Page 9 - MEOG Week 44 2021

MEOG POLICY & SECURITY MEOG

Turkey What policymakers must do is send clear sig-
Similarly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo- nals to global investors that investing the requi-
gan has reportedly cancelled his visit to Glasgow, site sums is worthwhile.
blaming the UK government’s decision to pro- One key metric is the falling cost of renewa-
vide less security than initially promised for the bles has made green investment just as attractive,
Turkish delegation, Middle East Eye (MEE) said and is in some cases a better bet, than investing
October 31. in fossil fuels, especially in large Asian markets
Turkey only signed the 2015 Paris Agreement such as India, China and Indonesia.
in October 2021, the last G20 nation to do so, The International Energy Agency (IEA) exec-
and has set 2053 as its target date for net zero. utive director Fatih Birol stressed recently that
However, it has not provided any details of how the leaders meeting in Glasgow must communi-
it will do this. cate that any future investment in fossil fuels will
A key issue for Turkey is that it wants to be lose money, ICIS reported.
regarded as a developing country, so that it can “I’d like to see the world leaders coming
access climate finance, rather that its current together and giving a message to the rest of the
official status as a developed country at the UN world, saying to investors: ‘We are united behind
climate convention. a clean energy future [and] we are giving you an
Erdogan announced at the end of October unmistakable signal: If you continue to invest
that it had signed $3.2bn of Green Climate Fund in fossil fuels, you may risk losing money,’” said
loans in order to meet the clean energy goals out- Birol.
lined in the Paris climate accord, suggesting that The agency wants a range of incentives, such
it has made some headway in gaining access to as carbon pricing mechanisms, green legislation
climate finance. and an end to any licensing of fossil fuel project.
A key challenge is scaling up technology,
Developing countries as while the technology exists to reach net
Meanwhile, for developing nations in Africa zero, much of it is very much in its infancy and
and Asia, the effects of climate change are more experimental.
urgent, as they are more vulnerable to climate As solar panels and wind turbines have fallen
change-induced catastrophes such as floods, in price in recent years, governments and com-
droughts and wildfires. panies must ensure that similar falls in costs,
For example, the UN has warned that the accompanied by rapid increases in engineer-
continent is especially vulnerable to high levels ing and construction capacity, emerge for such
of migration because of climate change, as even technology as carbon capture, hydrogen fuel and
though sub-Saharan Africa has contributed the batteries.
least to global warming, the continent will expe-
rience the most devastating impacts of climate Showing up
change. The central target is to limit global warming
A key issue is for OECD nations to fulfil their to 1.5°C by 2100, but there is still no detail on
pledge to raise climate finance to $100bn per what pathways to follow to reach this target. This
year. Rich nations have so far failed to reach this means information about how much it will cost
target – commitments reached $80bn in 2019 and who will pay, and what sorts of technology
and the $100bn milestone is only now antici- will be used and when.
pated in 2023. It would be a bonus, indeed a triumph of
Poorer nations are also calling for stronger diplomacy, if COP26 is able to deliver agreement
emissions cuts and financial compensation for on any of these details.
the impacts they are expected to suffer from cli- Finance, especially issues such as putting
mate change. price on carbon, carbon taxes and the operation
Poor nations also want more help for adap- of carbon markets, will also be a major issue at
tation, a catch-all term for efforts to make local the conference, and again any agreement will be
societies and infrastructure more resilient to the hailed as progress by the world’s governments.
impact of climate change. They want COP26 to If there can be agreement on $100bn per year
define a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and in finance for the developing world, then again
to commit to allocating at least 50% of climate the world’s richest countries will be able to claim
finance to adaptation. a victory.
However, the G20 conference has not man-
Climate finance aged to come up with any momentum to COP26.
The recent price volatility in energy markets will UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on the
also concentrate minds on how this will be paid evening of October 31: “If Glasgow fails, then the
for in the decades to come, and how government whole thing fails.”
efforts to increase renewables share of energy US President Joe Biden added to the negative
supply could be influenced negatively by price tone by expressing disappointment that Russia
shocks and supply threats. and China basically didn’t show up.”™

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