Moving to net-zero targets is a matter of security: COP26 President Alok Sharma speaks at The Fletcher School
“Increasingly, moving to net-zero targets is a matter of security. This is apparent in an age when climate, energy, and war intersect.”
By Vishal Manve
On April 23, 2022, COP26 President and UK Cabinet Member Alok Sharma spoke at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and discussed the outcomes of the Glasgow Climate Pact, the urgency to establish public-private financing partnerships for clean energy transition, and the current Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent humanitarian and energy crisis.
He was appointed President of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) and was the central figure in the negotiations for Glasgow Climate Pact.
“It is not an exaggeration to say this decade will determine the future of our planet and the current energy supply crisis must not allow states to lose sight of their medium and long-term carbon reduction targets,” Sharma said, addressing the current global developments impacting the energy markets.
Outlining how Russia’s ‘brutal invasion of Ukraine and the harrowing images emerging from the war’ had impacted billions, Sharma reiterated the international community’s support for Ukraine besieged by war.
“A crisis on top of another crisis and what we are coping with is the effects of Covid-19 and war colliding. We see inflation peaking globally and this is the most universally complex policy environment of our lifetime,” he addressed an audience comprising academia and business.
Addressing the global concerns over energy security amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022, Sharma added how “Putin’s deadly invasion was funded in large part by Russian fossil fuel exports.” “(This) had reminded the world that we cannot rely indefinitely on hydrocarbons,” he outlined.
On the issue of climate inaction globally amid the geopolitical crises, he cautioned the world cannot stop focusing on climate action as the “stakes are just too high”.
Speaking about the latest Intergovernmental Panel report on Climate Change, Sharma said its findings were unequivocal.
“To keep alive the ambition of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius, global emissions must peak before 2025 and they must halve by 2030. This is a decisive decade for our planet,” he further warned.
On the near-term and long-term goals and challenges faced by governments, Sharma added how the governments had to “keep the lights on, homes warm, and factories operating.”
“I cautioned against losing the long-term view in response to pressures of the present and urged them to move away from dirty fossil fuels and accelerate faster towards a clean energy future and stick with medium and longer-term emission targets. This is vital to protecting our planet,” he said.
Earlier this month, the UK Government released its Energy Security Strategy — focusing on nuclear power and offshore wind — while additionally factoring in cost-of-living, the impact of climate change on the energy security matrix, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We are already the second-largest offshore wind market in the world and we are going to significantly increase our deployment of wind, solar, hydrogen, and nuclear which could see 90 percent of electricity become low carbon by 2030. Our target is to become 100 percent low carbon by 2035,” Sharma further outlined, explaining steps taken by the UK in transitioning to cleaner energy.
On multilateral international cooperation amid geopolitical developments, Sharma added how he believed “climate largely remains a sanctuary of cooperation in splintered global politics.”
In 2021, 197 countries came together at COP26 in Glasgow and agreed on the Glasgow climate pact based on “collective self-interest” based on the scientific consensus about the stark impacts of climate change, Sharma added.
“The Glasgow climate pact has bent” the temperature curve to 2 degrees increase by the end of the century and the world is moving in the right direction. At the end of the day, climate change does not recognize borders,” he further elaborated.
A Nature Journal report found that global temperatures could be limited below 2 degrees celsius if all commitments from the COP26 summit were implemented in a time-bound manner.
Speaking about the delivery plans of around $100 billion in climate finance to be transferred from developed to developing countries, Sharma stated how the onus now was to show progress and put finance on the table.
Making a pop culture reference to a line from Hollywood actor Tom Cruise’s movie Jerry Maguire, Sharma rather candidly stated, “Show us the money,” in reference to developed countries fulfilling their finance pledges.
US President Joe Biden has promised to double funds to $11.4 billion annually by 2024, with a focus on increasing funding to developing countries around clean transition. Congress is yet to approve the bill.
Finance plays a key role in both mitigation and adaptation efforts globally. To alleviate the funding crisis, Sharma chaired a meeting with G7 ministers, multilateral development banks, and the private sector on expanding Just Energy transition partnerships. The first partnership was launched during COP26 called South Africa Just Energy Transition.
The fact that we have the private sector on this journey makes a huge difference. COP26 was the first time there was a big element of the private sector at the climate conference,” he added.
Sharma concluded the session by paraphrasing US President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address stating, “We need guardianship of the planet, by the planet, for the planet.”
On public-private partnerships, Sharma added there exists a “huge appetite in the private sector to deploy capital and governments need to mitigate risks and offer returns to investors.”
“Public money should be used to do things private money cannot do and do what needs to be done to unlock private money, What we need to ensure is that we are leveraging and mobilizing private sector funding to go into these projects,” Sharma added.
The session was moderated by The Fletcher School’s Dean Rachel Kyte and the opening remarks were delivered by Anthony Monaco, President of Tufts University. ∎
Vishal Manve is a MALD candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.