COP28 UPDATE: Al Jaber Mounts Defense After Comments Spark Fury – Canadian Energy News, Top Headlines, Commentaries, Features & Events – EnergyNow

(Bloomberg)

Top bankers and regulators gathered for COP28’s finance day to discuss how best to handle the fossil fuel industry when it comes to transition finance.

“We need to think more broadly,” said Alice Carr, executive director for public policy at the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

The comments come as this year’s Conference of the Parties hosts more bankers than ever before, with the organizers of the event also keen to bring big oil to the table.

Meanwhile, Sultan Al Jaber, president of the COP28 summit and head of the Abu Dhabi national oil company, Adnoc, defended his stance following a report that he questioned the science around the link between phasing out fossil fuels and hitting the Paris Agreement target of 1.5C.

Al Jaber said the comments had been misinterpreted and that “this is the first presidency ever” to “actively call” on parties to come forward with language on phasing out fossil fuels to be included in the final agreement.

Dutch Finance Minister Says Not Clear What Wilders Will Do (3:00 pm)

Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag said she doesn’t know whether Geert Wilders will be able to implement some of his pledges, such as exiting the Paris climate accord, dismantling green funds or calling a referendum on leaving the European Union.

If you look at Wilders’ international cooperation agenda, “it’s a big tally,” Kaag said in a Bloomberg TV interview on the sidelines of the summit. “How realistic is it? I don’t know, it depends on the other parties he is willing to negotiate with.”

Kaag also said her centrist D66 party has been very clear it will never join a government that’s led by Wilders.

BlackRock’s Fink Says ‘Architecture’ of Finance Must Change (2:45 pm)

BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink said “the architecture for financing the developing world — the Global South — today is at best not what it should be.”

“The opportunities we see to use blended finance I believe is the beginning,” he said. “This is a must, not just an option. We will not be able to mobilize enough private capital if we don’t do blended finance.”

“I urge all of us to think about how we can find a way to recreate the financial architecture so we can decarbonize the entire world safely, soundly and justly,” Fink said.

Al Jaber Responds to Anger Over Comments (2:29 pm)

The COP28 president and engineer by training said “science has guided” his life, in response to comments from November that surfaced of him saying there’s “no science” behind the assertion that fossil fuels have to be phased out to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5C.

“The science says that we must get to net zero emissions by 2050, and we must reduce emissions by 43% by 2030” to keep the temperature goal in sight, he said in response to questions about the comments. He did not address projections on fossil fuel use.

He said the report is part of a “consistent” effort to undermine the work of COP28.

Adani Focuses on India Green Market (2:19 pm)

Adani Green Energy Ltd. will focus on succeeding in the domestic market, where electricity demand is surging, before targeting expansion abroad, CEO Amit Singh said.

India’s electricity demand surged more than 8% in the seven months through October, leading the government to mandate additional thermal and renewable capacity. Focusing on India is both in the “national and  economic interest,” Singh said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Billionaire Gautam Adani’s clean energy arm plans to invest $4.5 billion in new capacity to add a total of 8 gigawatts in two years through March 2025. By the end of the decade, the company aims to increase its green installations more than five-fold to 45 gigawatts, according to Singh.

Arab Oil Lender Apicorp Plans $1 Billion of Investments (2 pm)

Arab Petroleum Investments Corp. will invest up to $1 billion in decarbonization technologies over the next five years. The plan is part of a new strategy focused on the energy transition in the Middle East, according to a statement by the bank.

BlackRock Vice Chairman Wants Private Capital in ‘Emerging World’ (1:40 pm)

Philipp Hildebrand told Bloomberg Television a 20-fold increase in investment flows to the emerging world could not happen without the private sector.

“The World Bank needs to think of itself not as a competing agent to the private sector but as an enabling agent,” the BlackRock vice chairman said, encouraging the president of the World Bank to focus on changing the institution’s “mindset.”

Hildebrand added that “it looks like we will avoid a recession,” saying he thinks interest rates are likely near their peak.

