G7 countries to stop funding fossil fuel development overseas

Ministers from world’s biggest economies reach agreement that could shift estimated $33bn a year to clean energy sources

The world’s biggest economies are to stop funding any overseas fossil fuel development from the end of this year, in a move likely to choke off some of the investment in “carbon bombs” that are imperilling efforts to meet the world’s climate targets.

The agreement could shift about $33bn (£26bn) a year from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, according to analysts’ estimates.

The energy and environment ministers from all G7 countries agreed at a meeting in Berlin on Friday to end taxpayer funding for oil, gas and coal projects overseas. The member countries are Japan – which held firm against such a pledge before last year’s Cop26 climate summit – the UK, the US, Canada, Italy, France and this year’s host country, Germany.

Alok Sharma, the British president of Cop26, said the commitment showed, in the context of the Ukraine war and high prices of fossil fuels, that the transition to clean energy was more important than ever. “We are united in the view that climate and environment security are absolutely synonymous with energy and national security and I cannot overstate that. Solving the global energy crisis and the chronic climate crisis requires the same solution – it’s about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels as part of a managed transition.”

Laurie van der Burg, a campaign co-manager at the green group Oil Change International, said: “The G7 committing to end public finance for fossil fuels and shift it to clean [energy] is a massive win. This is a timely reconfirmation [amid the Ukraine war] that the most viable pathway to energy security is prioritising public finance for clean energy. These promises should now urgently be turned into action.”

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Fishing industry still ‘bulldozing’ seabed in 90% of UK marine protected areas

New data shows ‘mystifying’ lack of progress in post-Brexit pledge to curb bottom-trawling, two years after landmark legislation

More than 90% of Britain’s offshore marine protected areas are still being bottom-trawled and dredged, two years after analysis of the extent of destructive fishing exposed them as “paper parks”, according to data shared with the Guardian. The UK’s network of marine parks, set up to safeguard vulnerable areas of the seabed and marine life, is a cornerstone of the government’s target to protect 30% of ocean biodiversity by 2030. But analysis of fishing vessel tracking data from Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and Oceana, a conservation NGO, found that fishing with bottom-towed gear took place last year on 58 out of 64 offshore “benthic” MPAs, which aim to protect species that live on the seabed. A total of 1,604 vessels, including industrial boats, spent 132,267 fishing hours in these MPAs in the UK, it found. Vessels with bottom-towed gear – the most destructive type of fishing, involving dragging weighted nets across sea floor habitats – spent at least 31,854 hours in MPAs in 2021. This is likely to be an underestimate, Oceana said, as it could only identify gear type for 837 boats, just over half of those detected, due to a lack of publicly available data. The vast majority were industrial vessels, it said.

Greenhouse gas removal ‘not a silver bullet to achieve net zero’

UK scientists say carbon capture is ‘hard and expensive’ and focus must be on reducing emissions

Many of the UK’s top scientists working on carbon capture technologies do not believe they will be developed and scaled up in time to reach net zero and limit global heating to 1.5C. Experts speaking at a Greenhouse Gas Removal Hub event in London warned that these techniques, including direct air capture, biofuels, biochar, afforestation and advanced weathering, are not a silver bullet and should make up just a fraction of the efforts to decarbonise. The researchers were polled by event organisers on whether they believed the carbon removal targets would be met. Of 114 scientists in the audience, 57% said they were “not confident” the UK would meet the 2030 goals in the net zero strategy of 5m tonnes of engineered greenhouse gas removal, and 30,000 hectares a year of tree planting; 25% said they were quite confident, and 11% said there was no chance. The scientists are taking part in a £70m government-funded competition to find the best ways to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. These technologies are due to begin removing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2030, with the hope being that the winning methods could be scaled up and ready for market in two years’ time.

The government appears, on the whole, to be confident that carbon capture methods will be developed fairly rapidly. The Department for Transport has stated, for example, that greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies will enable Britons to take “guilt-free flights” by the end of next year, but those involved in the programme were less optimistic. But when shown a press release from the government declaring that these technologies will enable net zero flights by 2023, Prof Mark Taylor, the deputy director of energy innovation at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), seemed sceptical. He told the Guardian: “No, that’s not the case. We’ve got to get people to believe this can work, but maybe that claim is a little bit cheeky.” Gideon Henderson, the chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said: “GGR is hard and expensive. And we cannot afford to see it as a surrogate to compensate for continued emissions in sectors that can be decarbonised. It is not an excuse not to decarbonise, so we must drive down emissions anyway.

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Worsening energy crisis a major opportunity for investors seeking to build long-term wealth

On Monday, the European Union agreed to forge ahead with a partial ban on Russian oil. The action forbids the purchase of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia delivered to member states by sea.

The global energy crisis will continue to deepen and should act as an alarm call now about the decent long-term future rewards in sustainable investments, says the CEO of a leading global financial giant. The analysis from Nigel Green, CEO and founder of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory, asset management and fintech organisations, comes amid a flurry of international energy concerns. On Monday, the European Union agreed to forge ahead with a partial ban on Russian oil. The action forbids the purchase of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia delivered to member states by sea.
 

It follows news that six million households face power blackouts over winter due to Russian threats that it will cut the EU’s gas supply, with the UK Government now drawing up plans for rationed electricity. Elsewhere, US oil inventories are already 14% below their five-year average; China – the world’s number two economy – has been battling its most severe energy crisis in a decade; and in South Africa, amongst other countries, there continues to be widespread rolling blackouts as supply falls behind demand. Green says, “The global energy crisis is only set to deepen. It’s not going away any time soon. The crunch was started by the world economy rebounding from the pandemic faster than was anticipated, bringing to the fore supply and infrastructure issues.”

“But the rebound’s impact isn’t the only reason for the international energy crisis we’re currently experiencing. Nor is the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which is slashing supply globally. Intrinsic demand is also surging due to a 1% rise per year in global population growth, plus the increase in wealth and consumption of the growing global middle class,” he adds.

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