ETC Deputy Director Mike Hemsley spent four busy days at Climate Week NYC, attending more than 20 events and meeting many ETC members along the way (including SSE, National Grid, Renew, RMI, European Climate Foundation, Octopus Energy, WRI, We Mean Business and Shell). Some highlights and insights from the week:
At the start of the week, Mike participated in the Global Renewables Summit, joining a roundtable of experts who discussed speeding up grid permitting and renewables integration. At COP28, countries committed to tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. The immediate challenge following that commitment, is how to scale up of grid infrastructure to support the growth of wind, solar and other clean technologies. ETC highlighted the urgent need to build and optimise in a briefing last month.
On Tuesday, the Mission 2025 coalition hosted by Global Optimism hosted a flagship event – a live recording of their Outrage + Optimism podcast. The event marked a renewed call from the partnership of now over 70 industry organisations, formally asking governments to set investment-positive policies that will give private capital the confidence to invest at scale in the energy transition. The Mission 2025 coalition builds on ETC analysis on setting higher ambition NDCs and Financing the Transition – we wrote a blog about it here.
However, the world won’t build low-carbon hydrogen/steel/cement facilities unless we get offtake agreements in place first. The ambition from key players in the past few years is struggling to translate into large scale progress on the ground (with SSAB being a positive exception). However, there are some brilliant ideas in this space, which, given a boost, could deliver the heavy industrial transition we need. For example, Systemiq’s event in partnership with the Mission Possible Partnership and RMI, highlighted “Green Market Makers” like the H2Global Foundation, which accelerates investment and construction of industrial-scale hydrogen production facilities and supply chains. Governments and private sector companies have a considerable opportunity now to make purchase decisions that ensure tomorrow’s buildings and infrastructure are built with low-carbon materials.
Discussions in the energy efficiency debate range from broad commitments such as “doubling energy intensity improvements” made at COP28, to specifics like creating lightweight aircraft alloys to reduce fuel used by airplanes. There is not as much transparency regarding progress in efficiency improvements, compared with building renewable capacity. At a well attended event during climate week, Jon Creyts, CEO of RMI and ETC Commissioner, as well as colleagues from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shed light in this area with their impactful data highlighting: the inherent waste in today’s fossil fuels systems (75% of a fossil cars’ energy is lost to heat) and emphasising that electrification improves efficiency.
On Wednesday, Mike attended the Business Sweden roundtable, “Decarbonizing cities – addressing emissions from energy, transport, and industry” that highlighted the importance of adopting innovative transport solutions and renewable energy solutions to provide low-carbon energy consumption in cities. The roundtable was also attended by other industry experts including Mattias Frumerie (UN Climate Change), Henrik Tegnér (AFRY), and ETC member Martin Pei (SSAB), among others.
Carbon markets was another key topic during the week, across sessions led by the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) and The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and Global Carbon Market Utility (GCMU). Amidst widespread scrutiny over the past few years, the foundations of a credible carbon market appear to be being reestablished on both supply and demand sides. While increased corporate action will help, regulation is likely necessary for further scaling
Finally, there was surprisingly little talk around fossil fuel phase down, despite (or perhaps because of) last year’s landmark agreement at COP28. Collectively we need to ensure that agreement is the start, not the end, of focused engagement and responsible action in this area.