The Cipher team is here for our first-ever in-person meeting and to cover Climate Week — reach out if you are too.
In this week’s edition: Anca has an exclusive interview with Europe’s new Green Deal chief, dissects the semantics of climate diplomacy and shares an important Data Dive on clean cooking access in Africa.
Plus, Amena traveled to Colorado to report on green steel.
NEW YORK CITY — In an exclusive interview with Cipher on Tuesday, the European Union’s new Green Deal chief implored the world to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius ahead of a consequential United Nations climate summit on Wednesday.
“We are really playing with the future of the next generation,” Maroš Šefčovič, the executive vice president of the European Commission, said on the sidelines of a Bloomberg Philanthropies Climate Week event. “We are pleading for the ambition to be refocused again on the 1.5 figure, because we have seen what 1.1 degrees can do to Europe and to the world.”
Šefčovič was referencing current global world temperatures, which in 2022 were about 1.15 degrees above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
This summer saw unprecedented fires, floods and high temperatures sweep over Europe, North America, Asia and other parts of the world, causing havoc, destruction and leaving many people homeless.
The world agreed under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and aim for 1.5. That is the limit scientists say would avoid the most severe and irreversible impacts of climate change.
However, the world is not making sufficient progress on slashing climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, putting that goal increasingly at risk.
While no one has officially given up on the1.5-degree goal, “if you are in this business for a while and you kind of also hear what’s discussed in the margins” it’s clear it has become less of a focus, said Šefčovič.
The issue is going to be top of the agenda at the Climate Ambition Summit in New York City today, where the conversation is set to raise the pressure on leaders ahead of the December United Nations climate conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
“Don't give up on 1.5 and let's work as a global community on the solutions which are proven, which exist, and build the global consensus around them,” he said. “That will be the attitude of the Europeans in Dubai.”
U.N. Chief’s Test: Shaming Without Naming the World’s Climate Delinquents — The New York Times Amy’s take: Important read about the United Nations leader’s evolution on the topic of fossil fuels, and who will get to speak (and who won’t) at the Summit.
EV makers’ use of Chinese suppliers raises concerns about forced labor — The Washington Post
Bill’s take: China’s domination of the supply chains for everything from solar panels to critical minerals to electric vehicles is simultaneously accelerating and casting a shadow over the energy transition.
China probe row adds to EU’s Green Deal woes — Financial Times (paywall)
Anca’s take: The headline focuses on a fear of Chinese backlash, but the story is more about the challenges of implementing the project on the ground amid high costs.
America passed the EV ‘tipping point’ — but many buyers still want gas — The Washington Post Amena’s take: Is it truly a hesitant public and a lack of charging infrastructure that prevents widespread adoption or is it the high price of EVs?
Biden to Target Industrial Pollution in a 2nd Term, if He Gets One — The New York Times
Amy’s take: Such a move is likely to underscore the importance of reducing the green premium the clean versions of these materials require.
Germany Tests a Dutch Fix for Energy-Guzzling (and Ugly) Buildings — Bloomberg Bill’s take: Energy efficiency gets little attention, but Germany is making remarkable strides with everything from heat pumps to this “Dutch fix.”
California Legislature Passes Sweeping Emissions Bill — The Wall Street Journal Amena’s take: California isn't waiting for the federal government, which has been sitting on a similar proposal for over a year now.
New York Climate march sets tone for week of UN talks — Financial Times (paywall) Anca’s take: It is an intense week in New York City, upping the pressure on world leaders ahead of COP28. Cipher is there as well!
Meet the Oil Man in Charge of Leading the World Away From Oil — The New York Times Amy’s take: This story struggles to connect three distinct (but related) stories: UAE’s efforts to get lower income nations to use fossil fuels, Sultan Al Jaber’s role as COP28 president and UAE’s energy system.
More of what we're reading:
COP28’s Biggest Conflicts Are on Display at the UN General Assembly — Bloomberg
Exclusive: Kerry, China envoy to co-chair 1st local climate summit — Axios
Photo credit: Bill Varie / The Image Bank via Getty Images
Boulder, Colo.— Clean steel of the future may be brought to us by a sparkling white office building nestled here in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
This building, headquarters of startup Electra, houses a large chemistry lab full of dozens of engineers and scientists buzzing about in blue lab coats and safety goggles.
It’s a far cry from the gigantic greying steel tanks and emissions-belching smokestacks we associate with the iron and steel industry, where workers don hard hats to shovel coal into red hot furnaces.
