From cross-border pipelines for green hydrogen that can also carry natural gas, to sustainable aviation fuel that threatens forests, and costly carbon capture projects that are used to recover more oil, “false solutions” to climate change have gained ground in recent years, often backed by fossil fuel firms.
A new research paper, published last month in the journal Energy Research and Social Science, shines a light on this trend, exploring such projects that have also caused environmental injustices such as air pollution or depriving communities of their source of income.
The study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), in collaboration with the University of Sussex, is based on 48 cases of environmental conflicts around the world, contained in the ICTA-UAB’s Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas).
The selected cases range from Norway’s Trollvind offshore wind farm, built partly to decarbonise the power supply to the Troll and Oseberg oil and gas fields; to US fossil fuel firms working with the dairy industry to turn manure into biogas; and a tree plantation in the Republic of Congo proposed by TotalEnergies, where locals say they have been prevented from accessing their customary farmland.
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The researchers argue that “false solutions” – which also include large-scale carbon offsetting projects, many of which have been discredited – help to reinforce the political and economic power of the industry that is responsible for the climate crisis, and are undermining the global energy transition.
Climate Home News spoke to co-author Freddie Daley, a research associate at the University of Sussex’s Centre for Global Political Economy, about the paper’s findings and implications for climate policy.
Q: What was your motivation in exploring these types of “false solutions” to the climate crisis?
A: It’s very much a reaction to the fossil fuel industry insisting these technologies are solutions, rather than us creating a typology of things that are not working. All of the [paper’s] authors are very keen on a habitable planet – and we’re not going to let perfection be the enemy of the good.
But this is a call [to] arms to say that governments need to be very careful about what they’re giving public subsidy to, because in a complex situation – where there’s an urgency for reducing emissions but also for creating sustainable livelihoods and for ensuring that the needs of people living in and around these projects are met – I think it’s very important to scrutinise the viability of these schemes.
The starting point was off the back of oil majors – or so-called integrated energy companies – coming out and being very bullish on sustainability and net zero, and alongside this, proffering that they were part of the solution to climate mitigation, energy transition, job creation, green growth. And we took this as a problem statement to begin our analysis: How can fossil companies be part of the solution?
Q: What did your work reveal about “false solutions” and how can it deepen understanding of them?
A: “False solutions” is a term that’s been used for many, many years by Indigenous groups and by frontline communities – so we wanted to formalise it because it’s not really been engaged with in academic literature so far. We thought it was quite a big gap that needed to be filled.
We thought how can we categorise it? How can we help redefine it? What are the characteristics of these false solutions? So we dug into the data, the EJ Atlas, across many technologies – from hydrogen through to carbon offsets and biofuels, but also renewable energy projects, because we were finding that renewable energy projects causing conflicts were either being used to fuel fossil fuel production, such as solar panels or wind turbines to run rigs, which we thought was an interesting pattern – and also utility-scale renewable energy projects which were operated by fossil fuel firms.
Out of total energy generation, fossil fuel companies’ production of renewables is a tiny, tiny fraction. Why do these projects exist, and how do they operate within the broader energy system? We wanted to look at what their function was – and going through the data and the lived experience of the communities on the frontlines of these projects, we found that they’re very much used to legitimise fossil fuel expansion or just continued operation.
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And then we also looked at the governmental role within the institutions as well – so fossil fuel firms using these technologies and these false solutions as ways to garner public subsidy, particularly for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen, to some degree.
And what we found across all these cases was they did very little to reduce emissions and generated environmental conflicts… and they ultimately delayed an energy transition, or the sort of industrial transformation that’s required to deliver deep and rapid emissions cuts.
Q: Shouldn’t fossil fuel companies be able to use all the climate solutions available to help reduce their emissions while the world is transitioning away from coal, oil and gas?
A: My response [to that argument] is to actually look at the data. When people say hydrogen and CCS are very important and they’re crucial, I don’t disagree with the idea that we might need some sort of technology to suck carbon out the atmosphere at some point in the future. But currently, the operational projects are not delivering that, and fossil fuel projects should not be expanded on the premise that future technologies can undo their emissions.
Just a few weeks ago, the Financial Times ran a very big story about how most of the oil majors have cancelled all their hydrogen projects because the scale of it’s not there yet, and they don’t think it’s going to stack up. These are companies with huge amounts of capital in an easy-to-abate sector – energy – saying we’re not going to do this. So you have to question the plan of hydrogen as a solution, if even the people that have the expertise and the capital to make it work are saying we’re not going to do this because we cannot make it work.
