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World

Greenhouse gas levels hit record; world struggles to curb damage

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A truck engine is tested for pollution exiting its exhaust pipe near the Mexican-U.S. border in Otay Mesa, California September 10, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Blake

  • UN seeks ‘dramatic increase’ in climate commitments
  • Summit will seek to avert menacing levels of warming
  • UK’s Johnson says COP26 outcome is ‘touch and go’
  • We need to revisit our whole way of life – Taalas

GENEVA/GLASGOW, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record last year and the world is “way off track” on capping rising temperatures, the United Nations said on Monday, showing the task facing climate talks in Glasgow aimed at averting dangerous levels of warming.

A report by the U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) showed carbon dioxide levels surged to 413.2 parts per million in 2020, rising more than the average rate over the last decade despite a temporary dip in emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the current rate of increase in heat-trapping gases would result in temperature rises “far in excess” of the 2015 Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average this century.

“We are way off track,” he said. “We need to revisit our industrial, energy and transport systems and whole way of life,” he added, calling for a “dramatic increase” in commitments at the COP26 conference beginning on Sunday.

The Scottish city of Glasgow was putting on the final touches before hosting the climate talks, which may be the world’s last best chance to cap global warming at the 1.5-2 degrees Celsius upper limit set out in the Paris Agreement.

“It is going to be very, very tough this summit,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a news conference with children. read more

“I am very worried because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need and it is touch and go, it is very, very difficult, but I think it can be done,” he said.

The German government announced Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Glasgow to take part. read more

The stakes for the planet are huge – among them the impact on economic livelihoods the world over and the future stability of the global financial system.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said on Saturday that the world’s top oil exporter aims to reach “net zero” emissions of greenhouse gases, mostly produced by burning fossil fuels, by 2060 – 10 years later than the United States.

GREEN TRANSITION

He also said it would double the emissions cuts it plans to achieve by 2030.

Australia’s cabinet was expected to formally adopt a target for net zero emissions by 2050 when it meets on Monday to review a deal reached between parties in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s coalition government, official sources told Reuters.

The ruling coalition has been divided over how to tackle climate change, with the government maintaining that harder targets would damage the A$2-trillion ($1.5-trillion) economy.

In Berlin, officials from Germany and Canada were set to present a plan about how rich countries can help poorer nations finance the overhaul needed to address climate change.

Wealthy countries have so far failed to deliver their 2009 pledge to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to poorer countries by 2020.

A Reuters poll of economists found that hitting the Paris Agreement goal of net-zero carbon emissions will require investments in a green transition worth 2%-3% of world output each year until 2050, far less than the economic cost of inaction.

In London, climate activists restarted their campaign of blockading major roads by disrupting traffic in the city’s financial district, while in Madrid a few dozen people staged a sit-in protest, briefly blocking the Gran Via shopping street.

“Greenhouse gas emissions are provoking climate catastrophes all over the planet. We don’t have time. It’s already late and if we don’t join the action against what’s happening, we won’t have time to save what is still left,” said Alberto, 27, a sociologist who took part in the protest.

Additional reporting by William James and Kylie MacLellan in London, Zuzanna Szymanska in Berlin, and Marco Trujillo in Madrid; Writing by Michael Shields, Editing by William Maclean

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Business

Made-from-CO2 concrete, lululemons and diamonds spark investor excitement

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Oct 4 (Reuters) – What do diamonds, sunglasses, high-end lululemon sportswear and concrete have to do with climate change?

They can all be made using carbon dioxide (CO2), locking up the planet warming gas. And tech startups behind these transformations are grabbing investor attention.

Some use bacteria. Some use proteins. Some use chemical processes to speed natural reactions. Most pull apart the carbon and the oxygen in CO2 to create another chemical that is used to make consumers goods.

Companies in the area raised over $800 million so far this year, more than tripling from 2020, according to a Reuters review of data from PitchBook, Circular Carbon Network, Cleantech Group and Climate Tech VC.