Major Investor Launches $3 Billion Renewables Fund (1:16 pm)

One of the world’s largest renewables investors has launched a $3 billion fund to raise money to plow into projects in emerging markets.

Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has launched the fund, focusing on wind, solar and energy storage, as such developments spread further beyond the developed world. The inequality of climate finance has been highlighted during COP28, where parties agreed on a new fund to compensate vulnerable countries hit by extreme weather events due to climate change.

China’s Envoy Says Its Methane Policies Are Misunderstood 

“Few know that China has made large achievements on controlling” methane, Xie Zhenhua, China’s climate change envoy, said. He stressed that the world’s biggest emitter has had limits on methane in its national climate change program since 2007.

Even before the release of its long-awaited plan to tackle methane earlier this year, several relevant schemes were already in place in sectors such as energy and agriculture, Xie said. China sees methane as a source of energy and a raw material that can be optimized, he said.

Relaunch of China’s Carbon Trading in Sight 

China Beijing Green Exchange Chairman Wang Naixiang said the restart of the country’s long-stalled carbon credit trading is close. The exchange will long-awaited plan host training sessions for market participants to better understand the new China Certified Emissions Reduction credits, or CCERs, he said.

The CCER scheme was started in 2012 but the small volume of transactions meant new projects stopped being registered in March 2017. The government said in October that credits issued before the system was halted can’t be used by emitters to comply with CO2 targets.

Fossil Fuels Have ‘Role to Play,’ UAE Climate Minister Says (11:55 am)

“Fossil fuels have a role to play, a much smaller role to play,” UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment Mariam Almheiri said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Monday. The “phasing up” of renewables should be the focus, she said, adding that the building of renewable energy systems itself required energy.

Her comments addressed controversy surrounding COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber’s statements that there were no indications “that the phase out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.”

Carbon Offset Market Faces Overhaul After Scandal (11:52 am)

Rostin Behnam said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which he chairs, will later today announce proposed voluntary carbon markets guidance. “The proposal does represent, in my view, the most significant step of the US financial regulator to support widespread adoption of principles for high integrity markets,” he said.

Figuring out how to tackle weaknesses in the voluntary carbon market is a key goal of this year’s COP summit. The VCM has been hit by a string of scandals that have raised serious questions as to the validity of the offsetting claims made by those buying carbon credits.

StanChart, Macquarie CEOs Calls for Better Data to Boost Green Investment (10:45 am)

The bosses of Standard Chartered Plc and Macquarie Group Ltd. said better data around emissions and the viability of green projects — particularly in emerging markets — was essential to unlock more investment for green projects.

“It all starts with data,” Bill Winters said at the Bloomberg Green Festival from the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

“Data’s a real problem, especially in the developing economies”

StanChart CEO Bill Winters says better data around emissions and the viability of green projects is essential to unlock more investment

His comments were echoed by Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake, who also underlined the need to tailor climate solutions to different parts of the world.

Both CEOs emphasized the importance of co-operation between governments, financiers and organizations like the World Bank to create projects that pension funds can invest in.

IEA Wants 60% Emissions Reduction from Big Oil by 2030 (9:37 am)

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, wants oil companies to commit to reducing their Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 60% by 2030, he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Monday.

“I need a 2030 number, not a 2050 number,” Birol said. This is a “moment of truth.”

Increased investment in clean energy technologies should be another major commitment from fossil-fuel companies at COP28, Birol said, adding that the rhetoric from oil and gas executives around green energy pales in comparison to actual investments. They speak “80%-90% of the time about clean energy, but when you look at their numbers, which we do at the IEA, only 2.5% of their own investment goes into clean energy.”

Birol said he expects global oil demand to peak before 2030, driven by clean energy and slowing demand from China, without elaborating on relations between the IEA and OPEC.

(Adds rolling commentary from COP28. A previous version corrected a typo in the spelling of the second reference to the surname Behnam.)

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