The recent climate conference in Glasgow brought contested results. For a few it could be interpretated as an outright success, for many it brought mixed results, but some even expressed the opinion, that “bankers hijacked the climate talks”. A comment in the New York Times drew that conclusion from the fact, that many finance and businesspeople were active at the conference. One of them is Mark Carney, a former private banker, and a former governor of the Bank of Canada and of the Bank of England. He is now United Nations special envoy for climate change and finance. His job is to direct financial means, predominantly out of a targeted fund of $130 into the “right” projects. One can - and I would agree - also interpret the presence of many business and finance people positively, as a sign of their support and engagement. But it must be clear, that only results count and not promises.
Anyway, the spending of private investors cannot compensate the lack of public funds which were promised but not spent in the last years. Unfortunately, at Glasgow the richer countries were not ready to increase the amount they would spend in order to help poorer countries in their energy transition. This money must not be seen as voluntary subsidy. It could anyway only partially compensate the damage done to our common world especially to the poorer part by the industrial countries.
For Klaas Lenarts and Simone Lapietra in their Blog: “Goodby Glasgow: what’s next for global change?” this attitude of the richer nations is the “greatest source of frustration”. They conclude: “Rich nations have a clear responsibility in the years ahead: make good on their $100 billion climate finance commitment to support developing countries and act to protect vulnerable communities. This is the key to giving substance to the Paris Agreement’s core principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and to ensure international justice.”
In past centuries colonialism did a huge damage to the “underdeveloped” parts of our globe. The poorer and colonized parts nourished the richer part and promoted an economic development which was based on using hydrocarbons for winning the necessary energy. Consequently, the big powers tried to have direct or indirect control of the relevant regions with its resources. Mostly companies from the US, United Kingdom and France guaranteed the continues flow of oil and gas. Only later Soviet/Russian companies followed. As Thomas Friedman wrote recently in the Financial Times: “For years, the rule and incentives of capitalism enabled oil and gas companies to extract fossil fuels - and industries to use them - without paying the true cost of the damage they were causing.”
Things will change with an energy transition away from hydrocarbons. But it seems that at least for now the West is not ready to accept the necessary geopolitical power shifts - at least not in the direction of poorer countries. And that, although some of these countries have resources, like rare earths, which are vital for a transition towards renewable energy. These countries are located in South America but especially in Africa.
Africa
Let us look to Africa as representative of the poorer part of our world. We can assume, that Sub-Saharan Africa is only contributing 2 to 3% to the global greenhouse emissions. But it is suffering a lot from the high emissions of the “developed” world. For example, four of the worst climate disasters in 2021 occurred in Africa. In addition, several African countries rely on oil, gas and even coal for energy production and for export. At the same time the majority of its population lacks access to electricity and basic energy for cooking.
A recent statistic published by UNDP shows a clear correlation between the Ecological Footprint and the Human Development Index. Most of the African countries are at the low end of human development and have a low ecological footprint. The richer countries, especially of the European Union, are ranking at the upper end of the Human Development Index (HDI) and have also a high ecological footprint. What we need in Africa is an energy transition towards renewables and therefore keeping a low footprint but parallel to it an upward climbing on the Human Development Index.
A special task in the framework of the necessary energy transition is given for South Africa. According to its 2019 Integrated Resource Plan it intends to build another 1,500MW of coal capacity. But already now South Africa is the 12th biggest greenhouse gas emitter although it ranks only at number 38 in per capita terms. Fortunately, South Africa got clear promises for support for its energy transition.
But South Africa is not the only country where new coal plants are planned. With China saying it will no longer support coal plants overseas some of these projects will not be realized. But for those countries who produce hydrocarbons the global energy transition will result in a twofold hardship. They have to adapt and transform their domestic energy system, while they must extend the supply of sustainable energy to their population. But at the same time, they lose income if they can no longer sell their hydrocarbons, because of reduced global demand.
In view of these enormous challenges for a poor continent like Africa with an extremely small contribution to global temperature rise, the reluctance of the richer countries to support their energy transition is especially deplorable. As Jeffrey Ball wrote recently in the New York Times – perhaps somewhat exaggeratingly:” Curbing climate change is, in the most fundamental sense, not about innovating technology or changing morality. It is about moving money.” And there was not enough money moved in Glasgow.
Africa is still a poor continent, which obviously has potential for extending their renewable energy production but has at the same time the nearly impossible task to create adequate jobs for its growing young population. The rich world complains about the danger of mass migration – although the vast majority migrate inside Africa itself – and at the same time, it rejects to help Africa and other regions who would deserve it. The result could be that the push factor in migration may be increasing, but that new conflicts may appear. Some terrorist groups are only waiting to use these conflicts for their purposes. Of course, slowing the energy transition process is not the only solution, but more financial support can help to avoid new crises.