Reuters Graphics

“I don’t want to call it a green tax, but our consumers who really do care … have demonstrated that they’re willing to pay a bit of a premium,” said Ryan Shearman, chief executiveof Aether Diamonds, which grows diamonds in the lab using captured CO2.
On the opposite end of the glamour spectrum, the concrete industry, green also is good for marketing, said Robert Niven, CEO of CarbonCure Technologies, which makes technology that injects CO2 into fresh concrete, and strengthens it by locking in the carbon.

“About 90% of our uptake has been from independent concrete producers large and small that are just looking for that competitive edge.”

The world needs to capture and store 10 billion tonnes of CO2 annually by midcentury to slow climate change, according to United Nations estimates, a scale the companies can only dream of, when current carbon capture pilots often are at scales of hundreds and thousands of tonnes.

Humans produce greenhouse gases that are the equivalent of around 50 billion tonnes of CO2 each year, and governments will gather in Scotland in late October and November for a U.N. climate conference on cutting emissions.

All fossil-based products that could use recycled CO2 instead account for some 6.8 billion tonnes of emissions, according to a Columbia University report in May, although lead author Amar Bhardwaj said trying to swap out all of that “would be a misuse of CO2 recycling,” since there are cheaper ways to reduce carbon emissions.

Nicholas Flanders, co-founder of Twelve, which uses chemical processes to reuse CO2, says recycling is better than storing captured CO2 underground. “We’re developing a technology that can go toe to toe with fossil fuels” without additional financial incentives to remove carbon.

That is because many consumers are attracted by “green” labels.

lululemon athletica inc (LULU.O) says it has created a polyester yarn from carbon emissions with LanzaTech that will be used for future products. LanzaTech, which has raised the most funds of companies in the space, according to Reuters’ review, creates ethanol using bacteria. Ethanol is turned into ethylene which is used to make everything from plastic bottles to polyester.

CEO Jennifer Holmgren said LanzaTech’s ethanol is more expensive than corn based ethanol, but customers looking to source greener products are buying.

The biggest investment in the space this year, more than $350 million, was into Houston-based Solugen, which feeds CO2 and other ingredients to enzymes that make chemicals for stronger cement, water pipe coating and other products.

Its products are already cheaper than those made from fossil fuels, said CEO Gaurab Chakrabarti. Still, it is not sourcing CO2 captured from factory emissions or from the air, which Chakrabarti described as “an option.”

Capturing CO2 is a less enticing prospect for many investors, who think the government should fund such expensive, high risk projects.

However, Nicholas Moore Eisenberger, managing partner at Pure Energy Partners, has invested in direct air capture firm Global Thermostat and sees opportunity in necessity and believes once the projects scale up, they will be cheaper.

“The science tells us that we have under a decade to start to bend the curve on climate, and that is now within the investment time frame of most venture and private equity investors,” said Eisenberger.

Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee and Nia Williams; editing by Peter Henderson and Marguerita Choy

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World

EXCLUSIVE U.S., EU pursuing global deal to slash planet-warming methane -documents

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BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) – The United States and the European Union have agreed to aim to cut emissions of the planet-warming gas methane by around a third by the end of this decade and are pushing other major economies to join them, according to documents seen by Reuters.

Their pact comes as Washington and Brussels seek to galvanize other major economies ahead of a world summit to address climate change in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, and could have a significant impact on the energy, agriculture and waste industries responsible for the bulk of methane emissions.

The greenhouse gas methane, the biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide (CO2), is facing more scrutiny as governments seek solutions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, a goal of the Paris climate agreement.

In an attempt to jumpstart the action, the United States and the EU later this week will make a joint pledge to reduce human-caused methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030, compared with 2020 levels, according to a draft of the Global Methane Pledge seen by Reuters.

“The short atmospheric lifetime of methane means that taking action now can rapidly reduce the rate of global warming,” the draft said.

