By Joe Lo

The Russian government’s campaign for endorsement of “transitional fuels” succeeded at the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai.

Russia, the world’s second biggest gas producer, told the United Nations back in February that “natural gas as a transitional fuel… can be used for [emission-cutting] purposes” and this should be recognised at Cop28.

While the final Cop28 agreement does not specifically mention gas, it “recognizes that transitional fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition while ensuring energy security”.

It also calls on governments to transition away from fossil fuels in their energy systems so as to achieve net zero by 2050.

Diann Black-Layne from Antigua and Barbuda told the closing meeting of Cop28 that the “transitional fuel” language “is a dangerous loophole”. Coal, oil and gas are all fossil fuels and “we need to transition away from them,” she said.

But Barbados’s climate envoy Avinash Persaud later told Climate Home: “If you actually think about transitioning grids, transition fuels would help to transition with the lowest emissions. You can’t flip a switch and so in the mean time half switch. The challenge is to make sure that the slip road doesn’t become a parking lot.”

Persaud said that “more than a few” countries had supported the language “at some level and at varying degrees”. Another negotiator agreed it “wasn’t just Russia”.

Last-minute addition

Ahead of Cop28, governments and other organisations told a UN panel what they wanted to do to put the world on track to meet its climate goals, in a process known as the global stocktake.

A team of technical experts summarised all the submissions in October. The head of UN climate change, Simon Stiell, called for a “course correction”.

The technical summary included a line which called on governments to “recognise role of natural gas as an efficient transitional fuel”.

At Cop28, a leaked recording heard by Climate Home News shows a Russian negotiator said that ” we suggest emphasising the role of fuels with low-carbon footprint in particular natural gas – that’s transitional fuels and that enables efficient greenhouse gas reductions”.

The UAE Presidency put together an initial 27-page document which included the language which made it into the final text, dropping the mention of gas but referring to “transitional fuels”.

Like many other parts of this document, it included an alternative option of no text. Three days later, after talking to governments, the UAE Presidency dropped it from their next version of the Dubai deal.

With all the attention on the broader issue of fossil fuel phase-out, this language was little noticed or commented on – either in the press or by negotiators.

It stayed off the radar until the scheduled end date for Cop28, 12 December. It appeared in a draft text, according to a source who saw the text, time-stamped 8pm that night.

But some negotiators didn’t see it until the text was published at 7am the following morning. Four hours later, the closing plenary meeting began and within minutes it had been approved.

‘An honest paragraph’

The strongest supporters of anti-fossil fuel language at Cop28 were developed nations, particularly the European Union, and small islands.

But on gas, developed countries did not want to resist, and small islands were still in a separate meeting room discussing the text when the decision was made.

Speaking to press shortly afterwards, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the EU delegation had not had much time to discuss the text.

But, she said through a translator, “for me it is really an honest paragraph”. She said Germany and the EU have been accused of hypocrisy at previous Cops for continuing to use gas while asking other countries to move to renewables.

“We wanted to show that this does not happen from one day for another but it will happen slowly, slowly, slowly,” she said. Gas is “a bridge”, she said, and “every bridge has an end”.

Kaveh Guilanpour, from the Center for Climate and Clean Energy Solutions, said he’d rather the language had not been there “but in many ways its consistent with what lot of countries and regions are actually doing”.

The day before Cop28 closed, Brazil auctioned 193 oil and gas blocks. On the day it closed, the Italian export credit agency lent €400m ($436m) to a firm to supply Italy with gas. The day after, the board of a European public bank decidedto keep lending to gas pipelines and power plants.

Small islands not there

The negotiating group for 39 small, developing island states (Aosis) was most likely to object to that language.

But, having seen the final text at 7am, when the plenary started they were still frantically discussing whether to support it or not.

As they entered the room with their comments on the text in hand, the room was already standing to applaud Cop28 president Sultan Al-Jaber’s announcement that it had been adopted.

Their lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen from Samoa took the microphone to say she “was a little confused about what happened”.

Delivering her prepared remarks, she said that because of the transitional fuels language – and other issues – that the “course correction has not been secured”.

“We have made incremental advancements over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step change,” she said.

