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Africa/Global: Climate Put on Back Burner by War
AfricaFocus Bulletin
April 21, 2022 (2022-04-21)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
While media attention focuses on the cost in human lives on the ground in Europe, the direct and indirect effects are also leading to many more lives lost around the world, not least in vulnerable countries on the African continent, according to a report issued on April 13 by the United Nations. The direct effects alone are projected to devastate the world economy (https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-impact-war-ukraine-food-energy-and-finance-systems).
�Preliminary analysis suggest that as many as 1.7 billion people in 107
economies are exposed to at least one of three risks, mostly in Africa, Asia
and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. When combined with the
already devastating impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and climate change, the
exposure to just one risk is dire enough to cause debt distress, food
shortages and blackouts.�
Not least of those effects is the diversion of attention from the still
rapidly threat of the climate crisis. Among the greatest risks, already
evident, is that policymakers and energy companies are deepening reliance on
fossil fuels. While such actions may be needed temporarily, the report
stresses, it is essential not to delay investments in renewable energy and
actions to reduce fossil fuel production.
This AfricaFocus highlights a number of recent reports analyzing the current
situation of that effect, which continues in many places despite open
opposition and delays by the fossil fuels industry and their allies in
positions of political power.
Particularly significant was the release on April 4 of the landmark�report�on
mitigation by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)�part of the U.N.'s sixth comprehensive climate assessment since
1992, which was compiled by 278 researchers from 65 countries. The authors,
who synthesized thousands of peer-reviewed studies published in the past
several years,�make clear�over the course of nearly 3,000 pages that "without
immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global
warming to 1.5�C is beyond reach."
Over 400 dead this week in devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa
Included in this issue is the article by Kate Aronoff in the New Republic for April 5. Aronoff's report is very clear, and her coverage is always worth following.
Meanwhile, a 64-page�Summary for Policymakers�(SPM) of the report�a key
reference point for governments�required the approval of all 195 member states
of the IPCC and was edited with their input. Following�a contentious weekend
of negotiations in which wealthy governments attempted to weaken statements
about green financing for low-income nations and fossil fuel-producing
countries objected to unequivocal language about the need to quickly eliminate
coal, oil, and gas extraction, the IPCC document was published several hours
later than expected.
As Scientist Rebellion, an international alliance of academics who are
advocating for systemic political and economic changes in line with scientific
findings, said in a statement the next day, "Despite the escalating climate
emergency and the total absence of emissions cuts, the framing of the final
version of the SPM is still alarmingly reserved, docile, and conservative."
"The IPCC [has] avoided naming the major culprits for 30 years, which is one
reason for the absence of real emissions cuts," the group added. "Facts
detailing the complicity of the world's richest countries in fueling the
climate crisis have been watered down by the IPCC's political review process."
[For more on the Scientist Rebellion statement and direct action, see
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/04/06/rebellious-climate-scientists-have-message-humanity-mobilize-mobilize-mobilize.]
For a wide selection of resources for students and teachers teaching about the crisis, see https://www.zinnedproject.org/campaigns/teach-climate-justice
Additional recent articles of related interest are listed below at the end of this Bulletin.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate and the environment, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Editor's Picks
[This section is for links to additional updates and resources picked by AfricaFocus editor William Minter as of likely interest to readers.]
Guest Column by Daniel Volman published earlier this week
�Russia and China and Biden's Security Policy toward Africa
https://allafrica.com/stories/202204190001.html
Just weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March, General Stephen J.
Townsend - commander of the U.S. Africa Command, known as Africom - testified
before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. . . . Townsend told
the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2022 that his number one concern �is
ensuring that the U.S. maintains strategic access and influence, and I think,
for me, the primary concerns there are China, and to a little lesser degree,
Russia.�
Third Age: Substack Blog by Cathy Sunshine
This Substack blog, launched in November 2021 by my wife Cathy Sunshine,
covers a wide range of topics in accessible and well-crafted short posts. It
is �a reflection on the political and the personal for women in life�s third
age.� The topics range from observations about our neighborhood to current
progressive electoral activism to reflections on her years in Senegal and
Niger in the 1970s.
https://thirdage.substack.com/
Coming up tomorrow is an interview with our friend Daphne Muse
entitled �5,000 letters: Daphne Muse�s collection reflects five decades of
Black lives and cultures.�
For a sampling of earlier posts, check these out.
https://thirdage.substack.com/p/buy-nothing-read-everything?s=w
https://thirdage.substack.com/p/introducing-nope?s=w
https://thirdage.substack.com/p/silver-and-saddles?s=w
https://thirdage.substack.com/p/pathways-to-activism?s=w
https://thirdage.substack.com/p/virginias-election-notes-from-the?s=w
AI�s data hunger is consuming the world
Introduction and case studies on South Africa and Venezuela are the first in a
new MIT Technology Review series on how the AI industry is getting richer by
retreading the old paths of colonial extraction and exploitation.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/19/1049592/artificial-intelligence-colonialism/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/19/1049996/south-africa-ai-surveillance-digital-apartheid/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/20/1050392/ai-industry-appen-scale-data-labels/
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
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Why Is the U.N.�s Climate Panel Tiptoeing Around Fossil Fuels?
