Royal Dutch Shell caved in to growing investor pressure over climate change on Monday, December 3, 2018 with plans to set short-term targets for reducing its carbon footprint.
Royal Dutch Shell’s Chief Executive Officer, Ben van Beurden
BP and Total have already set short-term targets, but Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden had previously resisted setting hard goals, saying it would be “foolhardy’’ to expose Shell to legal challenges.
But, following discussions with investors, the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant said that, from 2020, it would set three- to five-year targets every year which will include specific net carbon footprint targets.
Shareholders had criticised Shell for 2017 setting long-term “ambitions” to halve its emissions of carbon dioxide by 2050, which lacked binding targets for implementation.
Shell, which did not specify any targets on Monday, plans to link these targets and other measures to its executive remuneration policy.
The revised remuneration policy will be put to shareholders for approval at its annual meeting in 2020.
“We are taking important steps toward turning our Net Carbon Footprint ambition into reality by setting shorter-term targets,” Ben van Beurden said in a statement.
The move comes as governments meet in Poland for a conference hosted by the United Nations COP24 which will set out a “rule book’’ to implement a 2015 climate accord.
The Paris agreement set goals to phase out fossil fuel use this century, shift toward cleaner energies and help limit a rise in temperatures.
Shell signed a joint statement with a group of 310 investors with more than 32 trillion dollars of assets under management, dubbed Climate Action 100+, outlining the targets and review process.
“When it comes to meeting the demands of the Paris Agreement on climate change, we believe it is necessary to strengthen partnerships between investors and their investee companies to accelerate progress toward reaching such an ambitious common goal,” Peter Ferket, Chief Investment Officer of Robeco, said in the joint statement.
UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has welcomed the declaration released on Saturday, December 1, 2018 at the conclusion of the 2018 G20 meeting, which reaffirms a commitment to raise ambition in the fight against climate change.
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General
The declaration notes a focus on four pillars at the meeting: the future of work, infrastructure for development, a sustainable food future and a gender mainstreaming strategy across the G20 agenda.
Guterres, in a statement released on Sunday, picked out three key messages from the statement of the world’s leading economies, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Support for the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the UN’s global blueprint for a fair globalisation that leaves no one behind, is reaffirmed in the document, along with a pledge to use all policy tools to achieve strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth.
As well as stressing the need to raise ambition in the fight against climate change, the G20 leaders expressed their very strong support of countries that are signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement, to implement their commitments set out in their nationally determined contributions.
The G20 declaration states that the leaders look forward to “successful outcomes” of the COP24 climate change conference, which begins in Katowice, Poland from December 3.
The “Work Programme” or rule book of the Paris Agreement – which, for the first time, brought almost all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects – is expected to be agreed at the event.
The UN chief pointed out that agreement on the Work Programme would significantly advance implementation of the Paris accord.
Guterres said in the declaration, G20 leaders recognise the importance of a multilateral approach to trade and of the reform of the World Trade Organisation and renew their commitment to a rules-based international order.
The Secretary-General concluded with a reminder that the G20 comprised the world’s leading emitters of environmentally harmful gases, and that the declaration provides hope for a solution to a global challenge that he has described as a direct existential threat.
“These agreements by the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies, which also contribute the largest share of global green-house gas emissions, can help rally the international community to make sure that climate change is a race we can win.
“Indeed, it is a race we must win,” the UN chief stressed.
The two-week 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) of the United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), which started on Sunday, December 2, 2018 in Katowice, Poland, will focus on carbon neutrality and gender equality.
The COP24 opening plenary meeting
The world is gathering to define how the 2015 Paris Agreement would be implemented and moved forward by its 197 parties, days after the UN sounded the alarm on the unprecedented levels of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
Under the agreement, all countries have committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the global average rise in temperature to well below two degrees centigrade, and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees centigrade.
Kicking off the two-week event in Katowice, a team of cyclists on electric bikes arrived from Vienna, having biked 600 km- to demonstrate the value of renewable energy in reducing emissions.
The expedition was supported by the UN Global Compact, a group of private sector companies committed to sustainable development.
The cycling team, called “Moving for Climate NOW”, made up of about 40 people from different institutions and countries was welcomed by UN Climate Change Deputy Executive Secretary, Ovais Sarmad, and Jakub Gibek, Head of the Climate Policy Unit of the Ministry of Environment of Poland.