Likewise with carbon capture, many of the large energy projects and energy producers that have garnered vast amounts of public subsidies on the promise that they will do carbon capture are cutting those research projects down.
So at this stage in the energy transition – which some people call the “mid transition”, the difficult part – I think we need to scrutinise these technologies and look at what they do deliver on a project-by-project basis, and then on an aggregate basis.
Q: High-carbon industries say they need government subsidies to cover the high cost of researching, developing and creating markets for new technologies to help combat climate change. Is this justified?
A: I’m a big believer in the idea that the energy transition – the ideal energy transition, which is one of scaling up new industry while phasing out an old one – is going to require not only public money, but public coordination. That means states actively stewarding investment, picking winners and sequencing what is going to be a highly disruptive process.
I think public subsidy is necessary. We need to see deep and rapid decarbonisation, especially in wealthy industrialised states, but it should be used in a very targeted way to scale up technologies which have a marked impact on emissions and also uplift welfare as well – so heat pumps insulating homes in poorer communities. With these sort of things, you get your bang for your buck.
Comment: The battle over a global energy transition is on between petro-states and electro-states
You don’t get bang for your buck giving BP and Shell money to pilot a carbon capture and storage facility. It’s an extension of existing relationships between big business and government that needs to be looked at closely in the context of energy transition, because ultimately, these companies are not serious about transitioning at the requisite speed or scale to stave off climate disaster.
Look at both oil and gas companies’ ownership of renewable assets (1.42% of operational renewable projects around the world) and the renewables share of their primary generation (0.13%). They have the capital, and they have the know-how to do this. They haven’t done it. The question is, why do they need more public subsidy to continue not doing it?
This interview was shortened and edited for clarity.
The post Q&A: “False” climate solutions help keep fossil fuel firms in business appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: “False” climate solutions help keep fossil fuel firms in business
With the U.S. bombing Iran and the Strait of Hormuz closed, energy experts say countries transitioning to renewables will be more resilient in the “face of the shock.”
The United States’ war on Iran could fundamentally alter how countries consume and generate energy and hamper international progress in combating climate change, a panel of energy experts said today.
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One month into the US and Israel’s war on Iran, at least 60 countries have taken emergency measures in response to the subsequent global energy crisis, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
So far, these countries have announced nearly 200 policies to save fuel, support consumers and boost domestic energy supplies.
Carbon Brief has drawn on tracking by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other sources to assess the global policy response, just as a temporary ceasefire is declared.
Since the start of the war in late February, both sides have bombed vital energy infrastructure across the region as Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz – a key waterway through which around a fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) trade passes.
This has made it impossible to export the usual volumes of fossil fuels from the region and, as a result, sent prices soaring.
Around 30 nations, from Norway to Zambia, have cut fuel taxes to help people struggling with rising costs, making this by far the most common domestic policy response to the crisis.
Some countries have stressed the need to boost domestic renewable-energy construction, while others – including Japan, Italy and South Korea – have opted to lean more on coal, at least in the short term.
The most wide-ranging responses have been in Asia, where countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels from the Middle East have implemented driving bans, fuel rationing and school closures in order to reduce demand.
‘Largest disruption’
On 28 February, the US and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, triggering conflict across the Middle East and sending shockwaves around the world.
There have been numerous assaults on energy infrastructure, including an Iranian attack on the world’s largest LNG facility in Qatar and an Israeli bombing of Iran’s gas sites.
Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf, is causing what the IEA has called the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”.
A fifth of the world’s oil and LNG is normally shipped through this region, with 90% of those supplies going to destinations in Asia. Without these supplies, fuel prices have surged.
Governments around the world have taken emergency actions in response to this new energy crisis, shielding their citizens from price spikes, conserving energy where possible and considering longer-term energy policies.
Even with a two-week ceasefire announced, the energy crisis is expected to continue, given the extensive damage to infrastructure and continuing uncertainties.
Asian crunch
Carbon Brief has used tracking by the IEA, news reports, government announcements and internal monitoring by the thinktank E3G to assess the range of national responses to the energy crisis roughly one month into the Iran war.
In total, Carbon Brief has identified 185 relevant policies, announcements and campaigns from 60 national governments.
As the map below shows, these measures are concentrated in east and south Asia. These regions are facing the most extreme disruption, largely due to their reliance on oil and gas supplies from the Middle East.
Nations including Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and India are already spending billions of dollars on fuel subsidies to protect people from rising costs.