A separate document listed over two dozen countries that the United States and the EU will target to join the pledge. They include major emitters such as China, Russia, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, as well as others including Norway, Qatar, Britain, New Zealand and South Africa.

The U.S. State Department and the European Commission both declined to comment.

“The Pledge would represent a very encouraging sign that the world is finally waking up to the urgent need to rein in methane pollution,” said Sarah Smith, program director for super pollutants at the non-profit Clean Air Task Force.

PRESSURE

The agreement would likely be unveiled on Friday at a meeting of major emitting economies intended to rally support ahead of the COP26 Glasgow summit.

World leaders are under pressure from scientists, environmental advocates and growing popular sentiment to commit to more ambitious action to curb climate change in Glasgow.

Methane has a higher heat-trapping potential than CO2 but it breaks down in the atmosphere faster, so “strong, rapid and sustained reductions” in methane emissions in addition to slashing CO2 emissions can have a climate impact quickly, a fact emphasized by a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last month.

Experts say the fossil fuel sector has the biggest potential to cut methane emissions this decade by mending leaky pipelines or gas storage facilities, and many of those fixes can be done at a low cost.

Yet satellite images and infrared footage have in recent years revealed methane emissions spewing out of oil and gas sites in countries including the EU, Mexico and the United States. read more

The United States and EU are both due to propose laws this year to restrict methane emissions.

The U.S.-EU pledge would cover key sources of methane emissions, including leaky oil and gas infrastructure, old coal mines, agriculture and waste such as landfills, the draft said.

Countries that join the pledge would commit to take domestic action to collectively achieve the target methane cut, “focusing on standards to achieve all feasible reductions in the energy and waste sectors” and reducing agricultural emissions through “technology innovation as well as incentives and partnerships with farmers,” it said.

Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Leslie Adler and Sonya Hepinstall

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Business

U.S. seeks to speed rooftop solar growth with instant permits

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Solar panels are seen on rooftops amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Santa Clarita, near Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

July 15 (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Thursday will roll out a tool that enables instant local permitting of rooftop solar installations, addressing a major source of industry delays and possibly lowering costs for homeowners, the Energy Department said.

The Solar Automated Permit Processing (SolarAPP+) platform, developed by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will be an optional portal for local governments to process permit applications automatically.

Approvals typically take a week or more currently, and permit-related costs can account for about a third of installers’ overall costs, DOE said. The software speeds the process up by standardizing requirements, streamlining the application and automating some approvals.

Administration officials said the software will help speed adoption of rooftop solar and achieve President Joe Biden’s goal of decarbonizing the U.S. electricity grid by 2035, a key pillar of his plan to address climate change. DOE has said that solar energy will need to be installed at a pace as much as five times faster than it is today to realize that goal.

“Having streamlined processes and an automated permitting platform that can make it faster, easier and cheaper for homeowners to go solar promises to really help expand the residential solar sector,” Becca Jones-Albertus, director of DOE’s solar energy technologies office, said in an interview.

Obtaining permits through local building departments has often proved to be a “pain point” for solar companies, according to Jones-Albertus. About a third of rooftop solar installations take more than two weeks for the permit process, DOE said.

SolarAPP+ was tested in four communities in Arizona and California starting last year. In Tucson, the portal reduced permitting review times from an average of 20 days to zero, the agency said.

An official from Stockton, California, a city that recently decided to adopt the SolarAPP tool, said it will free up staffers who have managed a 26% rise in solar applications over the last five years. It also allows homeowners to conduct the permitting process online rather than in person.

“It’s rare that you can find something that works this well for all of the parties involved,” John Alita, Stockton’s deputy city manager, said during a DOE webinar to unveil the tool.

The portal performs an automatic review of permit applications, approving eligible systems instantly. Complex or ineligible systems are re-routed for additional review.

Local governments will not have to pay for the portal, DOE said. DOE is challenging 125 mayors and local officials to sign up for the SolarAPP tool before the end of the summer.

Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman

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