The full report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need to stop burning fossil fuels right now. But that reality was excluded from a summary for the people who need to hear it most: policymakers.
by Kate Aronoff
https://twitter.com/KateAronoff
https://newrepublic.com/authors/kate-aronoff
Between the year when Robert Pattinson starred in�The Twilight Saga: Eclipse�and the year he starred in�The Lighthouse,�the planet emitted an amount of carbon dioxide that�if it�s emitted again�will likely push it to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). So in the time it takes another teen heartthrob to transform into a rakish indie darling, the world may have sped past the threshold between life and death for the people and places already bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. That�s one takeaway from the�latest installment�of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change�s Sixth Assessment Report, dealing with climate mitigation.
But there�s a distinction between what�s in the full, nearly 3,000-page report
crafted from 18,000 peer-reviewed papers by the IPCC�s Working Group III and
what made it into the 63-page Summary for Policymakers. Specifically, you�d be
hard pressed to find direct language about the need to phase out coal, oil,
and gas in the synopsis account, gruelingly edited by government
representatives during the longest approval plenary in IPCC history.
The full report paints a stark picture of the consequences of continued fossil
fuel use: �If existing fossil-fuel infrastructure would continue to be
operated as historically, they would entail CO2 emissions exceeding the carbon
budget for 1.5�C.� Authors add that 30, 50, and 80 percent of proven oil, gas,
and coal reserves (respectively) must remain unburned to limit warming to two
degrees Celsius, and �significantly more� to limit warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius. Reaching that goal, they add, would entail closing coal- and gas-
fired power plants 30 years ahead of schedule. The report cites a 2018 study
finding that even if every pipeline currently planned were canceled, one-fifth
of existing fossil fueled generation capacity would still need to be shut
down, as well.
The Summary for Policymakers includes some references to that. Limiting
warming to two degrees, it notes, could wipe out between $1 and $4 trillion
worth of fossil fuel assets by 2050 and �significantly more� to meet a 1.5
degree goal. Either �will leave a substantial amount of fossil fuels unburned
and could strand considerable fossil fuel infrastructure,� per the summary.
But the next sentence provides a convenient out: �Depending on its
availability, [carbon capture and sequestration] could allow fossil fuels to
be used longer, reducing stranded assets.� As in other sections, the Summary
for Policymakers envisions a rosier picture for coal, oil, and gas than the
report itself.
In the Monday press conference announcing the report, the person who most clearly urged countries to ditch fossil fuels was U.N. Secretary General Ant�nio Guterres. �Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries increasing the production of fossil fuels,� he said in opening remarks. �Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.� But amid rising gas prices and Russia�s war in Ukraine, the United States and the European Union�governments that should be transitioning the fastest�are investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure that could lock in emissions for decades to come. As the report was released Monday, progressive Democrats were�coming around�to the idea of boosting fossil fuel production and infrastructure, too, in order to strike a deal for temporary clean-energy tax credits with Senator Joe Manchin.
Like energy policy in the U.S., the IPCC�s summaries for policymakers are subject to political pressures from fossil fuel interests. Summaries are initially drafted in bite-size 300-word increments by subject-area experts who then fight for space about what can be included. In the two weeks before the report is released, governmental delegations go line by line through that text and negotiate over what gets included and what doesn�t. As a result of haggling by some of the world�s biggest polluters, the most recent summary presents a broad and euphemistic menu of routes toward a �substantial reduction in fossil fuel use,� many of which involve technologies that remain infeasible. For example, this most recent summary heavily emphasizes carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, arguing that �decommissioning and reduced utilization of existing fossil fuel based power sector infrastructure, retrofitting existing installations with CCS, switches to low carbon fuels and cancellation of new coal installations without CCS are major options� for meeting emissions targets. That�s despite abundant evidence that carbon capture isn�t as�easy�or as�effective�as many want it to be.