Sarmad said: “I commend the cyclists involved in this bike tour for inspiring the world to move in the right direction to fulfil the promise of the Paris Agreement.
“This is the most important COP since the signing of the agreement, and we need initiatives like yours to testify that governments, the private sector and individuals can work together to tackle climate change by committing to multilateralism.”
To limit COP24’s footprint and achieve carbon neutrality, the conference organisers have taken a series of measures.
First, public transportation in the city is free of charge for the duration of the conference, for all participants.
In addition, reusable materials have been used to set up the conference rooms, including carpets and backdrops, while recycled cardboard furniture was installed the main meeting spaces.
The conference will also enforce a strict waste management policy: distinct recycling bins will be available in all meeting rooms; and the packaging of electronic equipment has been saved and would be reused after the conference is over.
Also, the packaging of catering products is environmentally friendly; single-use plastic products are limited across the space; and overall, the conference is paper light, with official documents available only in digital versions.
To limit greenhouse emissions due to transportation, virtual participation is encouraged and supported through live webcasts of the main events.
Unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions due to the event will be tracked through a rigorous calculation by the organisers based on international standards.
It is anticipated that COP24 will generate approximately 55,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
To offset this, the Polish Government has committed to planting more than six million trees, capable of absorbing the equivalent of the conference’s emissions in the next 20 years.
Political leaders on Monday, December 3, 2018 began arriving in the Polish coal city of Katowice where two weeks of talks have begun to revive the landmark Paris 2015 deal on climate change as dire warnings mount about a lack of action.
World leaders at the opening of COP24
Representatives of some of the most powerful countries and biggest polluters will be conspicuous by their absence as the U.S. has said it is leaving the UN process and China was not expected to send its top politicians.
To maximise the chances of success, technical talks began on Sunday, a day earlier than planned, with delegates from nearly 200 nations haggling over how to implement the broad promises of the Paris deal on moving away from fossil fuel.
The talks in Katowice have been billed as the most important UN conference since the landmark Paris accord as they precede an end-of-year deadline to agree a “rule book” on how to enforce action to limit global warming to between 1.5 and twp degrees Celsius.
Expectations for the Polish talks are low: the atmosphere of political unity built in Paris has been shattered by a wave of populist governments that place national agendas before collective action.
The host nation Poland remains committed to coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels, calling for a “just transition” to allow communities dependent on fossil fuel help in changing their lifestyle.
The riots in Paris at the weekend, partly in protest at higher fuel taxes, also illustrate the conundrum: How do political leaders introduce policies that will do long-term good for the environment without inflicting extra costs on voters that may damage their chances of re-election?
Delegates at the talks said the biggest issues were likely to include finance and the level of scrutiny associated with monitoring individual nations’ emissions.
The UN has a goal to raise $100 billion every year from 2020 for climate action.
To inject momentum, the World Bank Group on Monday said it would provide a further $200 billion over five years from the start of the next decade.
Other attempts to inject urgency into the Polish talks include an intervention from British broadcaster and environmentalist David Attenborough, as well as the roughly 25 heads of state and government who are attending the talks.
The World Bank Group has announced plans to double its investments in the fight against climate change to around 200 billion dollars for more than five years.
World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim
“Climate change is an existential threat to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. These new targets demonstrate how seriously we are taking this issue,” World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim said.
The investments, announced in a statement released Monday, December 3, 2018, will apply to the investment period for 2021-2025, which would support countries in their efforts to take “ambitious climate action.”
The funds would be allocated for countries “to build better adapted homes, schools and infrastructure, and invest in climate smart agriculture, sustainable water management and responsive social safety nets,” said World Bank Chief Executive, Kristalina Georgieva.
The announcement from the World Bank comes just before the opening of a UN climate conference in Katowice in Poland.
For two weeks, the delegates will focus on fleshing out the rules for financing and implementing the 2015 Paris agreement.
The Paris pact provides an outline for countries working together to limit the Earth’s warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.
Most efforts to prevent the planet heating up relate to stopping the release of greenhouse gases as soon as possible.
However, the measures promised so far worldwide to reduce harmful greenhouse gases are far from enough to meet this goal.
