of current emissions.
In his article, Zhang points to a number of challenges that could justify the lower level of clean-energy capacity additions that he is proposing, including the lack of a robust pricing mechanism for electricity storage, the need for better coordination of policies on the energy transition, as well as managing the land and marine area requirements for large new energy projects.
Still, dialling back the additions of solar and wind, as well as the associated battery storage, would be a cold shower to China’s economy, as these clean energy sectors have become a key source of economic growth.
Moreover, massive recent investments in manufacturing capacity in these sectors will only be utilised and pay off with continued growth in the demand for clean energy equipment.
The lower level of ambition of the government is also reflected in official targets for this year. The environmental ministry recently set a target to reduce carbon intensity – the level of emissions per unit of GDP – by 3.9% in 2024.
This target, if met, is an increase over the past three years when carbon intensity improved by only 1.5% per year on average. Yet, given that the target for GDP growth is “around 5%”, the carbon intensity target allows emissions to increase by more than 1%.
After rapid emission increases in 2021 to 2023, China is already severely off track for its 2025 and 2030 carbon intensity targets – and the annual targets for 2024 fail to close this gap.
Instead, it is exactly the required annual average that would have been needed every year to meet the 14th five-year plan target of 18%. As such, it avoids the existing shortfall from getting wider, but does nothing to make up for slow progress to date. The NDRC set a less ambitious target of reducing “fossil energy intensity” by 2.5% in 2024, which allows emissions to increase by more than 2%.
Zhang Jianhua also argued that clean energy should cover 70% of energy consumption growth in 2026-30, a target that is consistent with a slowdown in clean energy additions.
This would mean that 30% of energy consumption growth would still be covered by increasing the use of fossil fuels – and, therefore, CO2 emissions would also continue to increase.
Continued emissions growth would imply a major risk of missing China’s 2030 carbon intensity commitment – which is part of its international climate pledge under the Paris Agreement – as there is no space for energy-sector CO2 emissions to increase from 2023 to 2030 under the commitment, assuming average GDP growth of 5% or less.
China’s pledge, therefore, depends on clean energy growth continuing to significantly exceed the central government’s targets – or those targets being ratcheted up.
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.
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. Power generation from coal was calculated from total thermal power generation and the reported capacity and utilisation hours of power plants firing coal, gas and biomass, to obtain the fuel mix of thermal power generation.
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.
The data for the first quarter of 2024 was scaled to match the reported year-on-year growth rates for the whole quarter in preliminary official data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The conclusion that emissions fell in March 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: Monthly drop hints that China’s CO2 emissions may have peaked in 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Monthly drop hints that China’s CO2 emissions may have peaked in 2023
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.
-
Santa Marta summit kick-starts work on key steps for fossil fuel transition
The conference offers some 60 nations help to develop roadmaps to shift their economies away from coal, oil and gas, and make international trade green -
Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures
A small but critical handful of countries attending the conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels remain deeply committed to expanding their output -
How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets
Shell used its exit from onshore operations in Nigeria to boost its climate credentials, but new reporting shows that the firm continues to trade oil from its former business
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.
-
Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say
Restricting raw materials exports is well-intentioned but without other policies to foster domestic processing, they can backfire -
South African rare earths project aims to rival Chinese with low-cost model
The EU-backed Zandkopsdrift project plans to offset the high cost of rare earths production with another mineral in hot demand for use in batteries -
West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal
Ghana wants to benefit from the scramble for lithium but its reliance on mining firms for revenue and expertise weakens its ability to negotiate preferential terms, experts say
“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.
Outdated geological data limits Africa’s push to benefit from its mineral wealth
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.
Africa urged to unite on minerals as US strikes bilateral deals
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.
-
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 -
Prospects for global green shipping deal boosted by US tariff ruling, analysts say
While divisions remain over the international shipping’s Net Zero Framework, the US’s main threat may now have been partly neutered -
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
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.
Santa Marta summit kick-starts work on key steps for fossil fuel transition
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/
-
Greenhouse Gases9 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change9 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Renewable Energy7 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases10 months ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测