GWPF Newsletter: China & India Demand $100 Billion For Climate Action On Eve Of UN Climate Summit

India's Share Of Total Global Primary Energy Demand Set To Double By 2040, Asia To Dominate World Economy

In this newsletter:

1. China And India Demand $100 Billion For Climate Action On Eve Of UN Climate Summit
Climate Home News, 18 September 2019
 
2. China’s New Climate Policy: Tackle Climate Change With Adaptation & Reforestation 
Reuters, 18 September 2019

 
3. India Kicks Climate Policy Into Long Grass: No Change Until 2023
The Times of India, 18 September 2019
 
4. India's Share Of Total Global Primary Energy Demand Set To Double By 2040, Asia To Dominate World Economy
Business Standard, 11 September 2019 
 
5. UN Bans Western Nations From Speaking At Its Climate Summit
Financial Times, 18 September 2019
 
6. Coal Is Fuelling China’s Data Center Boom
OilPrice.com, 14 September 2019 
 
7. Hail Shale: Over Half Of Global Gas Supply To Come From US By 2035: Mckinsey
Live Mint, 18 September 2019 
 
8. News Media’s Green PR Strategy To Scare A Billion People Ahead Of UN Climate Summit
NewsBusters, 17 September 2019 
 
9. Doomsdays That Didn’t Happen: Think Tank Compiles Decades’ Worth Of Dire Climate Predictions
Fox News, 18 September 2019 

Full details:

1. China And India Demand $100 Billion For Climate Action On Eve Of UN Climate Summit
Climate Home News, 18 September 2019

Asian superpowers demand billions in climate cash and claim that Western nations are historically responsible for climate change

 
India prime minister Narendra Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping (Photo: Russian president's office)

China and India demanded rich countries provide financial support for them to increase their climate plans, as leaders prepared to meet at a UN summit in New York.

The summit has been personally convened by UN secretary general António Guterres as a moment for political leaders to show their willingness to increase their climate plans and deepen the decarbonisation of their economies.

Guterres asked governments to come ready to announce the plans they will set next year.

But in separate statements published on Tuesday, the world’s first and fourth largest emitters put the onus on rich countries to fulfil their commitments to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 for developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change.

As the largest developing country, China “also enjoys the right to receive funds”, it in a statement published by the ministry of ecology and environment.

It said developed countries should “implement and strengthen” and “honour the commitment” to “support the developing world in addressing climate change”.

In its statement, India’s ministry of finance said its plan was set on a “best effort” basis and that “finance holds a key for all its actions”.

With uncertain finance and technology provision, “India can only aspire to implement the already promised climate actions”, the statement said. It added that India “may only be in a position to elaborate or clarify its post 2020 climate” plan at the summit.

Instead, India said will be “better placed” to “suitably recalibrate [its climate plan] through re-examination and improvement,” in 2023, when the next global stocktake to ramp up ambition is due to take place.

Full story
 
2. China’s New Climate Policy: Tackle Climate Change With Adaptation & Reforestation 
Reuters, 18 September 2019

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China said it will try to persuade other countries to support “nature-based solutions” to tackle the root causes of climate change, the country said in a position paper published ahead of a United Nations summit in New York.

As the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, China is set to garner attention at the U.N. Climate Action Summit due to start on Sept. 23, with environmental groups hoping it will deliver more ambitious pledges to tackle global temperature rises.

However, in a notice published on Tuesday, the country’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment stopped short of making any fresh pledges to curb carbon dioxide emissions, promising to support the “multinational climate process” and fulfil its pledges to the Paris Agreement in full.

China had previously concentrated on reducing emissions from its heavy industrial sectors, while maintaining high levels of economic growth, but the approach has been subject to diminishing returns.

It now plans to “proactively promote” nature-based solutions such as reforestation and the expansion of grasslands and wetlands. Total forest reserves in the country rose by 4.56 billion cubic metres between 2005 and 2018, and forests now account for just under 23% of total land.

Beijing will also call on other countries at the U.N. meeting to “fully consider the potential of the natural system to alleviate climate change and promote adaptation, while formulating climate change-related policies”.

Beijing also aims to expand carbon sinks capable of absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, work to cap fertiliser use, raise waste utilisation rates at livestock farms and speed-up the usage of biomass energy, the report said.

Full story
 
3. India Kicks Climate Policy Into Long Grass: No Change Until 2023
The Times of India, 18 September 2019

India is on track with its pre-2020 climate goals, and will not reassess its targets before 2023, the year of the first global stock-take of progress by countries that ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement.

 But even as it balances its growth imperatives with its climate commitments, richer nations need to stop stalling on their finance commitments of $100 billion a year to enable ‘climate justice’ for developing countries.

These were some of the observations in a new report released Tuesday by India’s Finance ministry. The report, titled ‘Climate Summit for Enhanced Action: A Financial Perspective from India’ highlights India’s commitments towards global accords like the Copenhagen Summit 2009 and the Paris Agreement, and the progress it has made on fronts like emissions, renewable energy and afforestation.