“Our vision is to bend the trajectory of climate change by decarbonizing ironmaking, a key first step in making steel,” Electra CEO and co-founder Sandeep Nijhawan, told Cipher. “At Electra, we don’t just want to reduce CO2 emissions, we also want to extract value from waste and revolutionize steel production, consumption and recycling.”
Steel is crucial to modern life, used to make everything from wind turbines to sewing needles. But making it accounts for at least 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to that red-hot furnace process.
Now a handful of companies in Europe and the United States are racing to create cost-competitive iron that will be made into steel with low or even no emissions. Electra and at least one other U.S.-based startup, Boston Metal, aim to combine cheap renewable energy with new production processes to take on traditional steel.
The companies will compete against fossil-fuel steelmakers who have a massive cost advantage, but also against other startups trying to make clean steel other ways, especially with hydrogen or carbon capture technologies.
Put simply, it’s a race to lower costs on two fronts: With incumbents and with each other.
An international political battle is brewing over what our net-zero emissions future should look like — and, in the world of climate diplomacy, a lot hangs on the choice of words.
Should fossil fuels be phased down or phased out? Or should the emissions of fossil fuels be dealt with and phased out, but not necessarily their production and use?
This may sound like semantic games, but the nuances are important, reflecting different mentalities, interests and timelines that could shape what technologies and approaches we prioritize and fund to address climate change.
The tussle over the inclusion of one word over another — in speeches, letters or joint statements — sheds light on linguistic divisions contoured by countries’ oil and gas resources, their wealth and their vulnerability to the impacts of a changing climate.
The fact that a fight over how to talk about fossil fuels exists is a good sign, said Alex Scott, who leads climate diplomacy and geopolitics at the environmental think tank E3G.
“It’s a huge signal that there is starting to be political recognition that we need to address the role of fossil fuels,” she said.
The semantics have become more prevalent over the last few months as nations gear up for the yearly United Nations climate conference, this year known as COP28, which will be hosted in November and December by the United Arab Emirates, a major oil and gas producing country. Expect plenty of wordsmithing at Climate Week events this week in New York.
Read the full article for a snapshot of this linguistic climate dance on our website.
DATA DIVE
Universal access to clean cooking lags behind
Source: International Energy Agency • Analysis based on World Health Organization data and other national sources. Clean cooking systems include improved cook stoves, biogas systems, electric stoves, liquid petroleum gas, natural gas or ethanol stoves. No data was available for the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Roughly two-thirds of Africa's population — almost a billion people — doesn't have access to clean cooking, according to a recent International Energy Agency report.
What’s more, half of those people live in just five countries: Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Uganda.
While the world strives to transition to a net zero economy, many poorer countries still do not have access to such basic energy needs as clean cooking.
In sub-Saharan Africa, less than 20% of the population has access to clean cooking in 29 countries.
The IEA findings come as world leaders gather in New York for the yearly Climate Week, as well as for a special summit organized by the United Nations on September 18 and 19 meant to track progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, which include universal access to clean and affordable energy by 2030.
Air pollution from rudimentary cooking fuels such as charcoal, firewood, coal, agricultural waste and animal dung causes 3.7 million premature deaths per year, ranking it the third largest cause of premature death globally, according to the report.
Women suffer the worst impacts, since the burden of finding the fuel and making the meals typically falls on them.
These cooking methods also lead to greenhouse gas emissions and, in some instances, can contribute to deforestation.
Clean cooking systems include improved cook stoves, biogas systems, electric stoves, liquid petroleum gas, natural gas or ethanol stoves, according to the IEA. These methods are more efficient and environmentally sustainable than traditional fuel options. Although scientists, environmentalists and others don’t consider natural gas, a fossil fuel, to be a climate solution, in the context of clean cooking in lower income nations, it’s generally considered to be clean.
The agency’s report shows universal clean cooking access could be reached worldwide by 2030 with an annual investment of $8 billion, which it points out “is just a tiny fraction of what the world spends on energy each year.”
AND FINALLY... Steel chemistry
Amena snapped this picture of iron at different stages of purification on a recent visit to clean steel startup Electra’s headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. Extracting pure iron from iron oxide ores is the most energy-intensive part of making steel, a material that is ubiquitous in the modern world.
Each week, we feature a photo that is somehow related to energy, the thing we all need but don’t notice until it’s expensive or gone. Email your ideas and photos to news@ciphernews.com.
Editor’s note: In addition to supporting Cipher, Breakthrough Energy also supports and partners with a range of entities working to tackle climate change, including nonprofits, corporations, startups and research firms. For more information on Cipher’s editorial policy, click here.