*[Enwl-eng] CAN EECCA Newsletter: Turkmenistan’s colossal methane emissions, More money for solar power
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Thu Jun 8 01:01:15 MSK 2023
CAN EECCA English Digest
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Climate Action Network
Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia
Digest of news on climate change, energy
issues
www.caneecca.org
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Climate chronicle of the war
IAE: more money is going into solar power
than oil
The upheaval in oil and gas markets started
by Russia's war in Ukraine is helping fuel a clean-energy boom as countries
scramble to secure their power supply. One notable record: Investment in
solar outpaced that in oil for the first time last year, according to the
International Energy Agency, which released a report recently on global
energy investment. But the world is still investing far too much in fossil
fuels, the Paris-based group warned. Investment in that sector is currently
double the maximum amount that would be allowed if nations are to meet their
stated pledges to reduce emissions, the IEA said.
Why Putin’s Secret Weapon Failed?
Russia’s gambit to deter support for Ukraine
by restricting energy supplies flopped—thanks to concerted action by
European countries. The most significant defeat in Russia’s war on Ukraine
was suffered not on a battlefield but in the marketplace. The Russian
aggressors had expected to use natural gas as a weapon to bend Western
Europe to their will. The weapon failed. Why? And will the failure continue?
Unlike oil, which is easily transported by ocean tanker, gas moves most
efficiently and economically through fixed pipelines. Pipelines are
time-consuming and expensive to build.
Ukraine war and Biden’s IRA force EU to
accelerate energy transition
In order to accelerate the move away from
Russian fossil fuels and protect EU businesses, the European Commission in
May 2022 significantly increased its targets for clean energy capacity in
the bloc. That same month, Brussels signed a joint commitment with
electrolyser manufacturers to increase electrolyser capacity for hydrogen
production tenfold, by 2025. Sunfire has increased its order numbers by a
factor of 10 compared with 2021, Aldag says. “This is really because
hydrogen is seen as a way to substitute large amounts of energy that we’re
buying now at extremely high costs from countries that we shouldn’t buy this
from.”
Energy-efficient housing will be rebuilt for
Kharkiv residents
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said
that the restoration of housing stock in the city will be carried out using
the latest energy-saving technologies. This, among other things, will make
it possible to restrain the increase in tariffs for communal services, he
said in an interview with the "News. Topic of the Day" project. Terekhov
emphasized that the city plans to use a number of green technologies in
order to have cheap electricity. This will help not to increase fares for
city electric transport, as well as tariffs for other communal services.
However, he did not reveal the details.
EU Moves Closer to New Russia Sanctions
After Proposals Weakened
The 11th package of sanctions is unlikely to
include a ban on ships carrying sanctioned cargo from Russia from entering
European ports, and measures against transport companies seen transshipping
goods on the high seas to circumvent restrictions are likely to be relaxed.
On one of the key points of possible sanctions - on measures against third
countries that will not be able to explain the sharp increase in imports of
sanctioned goods from the EU and will be suspected of assisting Moscow -
there are also contradictions. Germany and a number of other participants in
the discussions propose that sanctions should not be aimed at entire
countries, but at individual companies, which will reduce both tension and
the effectiveness of restrictions.
IAEA chief outlines five principles to avert
nuclear ‘catastrophe’ in Ukraine
The head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to unambiguously
support five principles aimed at preventing a nuclear accident amid the war
in Ukraine, now in its 15th month. The Zaporizhzhya plant has come under
fire during the war. It has lost off-site power seven times and had to rely
on emergency diesel generators – “the last line of defence against a nuclear
accident,” he said. “We are fortunate that a nuclear accident has not yet
happened,” Mr. Grossi told ambassadors. “As I said at the IAEA Board of
Governors last March - we are rolling a dice and if this continues then one
day, our luck will run out. So, we must all do everything in our power to
minimize the chance that it does.”
What Should Ukraine’s Postwar Energy Policy
Be Like?
Ukraine’s energy sector is among those that
have suffered the most because of the war. The energy infrastructure is
commonly the target of Russian air attacks, and as such strikes continue,
the damage mounts daily and will not magically disappear with the war’s end.
On the other hand, Ukrainian energy assets were deeply depreciated and
obsolete even before the full-scale invasion, and the Ukrainian economy was
among the most energy-hungry globally. The lack of market approaches to
energy sector management, half-hearted reforms, the drag of populism, a
nontransparent and unpredictable energy policy, and an unattractive business
environment created barriers to investment in the sector and, accordingly,
its modernization.
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Regional and world news
US deal could plug Turkmenistan’s colossal
methane emissions
The US is in negotiations with Turkmenistan
over an agreement to plug the central Asian nation’s colossal methane leaks.
