A new report released today by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK concludes that wealthy, economically diversified countries, which currently account for more than a third of global oil and gas production, need to phase out their extraction by 2034 for the world to maintain a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C. This analysis, which is the first study to assign dates at which countries should phase out their production of oil and gas on the basis of equity, also highlights that a globally just transition will require wealthy countries to fund a systemic transition away from fossil fuels in the Global South, over and above their existing debts for climate finance and reparations.
Global South
The Sky’s Limit Africa: The Case for a Just Energy Transition from Fossil Fuel Production in Africa
The Sky’s Limit Africa assesses fossil fuel industry plans to sink USD $230 billion into the development of new extraction projects in Africa in the next decade — and USD $1.4 trillion by 2050. It finds these projects are not compatible with a safe climate future and that they are at risk of becoming stranded assets that leave behind unfunded clean-up, shortfalls of government revenue, and overnight job losses.
Distributed Funds for Distributed Renewable Energy: Ensuring African Energy Access Finance Reaches Local Actors
Communities in Africa have generally contributed the least to climate change, been undermined the most by international trade and finance policies, and have a right to better international support for distributed renewable energy. In order to reach universal energy access before the 2030 target set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, international public finance institutions have an urgent responsibility to provide more funding and better financial transparency and tracking for distributed renewable energy. Additionally, they have a responsibility to foster local participation in and ownership of distributed renewable energy initiatives. This briefing provides recommendations for how international public finance institutions can fulfill this responsibility, while revealing that from 2016 to 2018, fossil fuels received more than 3.5 times the support than all kinds of renewable energy did during this period.
Briefing: Overseas players should not dominate distributed renewable energy sector in Africa
A new briefing released by Oil Change International details how the growth of distributed renewable energy in Africa has so far failed to include locally-owned companies and initiatives. The sector has been growing rapidly since 2013 — especially for companies focused on “pay-as-you-go” solar home systems — but finance has overwhelmingly only been accessible for multinational companies that are based in Europe or North America or led by entrepreneurs from these regions, meaning profits are largely not remaining in Africa.