6.29am EDT
06:29
Patrick Greenfield
One of the great things about COP26 is there are lots of interesting events going on in nooks and crannies of the Blue Zone in the SEC. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico, former Obama aide Paul Bodnar and the SSE CEO are on a panel discussing the energy transition this morning.
“We have 80% of the technologies needed to cut global emissions by half. The hard part is figuring out how to smooth the transition out of the dirty stuff,” says Bodnar, who is now Global Head of Sustainable Investing at BlackRock.
“How are you going to get all the internal combustion passenger vehicles off the road? You think you’re going to do that just by selling more EVs? No, you’re not. How are you going to get rid of the chemical plants and the cement plants and the steel mills that have technically or financially useful lifetimes left? You’re not going to do that just by building something alongside them that doesn’t emit any carbon.”
Grisham, governor of one of the US’s most coal-heavy states, has signed off a plan to have a carbon-free energy network by 2045. “In our really poor rural counties, we use utility cooperatives and they don’t have access to the same capital investment and have tiny consumer markets. They still have to deliver reliable, cost-effective power.”
6.25am EDT
06:25
Minister Shauna Aminath from the Maldives tells Cop: “We came to Cop because this is our lifeline. The Maldives climate and energy challenges are enormous – we depend almost entirely on imported fossil fuels for meeting our needs. The diesel costs are enormous.”
“The government’s policy is to quit fossil fuels as quickly as possible and replace them with something the Maldives has in abundance – sunshine. Today 12% of our energy is coming from renewables,” but they are planning to speed up their transition to renewables, with floating solar panels all around the island. But, she said, they need finance for this.
She reminded the audience: “The difference between 1.5 and 2 for a country like the Maldives is a death sentence.”
6.09am EDT
06:09
Our Seascapes project has just launched the first part of a fascinating series on Blue Carbon. The ecosystems of seagrass, mangroves and salt marshes could absorb 1.4bn tons of CO2 emissions a year.
But these ecosystems are some of the most threatened in the world by coastal development – damaged by farming, harmful fishing practices and pollution – so protecting and restoring them is expensive.
6.00am EDT
06:00
The Cop audience at the Energy Transition discussion is hearing about the Just Energy Transition partnership with South Africa, signed this week by France, Germany, the UK and the US, along with the EU.
South Africa, the largest emitter in Africa, is heavily dependent on coal. But under the deal, $8.5bn will be mobilised over the next few years to help the country transition away from fossil fuels.
The partnership is regarded by Merkel, Macron, von der Leyen and Biden as an exemplary partnership that will, they hope, “be a blueprint” for other similar deals.
Updated
at 6.02am EDT
5.50am EDT
05:50
Sharma is telling the Cop that this afternoon the Powering Past Coal coalition will announce that it now has 165 members.
5.33am EDT
05:33
Global CO2 emissions shooting back to record levels
Damian Carrington
Global carbon emissions are shooting back to the record level seen before the coronavirus pandemic, analysis has shown. Scientists said the finding is a “reality check” for the world’s nations gathered at the Cop26 climate summit.
The emissions driving the climate crisis reached their highest ever levels in 2019, before global coronavirus lockdowns saw them fall by 5.4%. However, fossil fuel burning has surged faster than expected in 2021, the international research team said, in stark contrast to the rapid cuts needed to tackle global heating.
The data, from the Global Carbon Project, shows world leaders have failed to build back greener, with just a small proportion of pandemic spending going to sustainable sectors. But the scientists said hopes of keeping global heating to 1.5C remain alive if Cop26 leads to rapid global action.
Updated
at 6.03am EDT
5.31am EDT
05:31
There’s a Che/Greta mashup on the wall in Glasgow…
(@nee_massey)
That’s fun, wonder if Greta has seen her likeness up on the wall near ?@Monorail_Music? ? pic.twitter.com/wIaqYRm9Go
5.17am EDT
05:17
Good morning! It’s energy day up in Glasgow at Cop26 today; all day long we’ll be following the discussions on how to make an energy transition work, plus whatever else we can pick up.
The coal deal that was announced late last night is still being picked apart. While a deal is obviously good news, it is still not entirely clear how much further this take us forward. Many of the biggest coal producing countries are not actually signed up, and it’s proving hard to pin down deadlines: the devil, of course, will be in the detail.
Another emerging issue is access – a number of vital groups have been unable to attend critical meetings, there is a perpetual overcrowding problem, and we’re hearing that digital access is not much better.
You can contact me with information or suggestions or your own experiences at bibi.vanderzee@theguardian.com, or @bibivanderzee.