Last year there were a number of transport-energy initiatives announced at COP26 (see report Nov. 16, 2021), the largest of which focused on accelerating deployment of EVs and commitments to phase out the internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). What about at COP27? Not so much. Much of the media focus was on an agreement to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters. Other outcomes included the following:
- Technology: COP27 saw the launch of a new five-year work program at COP27 to promote climate technology solutions in developing countries.
- Mitigation: A mitigation work program was launched, aimed at urgently scaling up mitigation ambition and implementation. The work program will start immediately following COP27 and continue until 2026 when there will be a review to consider its extension.
- Coal and Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Governments agreed to accelerate efforts to phasedown unabated coal power and phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
Transport energy did not receive the focus that it did at COP26. Still there were some initiatives announced under the Breakthrough Agenda, an initiative launched last year by a coalition of 45 world leaders whose countries collectively represent over 70% of global GDP. They included (transport initiatives in bold):
- Develop common definitions for low-emission and near-zero emission steel, hydrogen and sustainable batteries to help direct billions of pounds in investment, procurement and trade to ensure credibility and transparency.
- Ramp up the deployment of essential infrastructure projects including at least 50 large scale net-zero emission industrial plants, at least 100 hydrogen valleys and a package of major cross-border power grid infrastructure projects.
- Set a common target date to phase out polluting cars and vehicles, consistent with the Paris Agreement. Significant backing for the dates of 2040 globally and 2035 in leading markets will be announced by countries, businesses and cities on Solutions Day.
- Use billions of pounds of private and public procurement and infrastructure spend to stimulate global demand for green industrial goods.
- Systematically strengthen financial and technological assistance to developing countries and emerging markets to support their transitions backed up by a range of new financial measures, including the world’s first major dedicated industry transition program under the Climate Investment Funds.
- Drive investment in agriculture research, development & demonstration (RD&D) to generate solutions to address the challenges of food insecurity, climate change and environmental degradation.
In addition, and maybe most importantly, 10 organizations including Maersk signed the Joint Statement on Green Hydrogen and Green Shipping committing to:
“to full decarbonization of the maritime sector, beginning with a shift to use at least 5 percent scalable zero emission fuels across the maritime sector in 2030, that will provide a dependable and ambitious demand signal that will help investments in at scale green hydrogen production. In turn, we, the undersigned members of the green hydrogen value chain, goal of providing at scale green hydrogen/hydrogen will commit to the derived fuels to ensure an affordable and minimally disruptive transition for the global shipping sector.”
More specifically, the parties commit to the following:
- Companies that work across the shipping value chain, are committed to full decarbonization of the sector by 2050 at the latest, which will drive steep demand for zero emission fuels
- The Getting to Zero Coalition, is jointly pursuing the shared ambition of having commercially viable zero-emission vessels operating on deep seas from 2030 and recognizes that green hydrogen and derived fuels, being scalable zero emission fuels, will play a central role for meeting that target and for reaching full decarbonization.
- The Aspen Shipping Decarbonization Initiative, are working collaboratively with cargo owners through Cargo Owners for Zero Emission Vessels toward their shared ambition to only use ocean freight services powered by zero emission fuels by 2040.
- Green hydrogen developers and producers and members of the Green Hydrogen Catapult pledge to work towards providing sizeable shares of the 5.5 ton 2030 production target for use by the shipping sector. In fact, existing commitments made by the Green Hydrogen Catapult would alone be enough to supply 90 percent of the green hydrogen needed by the shipping sector by 2030.
The group has called on other stakeholders in the sector to make similar commitments:
- Green hydrogen producers: Work with us to collectively meet at least a 5.5 by the shipping sector million ton by 2030 production target for use.
- Ship owners, operators and financiers: Invest in zero emission vessels and the production of zero emissions fuels to meet the goal of 5 percent zero emission fuels use by 2030 and rapid scaling thereafter.
- Implementers and users of green corridors: Implement a rapid ramp up of zero emission shipping over coming years.
- Ports: Invest in green hydrogen infrastructure projects to support re fueling of ships, and to become part of green corridor projects which help further incentivize the production of green hydrogen for shipping fuels.
Other initiatives included the following launches:
- The Low Carbon Transport for Urban Sustainability (LOTUS) aimed at decarbonizing the global urban mobility landscape. Following a multi-stakeholder consultation process convened by the Egyptian COP27 Presidency, the global transport community affirmed the need to create highly tailored, context-driven urban transport solutions for developing countries.
- The Accelerate to Zero (A2Z) coalition to promote and support the transition to zero emission vehicles globally. It’s the world’s largest transportation coalition with over 200 organizations including governments, industry and civil society. It’s working towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission no later than 2035 in leading markets and 2040 globally. The coalition is a partnership of the UK , the High-Level Champions, the International Council on Clean Transportation, The Climate Group, and the Drive Electric Campaign. The A2Z Coalition builds off the foundation of the “Zero Emission Vehicles Declaration” generated at COP26.
- The Zero Emission Vehicles Emerging Market Campaign (ZEV-EM-C) from the U.S. a one-year campaign that seeks to accelerate zero-emission passenger vehicle deployment in emerging markets.
- The Collective for Clean Transport Finance, which aims to create the tools to change the risk profiles of investment in zero-emission transport.
- The Global Renewables Alliance, representing wind, solar, hydropower, green hydrogen, long duration energy storage and geothermal energy industries will officially join forces in an unprecedented alliance. No details on what that will actually entail.