At least 16 Asian countries are also taking drastic measures to reduce fuel consumption. For example, the Philippines has declared a “state of national emergency”, which includes limiting air conditioning in public buildings and subsidising public transport.
Other examples from the region include the government in Bangladesh asking the public and businesses to avoid unnecessary lighting, Pakistan reducing the speed limit on highways and Laos encouraging people to work from home.
Europe – which was hit hard by the 2022 energy crisis due to its reliance on Russian gas – is less immediately exposed to the current crisis than Asia. However, many nations are still heavily reliant on gas, including supplies from Qatar.
The continent is already feeling the effects of higher global energy prices as countries compete for more limited resources.
At least 18 European nations have introduced measures to help people with rising costs. Spain, which is relatively insulated from the crisis due to the high share of renewables in its electricity supply, nevertheless announced a €5bn aid package, with at least six measures to support consumers.
Many African countries, while also less reliant on direct fossil-fuel supplies via the Strait of Hormuz than Asia, are still facing the strain of higher import bills. Some, including Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia, are also facing severe fuel shortages.
There have been fewer new policies across the Americas, which have been comparatively insulated from the energy crisis so far. One outlier is Chile, which is among the region’s biggest fuel importers and is, therefore, more exposed to global price increases.
Tax cuts
The most common types of policy response to the energy crisis so far have been efforts to protect people and businesses from the surge in fuel prices.
At least 28 nations, including Italy, Brazil and Australia, have introduced a total of 31 measures to cut taxes – and, therefore, prices – on fuel.
Even across Africa, where state revenues are already stretched, some nations – including Namibia and South Africa – are cutting fuel levies in a bid to stabilise prices.
Another 17 countries, including Mexico and Poland, have directly capped the price of fuel. Others, such as France and the UK, have opted for more targeted fuel subsidies, designed to support specific vulnerable groups and industries.
These measures are all shown in the dark blue “consumer support” bars in the chart below.
Such measures can directly help consumers, but some leaders, NGOs and financial experts have noted that there is also the risk of them driving inflation and reinforcing reliance on the existing fossil fuel-based system.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, spoke in favour of short-term measures to “smooth the shock”, but noted that “broad-based and open-ended measures may add excessively to demand”.
Measures to conserve energy, of the type that many developing countries in Asia have implemented extensively, have been described by the IEA as “more effective and fiscally sustainable than broad-based subsidies”.
So far, there have been at least 23 such measures introduced to limit the use of transport, particularly private cars.
These include Lithuania cutting train fares, two Australian states making public transport free and Myanmar and South Korea asking people to only drive their cars on certain days.
Clean vs coal
At least eight countries have announced plans to either increase their use of coal or review existing plans to transition away from coal, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis. These include Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Germany and Italy.
These measures broadly involve delaying coal-plant closure, as in Italy, or allowing older sites to operate at higher rates, as in Japan – rather than building more coal plants.
There has been extensive coverage of how the energy crisis is “driving Asia back to coal”. However, as Bloomberg columnist David Fickling has noted, this shift is relatively small and likely to be offset by a move to cheap solar power in the longer term.
Indeed, some countries have begun to consider changes to the way they use energy going forward, amid a crisis driven by the spiralling costs of fossil-fuel imports.
Leaders in India, Barbados and the UK have explicitly stressed the importance of a structural shift to using clean power. Governments in France and the Philippines are among those linking new renewable-energy announcements with the unfolding crisis.
New renewable-energy capacity will take time to come online, albeit substantially less time than developing new fossil-fuel generation. In the meantime, some nations are also taking short-term measures to make their road transport less reliant on fossil fuels.
For example, the Chilean government has enabled taxi drivers to access preferential credit for purchasing electric vehicles (EVs). Cambodia has cut import taxes on EVs and Laos has lowered excise taxes on them.
Finally, there have been some signs that countries are reconsidering their future exposure to imported fossil fuels, given the current economics of oil and gas.
The New Zealand government has indicated that a plan to build a new LNG terminal by 2027 now faces uncertainty. Reuters reported that Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup has told the government it wanted to abandon a plan to build a new LNG-fired power plant in Vietnam, in favour of renewables.
The post Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis
Seven Senate Democrats launched the probe over controversial tax credits to the country’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Seven Democratic U.S. senators have launched a probe into a $370 million “alternative fuel” payout to Cheniere Energy, made earlier this year by the IRS, that critics say the liquefied natural gas export company never should have received.
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The Global Energy Supply in a Decade ‘Is Not a World We’re Going to Recognize’
Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis
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