In the meantime, we should not look only to the energy transition. As the African activist from Uganda, Vanessa Nakate rightly points out, also Africa has its vulnerable forests and lake sites. She draws the attention of Africans and people of the rest of the world alike, to the deforestation in the Congo Basin: “The Congo Basin rain forest ecosystem, sometimes called the world’s “second lung”, is, like the Amazon, rich in biodiversity. It’s also vital as a global carbon sink, sequestering 600 million metric tons more carbon per year than it emits.” Vanessa Nakate also draws our attention to the ecological crisis in Lake Chad Basin. There, decreasing rainfall and increasing temperature are destroying the economic livelihood of an increasing number of people and consecutively will result in new migration and conflict.
The north of Africa is in some way in a similar position as other African countries with hydrocarbon resources. But some of them already took steps towards investments into renewals. Partly they cooperate with Arab countries from the Middle East and even Israel. In the MENA region one finds also investments using hydrocarbons but also the sun for producing hydrogen and for desalination. That region could show an exemplary process of energy transition. One must add, it is also necessary because many of these countries rely too much on hydrocarbons. On the other hand, most of these countries have earned a lot out of exporting oil and gas in the last, money they can use now for the transition process. And they can even support countries without hydrocarbon resources.
But the North African region is also able to offer a lot of solar energy. Together with investments from Europe it could develop to an energy production hub - exporting sustainable energy to African countries and Europe alike. Some experts work already on a new start for desertec – a project in that direction which failed also because it was constructed with too much European interests in mind.
What Africa has in addition to a lot of sun, is resources like cobalt (predominantly from Congo) which is vital for today’s battery production. And batteries are important to sustain a viable energy system based on renewables, like wind and sun. To use wind and solar power adequately one needs possibilities to save energy. The time of energy production is often quite different from the time of using it - especially with fluctuating energy flows from wind and sun. Of course, electric mobility is very much depending on advanced battery technologies. There is lot of research done in order to develop batteries which are not as much dependent on cobalt and other rare materials as now, but we are far from technologies which are satisfying our needs. Europe is very strongly working to be in the front of decarbonization and the energy transition. However, it is lacking basic materials to implement its aims. For the moment it seems they need qualified labor, which could also come from Africa in a well-regulated system of circular migration.
Bruno Macaes in his „ Geopolitics for the End Time - From the Pandemic to the Climate Crisis “rightly argues for a much more active European Union in its relations to Africa. It could be organized in a win-win situation, Europe getting the resources for its energy transition and Africa getting new technologies and adequate income. A country which is much more engaged in this respect is China. I would not support the way China is exploiting some mines and miners, but strategically China surpassed the EU and the US in preparing itself for the energy transition by securing the necessary supplies.
China and India
Besides the industrial world, especially USA and EU, China and India are the big polluters – not per capita but because of the size of their population. Both countries declined to make strong promises concerning getting out of coal. But one can understand that it is not easy for them in view of the heavy reliance on coal for their development. Therefore, China and India could or would not join forty other countries in Glasgow on a pledge to phase out coal. At least China has promised to stop the building/financing of new coal plants abroad and has clear targets for reducing the reliance on coal. For India, especially for certain regions, the reliance on coal is still a major factor of income for the owners of the mines, the workers in these mines, the railways transporting the coal etc.
But at least prime-minister Modi was present at Glasgow. Now the big question is how India can lift its population out of poverty without taking the same polluting path as China or the West did in the past. As mentioned above, the rich countries pledged support for South Africa’s transition, but similar support would be necessary for India.
The Chinese President and party leader Xi Jinping did not come to Glasgow, but China and the US agreed to cooperate on climate change – alas without clear objectives for that cooperation. Generally, China wants to reach the peak emission point in 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. These are challenging targets but not impossible to reach. It seems that India and China recognize the importance of a progressive climate policy and do not see it as an instrument to weaken their development path. In the long run it will help them to reach a sustainable development, but the transition phase will not be easy.
For Bruno Macaes China is still using the old resources like coal to guarantee that the energy transition can be organized smoothly without too many disturbances for the economy and its citizens who long for economic and social progress in their daily life. “ The fact that China has continued to invest in coal power - the country built over three times as much coal plant capacity as the rest of the world in 2020 - may seem at odds with its bold climate goals, but the contradiction disappears once we understand that what Chinese authorities envision is a diverse industrial base, where investment in emerging technologies can go together with less advanced sectors for as long as those remain marginally profitable. Rising concern for energy security provides a strong rationale for allowing some coal capacity expansion and restricting the growth of coal is far more of a political challenge than expanding renewables.”