The report provides an insight into India’s position, days before the United Nations Climate Action Summit begins in New York on September 23. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the Summit. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has asked world leaders to come with “concrete, realistic plans” to enhance their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2020, in line with the global goals of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next decade, to net zero emissions by 2050.

Saying that India aims to be a $5 trillion economy by 2024, the report says India will undertake a mid-term assessment of its actions by 2023, when countries will measure progress against their NDCs. “For the present, India may only be in a position to elaborate or clarify its post 2020 climate actions already pledged in its NDC,” it adds.

Full story
 
4. India's Share Of Total Global Primary Energy Demand Set To Double By 2040, Asia To Dominate World Economy
Business Standard, 11 September 2019 

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan said that the inevitable shift in global energy consumption to Asia is a reality. 

Pradhan also noted that India has to improve availability of energy to over 1.3 billion people, whose per capita energy consumption is lower than the global average. Now, India is the third-largest energy consumer in the world, and its energy demand is growing faster than all major economies of the world. India's share of total global primary energy demand is set to double to 11% by 2040.

Addressing the opening session of the 8th Asian Ministerial Energy Roundtable in Abu Dhabi today, he said that we now need to ensure that this change is rooted in Energy Justice, which was articulated by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi as most important component of Energy Vision of India.

Pradhan said that the Emerging Asia will be driving the world economic growth in the coming 20 years. In the global context, developing economies will drive 80% of the incremental global growth, with India and China accounting for more than half of it.

He noted that energy access, higher standard of living and improved prosperity in developing countries will primarily drive the energy demand. It is important for the low income, low per capital energy consuming countries to have access to technology and capital when it comes to energy efficiency and cleantech. That will provide better energy security than short term interventions in fossil fuel supply and price.

He said that due to poor and imbalanced energy infrastructure, 400 million people in Asian region have no access to electricity, and rural residents have no access to clean electricity. Therefore, providing safe, stable, affordable and efficient energy has become an important task for governments of all countries.

Full story
 
5. UN Bans Western Nations From Speaking At Its Climate Summit
Financial Times, 18 September 2019

Leading economies such as Japan and Australia will not be invited to speak at next week’s crunch UN climate change summit, as their continued support for coal clashes with the demands of the organisation’s secretary-general as he sounds the alarm on climate change. 

Coal has emerged as a key issue ahead of Monday’s meeting in New York, where 63 countries are expected to speak, according to a draft schedule seen by the Financial Times.

In letters and conversations with heads of state, António Guterres, UN secretary-general, has demanded that countries attending the summit stop building new coal power stations, reduce fossil fuel subsidies, and commit to net zero emissions by 2050 — demands that have not gone down well in all quarters.

Dozens of heads of state including the UK’s Boris Johnson and France’s Emmanuel Macron will deliver new climate pledges in a series of three-minute speeches, in what has been billed as a major show of global climate commitment.

However the summit is notable for those that will not appear: a number of countries building new coal power stations such as Japan, South Korea and South Africa will not take the stage.

Also excluded will be the US, which has said it intends to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, as well as Brazil and Saudi Arabia, which have criticised the climate pact.

Full story (£)
 
6. Coal Is Fuelling China’s Data Center Boom
OilPrice.com, 14 September 2019

China’s data center sector is heating up. “The rapidly growing market is largely driven by data-intensive industries such as cloud computing, an industry that the government has marked for rapid development as it ramps up the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities” reports TechNode, a news source dedicated solely to Chinese technology sector reporting. “China is aiming to close the AI technology gap with the US by 2030.”

As the world’s second-largest economy races to catch up with the United States in key cutting-edge technological industries such as Artificial Intelligence, its data center industry (the sector that uses networks of computer servers to host China’s massive swaths of data such as emails, photos, videos, and more) must also keep up with the ever-increasing demand for data storage. A fast-growing sector in an economy the size of China’s will surely send ripples through other sectors, and in the case of data centers this translates to a massive surge in electricity consumption for the Chinese data center industry over the next five years.

According to a new study conducted by environmental activism and advocacy group Greenpeace in conjunction with the North China Electric Power University, electricity consumption in this sector is projected to increase by a whopping 66 percent over the next half-decade. “By 2023, the sector is projected to consume 267 TWh of electricity, more than Australia’s total 2018 electricity consumption,” writes Greenpeace in a press release published alongside the study.

The abstract goes on to point out that “China’s data center industry is currently powered 73% by coal.”

Full post 
 
7. Hail Shale: Over Half Of Global Gas Supply To Come From US By 2035: Mckinsey
Live Mint, 18 September 2019 

Mumbai: Over half of global gas supply growth of 635 billion cubic metres by 2035 is expected to be driven primarily by the United States at +380 billion cubic metres, says the Global Gas and LNG Outlook 2035 from McKinsey Energy Insights, the global energy market intelligence and analytics arm of McKinsey & Company.