To a standing ovation, she said the text includes a “litany of loopholes” for carbon capture and on the removal of fossil fuel subsidies.

This article was updated on 16/12/23 to include the leaked recording of the Russian negotiator

 

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/12/15/how-russia-won-a-dangerous-loophole-for-fossil-gas-at-cop28/

 

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For a continent so dependent on specific trade routes, Europe has short-sightedly used sanctions as a weapon against nations otherwise able to host alternative trade routes, hurting itself in the process, a consultant told Sputnik.

Recently, the Yemeni Shiiite militant group Ansarallah, which controls most of Yemen, have declared that Israel-linked ships will not be allowed to pass the Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Yemen and the Indian Ocean beyond. Other ships, they said, will still have free passage.

However, in response to the Yemeni declaration and to news that some ships with tenuous links to Israel had also been attacked, several major shipping companies, including Maersk, Hapag Lloyd, MSC, and oil giant BP have decided to stop using the waterway entirely.

Some 12% of seaborne petroleum and 8% of liquified natural gas (LNG) trade pass through the strait every year, part of $700 billion in annual trade that uses the waterway.

The anti-Israel blockade is part of Ansarallah’s response to the Israeli bombing campaign and invasion of the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 20,000 people since early October and displaced almost the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians. The group has also fired ballistic missiles at the southern Israeli city of Eilat.

In response to Ansarallah’s declaration, the Pentagon announced on Monday the creation of a multinational task force dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian to secure Red Sea trade for Israeli ships and restore the confidence of other cargo vessels to use the waterway. The task force includes the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain, as well as the US.

The US has long opposed the rise of Ansarallah, taking part in the Saudi-led coalition war against the group that killed a quarter-million people in Yemen beginning in 2015 and devastated what was already one of the world’s poorest countries. The UN brokered a ceasefire last year, but talks on a more permanent peace and to establish the legitimate government of Yemen have been slow-going.

Paul Goncharoff, a businessman and chief manager of consulting firm Goncharoff, LLC, told Sputnik on Tuesday that “Father Christmas may not arrive” on time in the European Union this year, as the West has already antagonized all of the nations through which an alternative trade corridor might run.

He said the situation in the Red Sea “is extremely serious and has already delayed shipments from Asia to Europe for the Christmas Festive season,” he observed. “It impacts many delivery companies - a lot of Europeans will find their Christmas and New Year presents delayed this year, likewise for regular deliveries. Perishable items will be especially affected. There are likely to be significant insurance claims.”

Goncharoff said that redirecting freight traffic from the Red Sea to other routes would take time and not solve the present problem of delays.

 

 

“Europe has blocked routes via Russia, and the alternative INSTC [International North-South Transport Corridor] is not fully ready. Shipments around the Cape [of Good Hope] take rather longer and will not arrive until well after Christmas. As this is a seasonal market, many of these deliveries will lose their deadlines. Christmas Day is next Monday, deliveries cannot be made in time for that timescale.”

 

“The US and EU at present have no other alternatives as they have sanctioned Russia and Iran. They could have diverted ships via the Gulf and north via Iran, and then via Azerbaijan and Turkey to Europe's Black Sea Ports - however that route is now cut off. Or, they could have sent via Iran to Russia at Astrakhan and then over to the Baltic States, Poland and Belarus, but these borders are now closed to Russian and Belarussian traffic,” he explained.

Goncharoff said that compared to the March 2021 grounding of the container ship Ever Given in the Suez Canal for six days, the present situation “will have a longer and possibly long-term impact.”

 

 

“The Ever Given situation was just one ship, this situation is an ongoing conflict. Unless it is resolved this could take weeks or even months to resolve,” he said.

 

“Russia could play a role; however, its access to ports to Europe are sanctioned,” he noted. “In cutting the country off, the EU has limited their supply chains. When those come under unforeseen stress, the perils of the EU having limited access becomes apparent. It is a classic example of how the EU has not fully comprehended the impact of sanctions that they have imposed. Now it means that Father Christmas may either not arrive, or be delayed this year, at least in the UK and Europe.”

 

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231219/father-christmas-may-be-delayed-wests-antagonism-of-russia-iran-block-red-sea-alternatives-1115683219.html

 

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