Renowned broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, has announced the United Nations’ launch of a new campaign enabling individuals the world over to unite in actions to battle climate change.
Sir David Attenborough
In an address on Monday, December 3, 2018 to the opening session of United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, Sir David Attenborough urged everyone to use the UN’s new ActNow.bot, designed to give people the power and knowledge to take personal action against climate change directly on the Facebook Messenger Platform.
Speaking for “The People’s Seat” initiative, Sir David called it the result of new activism shaped by people from around the world and collected through social media.
“In the last two weeks,” he said, “the world’s people have taken part in creating this address, answering polls, creating videos and voicing their opinions.”
“They want you – the decision makers – to act now,” the British broadcaster said, addressing the politicians and officials assembled for two weeks in this Polish mining town to negotiate next steps in monitoring and mitigating climate change.
“The people are behind you, supporting you in making tough decisions, but they are also willing to make sacrifices in their daily lives,” Attenborough said. “To make this even easier, the UN is launching the Act Now bot. Helping people to discover simple everyday actions that they can take, because they recognise that they too must play their part.”
The speech was preceded by a video produced with social media content that people had posted in advance of COP24 using the hashtag #TakeYourSeat.
The innovative UN campaign was created with the support of Facebook and advertising company Grey and harnesses advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to engage people in the growing movement to take climate action.
The ActNow.bot is a fully interactive and responsive chat bot, located on the UN’s Facebook page that suggests everyday actions – determined by the user’s interaction with the bot – that can be taken to preserve the environment and logged on the platform to be shared with social media followers to persuade them to take action too. The collective actions will be presented during the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in New York in September 2019.
UN Under-Secretary-General of Global Communications Alison Smale welcomed the launch.
“Rising global temperature, record levels of greenhouse emissions, and increasing impacts of climate change require urgent and measurable action on the part of everyone,’’ she said. “This new social media tool, a Facebook Messenger bot, will help people learn about activities to reduce their carbon footprint, and show – and share with friends – how they are making an impact. We all need to do things differently.”
The initiative comes as global decision makers are being asked to intensify efforts in the battle against climate change and to agree the implementation guidelines of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
With motions raised (and supported by participants) by Prof. Daniel Gwary of the University of Maiduguri and Mr. Sunday Gadzama, the Borno State Environment Commissioner, three reports aimed at addressing climate variability adaptive capacities of Nigerians were on Thursday, November 28, 2018 officially validated, albeit subject to observations and corrections.
A team of authors, reviewers, as well as government and World Bank officials on the high-table during the opening of the two-day workshop, on November 27, 2018 in Abuja
The World Bank, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment, commissioned a study on “Household Vulnerability to Climate Change”, developed a “Multi-Sector Investment Framework (MSIF)” as well as an “Assessment and Analysis of Economic Cost of Land Degradation and Hotspot Mapping” for a range of sectors in the arid and semi-arid areas of Nigeria.
Climate change, according to a broad scientific consensus, is a challenge that is likely to happen more quickly than what was expected some years ago. Human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests for agricultural and other purposes, are said to have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, thereby leading to global warming.
In arid and semi-arid (dryland) parts of Nigeria, extreme weather events such as drought, desertification and heat waves are said to be occurring in greater frequencies and intensities. This apparently influenced the initiative, in respect of which a two-day (November 27 to 28) validation workshop held in Abuja.
Dr Amos Abu of the World Bank Nigeria Country Office said: “It is a joint World Bank and Federal Government effort and we are into it because it is one of the priority areas that have been identified by the government and, as a good partner, we are working with them to having clarity as it pertains to the cost of environmental degradation in Nigeria. This will help inform policies, it will also help in better targeting and also prioritisation and sequencing.
“Because the primary focus of the World Bank is to eliminate extreme poverty while boosting shared prosperity, the need to know where the poor live and their vulnerabilities to changing environment and extreme weather events cannot be over-emphasised if we are actually to addressing their concerns and situation. Therefore, we are very happy to be partnering with the Federal Government in carrying out these three important studies, respectively dealing with mapping of housing vulnerabilities in arid and semi-arid parts of Nigeria, the multi-sector investment framework for addressing climate change issues and for building communal resilience and sector resilience, as well as costing and mapping of degraded hotspots in Nigeria.