Turkmenistan was responsible for 184 “super-emitter” events in which the
powerful greenhouse gas was released in 2022, the highest number in the
world. One caused climate pollution equivalent to the rate of emissions from
67m cars. US officials hope that some leaks from Turkmenistan’s oil and gas
industry could be halted by the start of the UN’s Cop28 climate summit in
late November. Success would represent a major achievement in tackling the
climate crisis.
‘A lot of work for diplomats’ in Central
Asia as the Taliban build huge canal
For more than 50 years, Afghanistan has
contemplated building an enormous canal that will divert the waters of the
Amu Darya River and irrigate the country’s dry northern plains. In January
this year, it became suddenly apparent that the project is well underway,
with the release of a video by the Taliban. Since then, the Qosh Tepa canal,
which may divert up to a third of the Amu Darya, has been the subject of
international interest and concern. “It is our own fault that we are not
prepared for such a situation,” said Yusup Kamalov, an Uzbek ecologist who
is chair of NGO the Union for the Defense of the Aral and Amu Darya.
Azerbaijani "eco-activists" complain over
grant cuts
Self-described environmental activists in
Azerbaijan who took part in the government-backed blockade of
Nagorno-Karabakh are voicing discontent over their finances. On May 26, a
group of Azerbaijani NGO heads assembled in front of the presidential
administration office in Baku, protesting against what they called cuts in
their state grants. The same people participated in a demonstration on a key
road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia that lasted for 138 days and
ended after it was made redundant by a new Azerbaijani customs checkpoint at
the other end of the road.
UN climate talks in Germany kick off with no
final agenda
UN climate talks in Germany kicked off on
Monday without an agreed final agenda for its technical discussions, a
senior negotiator said, clouding optimism that the 10-day meeting would
result in a clear programme for the COP28 conference in Dubai. The Bonn
Climate Change Conference, designed to prepare decisions for adoption at
COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, is seen as a mid-way check for how
ambitious international climate talks will take shape at COP28 in December.
Rich countries with high greenhouse gas
emissions could pay $170tn in climate reparations
Rich industrialised countries responsible
for excessive levels of greenhouse gas emissions could be liable to pay
$170tn in climate reparations by 2050 to ensure targets to curtail climate
breakdown are met, a new study calculates. The proposed compensation, which
amounts to almost $6tn annually, would be paid to historically low-polluting
developing countries that must transition away from fossil fuels despite not
having yet used their “fair share” of the global carbon budget, according to
the analysis published in the journal Nature Sustainability. The
compensation system is based on the idea that the atmosphere is a commons, a
natural resource for everyone which has not been used equitably.
Solar energy collapsed gas prices in the EU
In Germany, wind and solar generation are
expected to provide 76% of total energy by 2030 In Europe, the increase in
renewable energy capacity, in particular solar, has led to a record decrease
in the price of natural gas from mid-2021 by more than 65%. Thus, in June,
Dutch gas will be delivered for €24.68 per megawatt-hour, and prices are
likely to continue to fall, Bloomberg reports. The material said that such a
price reduction is due to a number of factors, including a warm winter.
However, the main factor was the growth of RES. Thus, in Germany, from the
beginning of 2023, 11% of solar capacity was added from the level of 2022.
Climate movement must switch on to UAE
threat
In a recent address to global climate
envoys, the Emirati President of Cop28 Sultan Al Jaber proclaimed that the
United Arab Emirates had “embraced the energy transition.” The speech was
the fore-runner to the start of a typically slick public relations campaign,
with the UAE’s Minister of Climate Change Mariam Almheiri telling Reuters
that the world is not ready to “switch off” fossil fuels. If there are any
within the climate movement holding out hopes for the UAE’s approach to
climate change, this is the moment to start paying attention to its record
as a profoundly regressive and dangerous actor in global affairs.
Italy could abandon coal by 2024,
environment minister says
Italy could shut down its coal-fired power
stations in 2024, a year earlier than planned, if gas prices remain at
current low levels, Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said on
Monday. Italy, which had to find an alternative for the gas it used to
import from Russia following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, increased its
production of energy from coal to 7.5% of the total last year, from 4.6% in
2021. "The intention is to abandon coal by 2025 or even earlier... I hope to
succeed by 2024, if gas prices hold at the current (low) levels," Pichetto
Fratin said.
© Copyright, CANEECCA
From: CAN EECCA
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 8:55 PM
Subject: 🌏 CAN EECCA Newsletter: Turkmenistan’s colossal methane
emissions, More money for solar power
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