So which governments pushed for these modifications? �To me the extremes are the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and India,� someone involved in drafting the report who attended the approval plenary and asked to remain anonymous told me. Saudi Arabia was particularly active this year, pushing to excise clear language about phasing out fossil fuels and criticisms of carbon dioxide removal. As Climate Home News�s Chlo� Farand�reported, the oil-exporting country fought to include several references to commercially unproven technologies that could extend the life of coal, oil, and gas assets. �The Saudis tried to remove the word �carbon� from almost all sections� and replace it with �greenhouse gases,� the source said.
Another notable wording tweak involves the word �unabated,� as in �unabated� coal or gas-fired power plants that don�t capture some segment of the emissions they produce. The word �unabated� appears sporadically in the full report and not at all in the 145-page technical summary. It�s foregrounded in the Summary for Policymakers, however, where references to the need to phase out fossil fuels were qualified to name only �unabated� fossil fuels or those without CCS as the problem. Critics argue that leaves the door open to continued fossil fuel development, by implying that existing and new infrastructure can be easily outfitted with technology that�per the IPCC�s definition�eliminates at least 90 percent of its carbon emissions. These capacities don�t yet exist at any meaningful scale, and fossil fuel�producing governments have�consistently�fought to exclude recognition of the considerable challenges they face from the summary; only one sentence on this appeared in its final version, although there�s an extended discussion about it in the full text.
Experts caution that the use of negative emissions technologies, while very
likely necessary, should be limited mostly to industrial sectors in which low-
carbon alternatives are far off, like steel and cement. In the power sector,
renewables are much cheaper and more viable options for decarbonization. �That
word [�unabated�] is inserted precisely to perpetuate the myth that the world
still can keep using fossil fuels without harming people and the planet, which
doesn�t square with the science,� said Nikki Reisch, director of the Climate
and Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law.
The U.S. sent a large delegation to negotiate the Summary for Policymakers text, led by the State Department and including veteran U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiator Trigg Talley and Foreign Affairs Officer Farhan Akhtar. Consistent with U.S. positions in U.N. climate talks, where the U.S. has�tried�to keep talk of wealthy nations� responsibility for the climate crisis off the table, this delegation sought to remove distinctions between developed and developing nations, as well as references to the $100 billion in climate finance rich countries have yet to furnish. A�graphic�illustrating the gap between provided and pledged financing was stripped out of the summary after being included in an earlier draft, Farand reported.
Insiders say the U.S. delegation was relatively quiet about fossil fuels in
this round of summary editing but didn�t seem to have raised many objections
to the changes pushed by Saudi Arabia. �The U.S. is very pushy for
technological solutions,� the source said. �Per capita emissions are very high
in the U.S. They don�t want wording that shows this kind of thing.�
Focusing solely on the debates about the Summary for Policymakers, though, can
overlook longer-standing challenges within the IPCC process itself. Less than
a third of Working Group III members in this assessment round, for instance,
are women, and representation is weighted heavily toward academics from rich
nations. �It�s very North-centric; Anglo-Saxon white males,� the source said.
Compounding those issues is the fact that IPCC proceedings take place almost
entirely in English. The approval plenary for the Summary for
Policymakers�translated into �four or five languages,� the source said�was the
first time any translation support had been provided. That�s an issue, as
well, for certain subfields where academic literature isn�t primarily written
in English.
There are also structural difficulties that have less to do with the IPCC process itself than the challenges of academic research. Some�Working Group III�authors and editors are directly employed either by industry-friendly groups or actual fossil fuel companies, like Saudi Aramco, Chevron, and the International Chamber of Commerce. But required conflict-of-interest disclosures don�t preclude industry funding for academic research, which can inform both authors� perspectives and the research compiled in the report. Scientists have long�criticized�the fact that the scenarios the IPCC considers place an outsize emphasis on negative emissions technologies. Economists also proliferate in Working Group III, coming from a field that�s�notoriously exclusionary�and�hostile�to new thinking and frequently�criticized�for taking a�narrow approach�to the climate crisis that prioritizes economic growth above all else. The IPCC, the source said, is �only a place where you summarize the literature. If the vast majority of the research is neoliberal thinking, then this is what is reported in the IPCC. It�s not the IPCC�s fault.�
As war rages on in Europe, the IPCC�s report barely registered. One of the world�s biggest emitters�the United States�is moving in the opposite direction from the IPCC�s recommendations. Over the last few weeks, the White House has indicated that it wants to have two contradictory things: permanently low gas prices and a world where warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Last week Biden announced that he�ll release one million barrels per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months, a move that will allow the administration to boost production by guaranteeing that it will purchase barrels from drillers to refill the SPR at more stable prices than they can fetch on the market. He also said he�d like to fine producers who aren�t drilling faster. �I don�t think the goals are mutually exclusive,� EPA head Michael Regan said�recently�of boosting oil production and Biden�s climate goals. The IPCC�s latest report strongly suggests that they are.
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