“These are really study diagnostics that will help inform policy in a very practical and poignant manner, and thus we also see that it will help in sequencing, and also give a sense of priority and then gross our attention to what will happen in a do-nothing scenario. So, this is a decision support tool that these new studies have thrown up and we are going to take it further.”
Prof. Olukayode Oladipo, who produced two of the reports, said: “The report is to help and guide the World Bank in identifying critical areas of intervention that can make the arid and semi-arid regions of northern Nigeria to be more climate resilient and sustainably developed by looking at how vulnerable the region is to climate change and climate variability, and which particular areas within the region is extremely vulnerable not only in terms of the climatic elements, but in terms of the socio-economic dimensions the people are living and surviving under increasingly threatening climatic conditions.
“The other aspect is how degraded is the area in terms of loss of biodiversity, erosion, deforestation, and what is it costing if we do nothing and allow the spate of degradation to continue. By having this particular information now, the World Bank will now look and identify immediate areas of need that can reduce the rate of degradation, increase the resilience of the people to changes in climatic conditions, and enable them to make a living in a more sustainable manner from the area, rather than continuously complaining that the area is arid or semi-arid and that it is not working, is not the best.
“So, in short, it is an information-gathering and data-generating system to enable the World Bank to look at the potential areas of investment that the World Bank can support and bring about positive development in the concerned areas or regions.”
The goal of the “Household Vulnerability to Climate Change in Arid and Semi-Arid Northern Nigeria” report, according to Prof. Oladipo, is to carry out vulnerability mapping to underpin development of a pragmatic framework for climate resilient development activities in the agriculture and forest sectors, taking into consideration activities in water resources, irrigation and energy to ensure an integrated approach to building landscape resilience.
The “Multi-Sector Investment Framework (MSIF) for Climate Resilience in Nigeria”, he added, stresses that massive investment is required to build the country’s resilience to climate risks and to safeguard its natural capital in the light of increasing climatic variability that is expected to affect the area.
Mamoud Bello Abubakar, who prepared “Assessment and Analysis of Economic Cost of Land Degradation and Hotspot Mapping in Arid and Semi-Arid Region in Nigeria”, disclosed that the study assessed and analysed the extent of land degradation hotspot, drives (causes) and its economic cost.
“It also analysed the determinants of land degradation and sustainable land management in the six states of northern Nigeria (Borno and Sokoto in the Semi-Arid Zone, Adamawa and Kano in the Sub-Humid Zone, and Niger and Kogi in the Humid Zone),” he added.
As the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened on Sunday, December 2, 2018 in Katowice, Poland, nations have been told to deepen their ambition towards addressing challenges associated with global warming.
Johan Rockström, Designated Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Johan Rockström, Designated Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who gave the charge, stated that parties at COP24 should explore avenues related to how to cut global emissions by half by 2030.
He said: “It is no longer if but how to deliver results aligned with science – the scientific verdict is clear, global emissions must be cut by half by 2030 to stand a chance of staying well below 2 degrees Celsius. The UN climate summit in Katowice cannot and will not discuss if governments worldwide must achieve rapid greenhouse-gas emission reductions to limit climate risks, but how they can do this.
“First, governments must ramp up ambition. All nationally determined contributions, the NDC plans, must urgently be racheted up and align themselves with the latest science assessments. Current plans take us to a disastrous plus-three-degree world. They need deep, sector by sector, quantitative revisions.
“Secondly, fair and effective rules for accounting must be established with special responsibilities for the big emitters such as the US and Europe but also China and India; while defining a rule book sounds boring, it is in fact essential.
“Thirdly, change must be financed. The Green Climate Fund needs reliable and substantial contributions from industrialised countries, and in the same time it must define strict rules for payments to countries – for instance, establishing CO2 pricing could become a condition for receiving money that then can be used to boost regional renewable energy production.”
According to Rockström, the world faces a decisive decade, potentially the make-it-or-break-it for its chance of securing a manageable climate for future generations.
“Governments today might be remembered for generations to come if they fail to fulfill their climate stabilisation promises. Because generations to come would suffer from weather extremes, health impacts, crop yield risks. Science clearly shows that we have just one decade to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Which is why we must start doing it now,” he added.