Russia
President Putin was also not present in Glasgow. He belonged to the prominent absentees. Russia is in a critical situation. More and more reports show the fragile environmental situation especially in the permafrost regions with the danger of massive methane emissions. One principal challenge is the strong reliance of the Russian economy on oil and gas exports. Russia did not modernize and decarbonize its economy sufficiently. If the West, and especially the EU would push strongly and quickly for an energy transition into renewables, the demand for gas would decline. Additionally, any massive CO2 taxation with border adjustment measures could create problems for Russia. It would have to levy itself a CO2 tax to get rid of such a border taxation. Anyway, an increased global or at least European effort for reaching climate neutrality would force Russia to fasten not only its energy transition but generally the modernizing and decarbonizing of its economy. For Russia the critical challenge is the export and the domestic use of oil and gas and not so much the use of coal as for China. Unfortunately, the whole mindset seems not yet going into the direction of a quick decarbonization.
European Union
The European Union - and equally the United States with President Biden - is eager to advance the decarbonization of its economy. The recent formed tripartite coalition in Germany presents probably the most progressive program in this respect. If it will be successful, it can show the way forward and bring the EU into a lead position. But, of course, there are also obstacles. As mentioned above one issue is the availability of the necessary resources. The EU which is only slowly starting to think and act geopolitically, could suffer from this deficiency. Another challenge is research and innovation. The success of decarbonization depends on quick developments of new technologies - for example for the production of hydrogen and for sustainable batteries. Then there is the question of resistance of the citizens. If the energy transition leads to higher prices, which are not compensated enough by subsidies for lower and median income groups, protests will challenge the transition process. There are anyway still climate deniers, also in Europe. This resistance could be enhanced if the lack of gas would lead to electricity blackouts.
The climate policy targets decided by the European Union and countries like Germany and Austria show the way forward. But the programs do not mean an easy implementation. Besides, the above-mentioned resistance of principal opponents or skeptics, there is also opposition of some supporters. We still often see opposition against concrete projects of hydroelectric power stations, against the dedication of land for solar panels and against wind farms. Sometimes it is a fight between climate actions and the preservation of the natural environment. The European Union and its member countries need a well-considered strategy to realize its climate aims. It needs a stronger geopolitical as well as a convincing domestic strategy. As we saw with Covid-19 and the vaccination resistance, even the implementation of a viable public health strategy is not so easy. First the European Union was blamed for the lack of vaccines. And then in many countries - even in those who complained about having insufficient vaccines - the vaccination rate was far below the necessary threshold.
Geopolitics get another meaning
Here is another factor which is relevant for fighting the Covid pandemic and equally for fighting climate change. The success of these fights do not only depend on successes at home. If vaccinations are far below the targets for eliminating the virus in many countries around the globe. It will result in many variants of the virus which spreads also into countries with a relative high vaccination level. The same is true for climate policies. Whatever the European countries achieve, the big polluters from the US to China must be successful in fighting climate change too. So, both the fight against Corona and the fight against climate change must be organized globally. Geopolitics today does not mean that one must beat the others but that besides doing one’s homework there must be a global and common effort. The richer countries must support the poorer regions in the framework of this global efforts. Unfortunately, COP26 did not bring enough progress in that direction. A principal agreement between the US and China is helpful, but not enough. Especially the lack of commitment of the richer part to support the decarbonization of the poorer countries is a big disappointment.
A last time I want to cite Bruno Macaes: “If the climate crisis will inaugurate a new economic and technological model, the last thing we should expect is that the transition will be a peaceful one. What history teaches us is that moments of transition are understood by state actors as a threat and an opportunity, rare moments when new orders may be created, and new states may ascend to the commanding heights.” But what I want to add is that the Corona crisis and the climate challenges teaches us, that the traditional geopolitical approach trying to gain supremacy over the others must fail. The virus and the climate change can only be fought by joint efforts. All countries and regions should compete by doing its best in finding solutions quickly – being first has some transitional advantages. But in the end of the day, each and every one must catch up and contribute to the common fight. That is new meaning of geopolitics. The EU should invite all countries to accept that new interpretation.
Dr. Hannes Swoboda, President of the International Institute for Peace (IP), started his career in urban politics in Vienna and was elected member of the European Parliament in 1996. He was Vice President of the Social Democrat Group until 2012 und then President until 2014. He was particularly engaged in foreign, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Swoboda is also President of the Vienna Institute for International Economics, the Centre of Architecture, the University for Applied Science - Campus Vienna, and the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute.