Energy Transition in Europe | www.energy-cities.eu

Coal use declines in Europe and the United States, but still increases in parts of Asia

“Talking about a coal phaseout is difficult here, because the people who would be affected still perceive mining as some form of security. It is hard for them understand that this guarantee will be gone one day,” said Katarína Macháčková, the mayor of Prievidza.

Coal still represents 28% of global energy consumption. It is clear that meeting countries’ commitments under the Paris Agreement requires already significant reductions in coal consumptions. In many coal dependent countries, this raises significant political, social and economic issues.

The slogan of this year’s climate talks is “black to green” - appropriate, given the dirty energy companies that are bankrolling the conference. While the sponsors hide behind green branding, their core business models depend on coal, oil and gas, and are therefore absolutely incompatible with the Paris Agreement, let alone a planet still habitable in the future. Our new infographic and fact files, jointly produced with Corporate Accountability, zoom in on the climate culprits taking centre stage at the negotiations in Katowice, Poland.

The European Committee of the Regions joins forces with world networks of local governments in Katowice to request a formal role for cities and regions in the Paris Agreement

Cities account for 70% of world greenhouse emissions, with local governments being responsible for more than 70% of climate change reduction measures and up to 90% of climate adaptation actions. Yet, the Paris Agreement falls short in integrating a system that monitors and reports cities and regions' commitments and achievements in reducing CO₂ emissions. The call for sub-national determined contributions to complement national pledges in the Paris rule book is gaining echo in Katowice as it is increasingly considered central to bridge the current emissions gap.

At the end of this month, two important meetings will be taking place, at opposite ends of the world: as G20 heads of state meet in Argentina, their representatives will be gathering in Katowice, Poland for the next round of climate negotiations.

What happens in Argentina is crucial for the climate. The economies of the G20 account for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions – and if these countries don’t move on climate change, we can expect warming of up to 4C by 2100, a catastrophic proposition for our planet and its inhabitants.

Poles vote in local elections on Sunday (21 October), seen as a key test for the country’s nationalist governing party. Until very recently, energy transition was a political no-go in the coal-dependent country but the situation is evolving, a climate activist and Green local politician in the COP24 host city of Katowice told EURACTIV.com.
“There is a huge gap between local and regional authorities on the one side and the national government. Local and regional authorities are definitely more open to renewables and fighting climate change than the government in Warsaw,” Patryk Białas said on the sidelines of a meeting with the press in Katowice.

On the side lines of COP24, European Interest interviewed Kathrin Gutmann, an expert in climate and energy policy as well as advocacy. In her role as coordinator of NGO efforts to phase out coal with the Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, Gutmann is leading the development of the Europe Beyond Coal Campaign.

She said that under the CAN Europe, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius the EU would need to be carbon neutral by 2040 – much earlier than what the Commission has proposed. The important thing now for the EU is to substantially increase its climate ambition for 2030 and for the EU countries to put measures in place to reach it.

Three years after COP21, the most important United Nations climate conference since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 opened on Sunday 2 December in Katowice. Poland, which is hosting a COP for the third time (after Poznan in 2008 and Warsaw in 2013), chose the capital of Silesia, a region whose economy was traditionally based on the coal and steel industry, in order to highlight the recent, radical redevelopment of this industrial centre towards innovation and culture, and to present Katowice as a model for the “green” transition. This choice also enables Poland to illustrate its vision of a transition towards a resilient, low carbon world, which needs to take better account of social aspects by ensuring that humans remain central to the transition. In this blog, IDDRI examines the political and operational challenges of this vision.

Governments at the COP24 climate change conference in Katowice, Poland, which ends on 14 December, should tackle fossil-fuel reliance by building a global energy grid that connects renewable energy from all around the world - and the best place to start is with a giant wind farm in Greenland, says Professor Damien Ernst, an energy scientist from the University of Liège, Belgium.

Poland is hosting lobbying for coal and fossil fuels of a scale that has rarely been seen during an annual UN conference on climate (COP). The EU is turning a blind eye to this new facet of its ‘enfant terrible.’ EURACTIV France reports.

The climate change challenge is not technical nor even economic, but a matter of enacting the right policies, writes Silvio Marcacci, Communications Director at San Francisco-based think tank Energy Innovation. Based on new research, Marcacci outlines the the types of policies that are the most effective.