The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) and its joint partners have signed a gas supply and aggregation agreement that will support the 140 Megawatts Aba Integrated Power Project in Abia State. The agreement, signed on Friday, November 30, 2018 in Abuja, was between SPDC, Geometric Power Aba Limited (GPAL) and Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN).
L-R: Manager, Upstream and Commercial Negotiation, Nigeria Agip Oil Company Limited, Pius-Milverton Ogunjiofor; Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Geometric Power, Bart Nnaji; Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Gas Aggregation Company Nigeria Limited, Morgan Okwoche; General Manager, Gas Portfolio, The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Yemi Famori; and SPDC’s General Manager Business and Government Relations, Bashir Bello, at the signing of the Gas Supply and Aggregation Agreement for the Aba Integrated Power Project in Abuja… on Friday, November 30, 2018.
By the agreement, SPDC will supply gas from the SPDC joint venture gas plant in Imo River traversing Abia and Rivers states to the power producer, Geometric Power Aba Limited (GPAL), via a gas pipeline network which is already installed.
“This is a further demonstration of our commitment to supporting Nigeria’s industrialisation through gas,” said the Managing Director of SPDC and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria, Osagie Okunbor.
Okunbor, who was represented by SPDC’s General Manager, Business and Government Relations, Bashir Bello, noted: “For more than 50 years, Shell has been in the forefront of the campaign to develop and monetise Nigeria’s huge gas resources and it is good to see more players joining the fray to grow the gas market and help improve lives and the earnings in Nigeria.”
Speaking at the agreement-signing ceremony, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, described the Aba Independent Power Project as a potential catalyst for opening the Aba market for economic growth.
Represented by his Special Adviser on Fiscal Strategy, Dr. Tim Okon, the minister said the government was determined to ensure commercial sustainability of any such project with the potential to grow the gas market.
Chief Executive Officer of GAPL, Prof. Bath Nnaji, said the project was structured to incentivise gas suppliers to invest in gas production for the domestic market, adding: “We are confident that the structure will serve as a model for other gas-to-power-projects in Nigeria.”
The Managing Director of GACN, Morgan Okwoche, who signed on behalf of the company, described the project as the foremost private off-grid gas supply and aggregation agreement that would enhance industrial growth and economic development.
Those who witnessed the signing ceremony included the General Manager Petroleum Engineering of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Muazu Awaisu, who represented the Group Managing Director of NNPC; and the General Manager Gas Portfolio of SPDC, Yemi Famori.
The SPDC JV owns the 650MW Afam VI power plant in Afam, River State, which in 2017 supplied 15% of Nigeria’s grid-connected electricity.
At the margins of the G20 summit that held over the weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina, international institutions, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) handed over a report titled “Financing Climate Futures – Rethinking Infrastructure” to the G20 trio of Germany (as past), Argentina (as current) and Japan (as incoming) G20 presidency.
German Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze
German Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, said: “The next decade will be crucial if we want to limit global warming to well below two degree or even further to 1.5 degrees. Investments into climate friendly infrastructure can help boost sustainable green growth also by avoiding lock-in effects of carbon intense projects and assets. The report sends a strong signal by the institutions to the international community and the upcoming climate conference in Kattowice.”
During the German presidency, the climate and energy action plan for growth was adopted by the G20. It sets out concrete steps and measures how the group can implement the Paris climate agreement for the mitigation, adaptation and finance objectives.
The report was delivered in response to an invitation to the three international institutions to analyse previous steps of the G20 for steering financial flows into low-emission and climate resilient growth. The report focusses on the planning of infrastructure and its financing as key factors for climate compatible growth. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) has supported the joint initiative of the three organisations.
“Financing Climate Futures – Rethinking Infrastructure” proposes a transformative agenda that will help to shift from an incremental progress of the financing of climate action to a systematic change. The report outlines six key areas for action and provides respective policy recommendations:
Plan low-emission and resilient infrastructure
Unleash innovation to accelerate the transition to low-emissions technologies, business models and services
Ensure fiscal sustainability for a low-emission, resilient future
Reset the financial system in line with long-term climate risks and opportunities
Rethink development finance for climate
Empower city governments to build low-emission and resilient urban societies
Schulze, it was gathered, will discuss the key findings with the heads of the involved international organisations at a high-level event during COP 24 in Poland, on December 12.