Gas supply growth will be followed by Russia at +110 bcm and Africa at +110 bcm while production in Europe and the Rest of Asia will decline rapidly.

"While liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand grows at 3.6% per annum between 2018-35, we see oversupply returning to the market in 2024-2026 with the new capacity required only from 2028-29 onward," says the report.

While in 2018, China emerged as the world’s biggest importer of gas and LNG, overtaking Japan, and second-biggest importer of LNG, overtaking South Korea.

McKinsey expects demand to continue rising in the region, with China, ASEAN, and South Asia to account for 95% of global LNG demand growth until at least 2035. Total gas demand is set to rise by 0.9% p.a., while Asian gas demand is set to rise by 2.1% p.a. in the same period, driven primarily by power and gas-intensive industries.

"China is expected to experience the largest growth in LNG imports between 2018 and 2035 adding 126 bcm. South Asia and South-East Asia will be relevant LNG demand growth centres amid declining local demand profile," says the report.

Also, construction of new pipelines will add more than 200 bcm of cross-border gas capacity by 2025, with the United States and Russia retaining their positions as major piped gas exporters.

Full story
 
8. News Media’s Green PR Strategy To Scare A Billion People Ahead Of UN Climate Summit
NewsBusters, 17 September 2019 

News consumers everywhere should prepare for the onslaught of climate change stories ahead of the UN climate summit next week.

Instigated by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation, more than 250 media entities joined forces to foster urgency and action regarding the climate “crisis” and devote extra time to what CJR claimed was “the defining story of our time.”

Partners included CBS, PBS Newshour, Bloomberg, AFP, Getty Images, Adweek, CQ and Roll Call, The Guardian, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and many more including a huge number of local media.

All media and institutional partners agreed to spend more time on climate change the week before Sept. 23, so expect a whole lot of carbon shaming, eco-lecturing, and climate apocalyptic prophecies.

CJR bragged the activist media coalition was “Throwing a billion news consumers behind coverage of the climate crisis,” in its e-newsletter “The Media Today” Sept. 16.

The Covering Climate Now website listed a “small sampling” of climate stories from media partners including 14 items (three from CBS alone) all published on Sept. 15.

Here are just a few of the stories:

“How extreme weather threatens people with disabilities” from Yale Climate Connections

“Javier Bardem on Greenpeace Documentary ‘Sanctuary’ and How Hollywood Can Spread the Climate Change Message” in Variety

“Climate Activists Don’t Know How to Talk to Christians” at The Daily Beast

“Industrialized Militaries Are a Bigger Part of the Climate Emergency Than You Know” from The Intercept

CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter gave it favorable coverage even though CNN wasn’t one of the partners. He interviewed CJR editor and publisher Kyle Pope about the project on his podcast.
Before the interview, Stelter said, “I’m seeing a lot of change, frankly a lot of improvement, in the volume and in the tone around coverage of this crucial [climate] issue.”

CJR’s email and website rejoiced over its success at turning a pack of media into activists with “Covering Climate Now.”

Full story
 
9. Doomsdays That Didn’t Happen: Think Tank Compiles Decades’ Worth Of Dire Climate Predictions
Fox News, 18 September 2019 

A newly compiled retrospective indicates the doomsday rhetoric is perhaps overheated.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently suggested Miami would disappear in "a few years" due to climate change. The United Nations is convening a "Climate Action Summit" next week. And climate activist Greta Thunberg is on Capitol Hill this week telling lawmakers they must act soon.

But while data from NASA and other top research agencies confirms global temperatures are indeed rising, a newly compiled retrospective indicates the doomsday rhetoric is perhaps more overheated.

The conservative-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute has put together a lengthy compilation of apocalyptic predictions dating back decades that did not come to pass, timed as Democratic presidential candidates and climate activists refocus attention on the issue.

The dire predictions, often repeated in the media, warned of a variety of impending disasters – famine, drought, an ice age, and even disappearing nations – if the world failed to act on climate change.

An Associated Press headline from 1989 read "Rising seas could obliterate nations: U.N. officials." The article detailed a U.N. environmental official warning that entire nations would be eliminated if the world failed to reverse warming by 2000.

Then there were the fears that the world would experience a never-ending "cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere." That claim came from an "international team of specialists" cited by The New York Times in 1978.

New York City to allow students to skip school for climate protestVideo
Just years prior, Time magazine echoed other media outlets in suggesting that "another ice age" was imminent. "Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest," the magazine warned in 1974. The Guardian similarly warned in 1974 that "Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast."

In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, "Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century." The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist's claim that the world could be "as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age."

Some of the more dire predictions came from Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who famously urged population control to mitigate the impacts of humans on the environment. Ehrlich, in 1969, warned that "everybody" would "disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years," The New York Times reported.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Ehrlich, warning of a "disastrous" famine," urged placing "sterilizing agents into staple foods and drinking water."

Full story

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.