What does ‘unabated’ mean for fossil fuels

What does ‘unabated’ mean for fossil fuels - The New York Times

Climate Forward

A fierce debate at the global climate talks.

There’s no shortage of jargon in the global climate talks in Dubai. But one particular word is taking central stage, and a fierce debate is brewing over “unabated.”
Sultan Al Jaber, the president of this year’s COP, has said he hopes that all countries would agree to transition to “an energy system that is
free of unabated fossil fuels.”
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said earlier this week that “the bottom line is this COP needs to be committed to
phasing out all unabated fossil fuels.”
The G7, the group that gathers some of world’s largest economies, has committed “to accelerate the
phaseout of unabated fossil fuels so as to achieve net zero in energy systems by 2050.”

Unabated, when it comes to fossil fuels, means doing nothing to remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from oil, natural gas and coal emissions.

But the details are much more complex. And as my colleagues Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich report, if unabated makes it into the summit’s final declaration, it might allow nations and fossil fuel companies to continue to burn coal, natural gas or oil as long as they try to trap and bury the resulting greenhouse gases — a prospect that is far from certain.

Abatement has become shorthand for how big a role carbon capture and storage should play in the fight against global warming. That’s an umbrella term for technologies that aim to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or catch emissions and store them before they are released into the air.

Some oil and gas producers say carbon capture should be central in planning for the future. Others, including many activists and world leaders, fiercely disagree.

A slippery definition

There is no agreed-upon definition of unabated.

Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tried to define the term in the footnote of a report last year, saying it referred to fossil fuels “produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gases.” That would mean capturing at least 90 percent of emissions from power plants, for example, or 50 to 80 percent of methane leaks.

But many climate change scientists worry that creates opportunities to game the system. Abated fossil fuels could, for example, be used to refer to technologies that capture a much smaller percentage of emissions at the source. Or they could refer to unproven carbon capture techniques that offset emissions elsewhere.

Geoffrey Supran, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami who focuses on the history of climate disinformation, said the term is reminiscent of the oil industry’s history of “appropriating wonky scientific language” to “greenwash their image.”

The word, Supran added, “seems to be having the effect of confusing the COP28 debate.”

Nikki Reisch, director of the climate and energy program at the Center for International Environmental Law, warned against any COP agreement that “perpetuates the myth that we can continue to produce and use fossil fuels at scale and somehow still meet our climate goals.”

“The idea of abatement means to make less bad or make less harmful,” she said. “I think that neither carbon capture nor offsets can make fossil fuels compatible with a climate safe future.”

Can abatement actually work?

Brad and Nadja report that a few recent studies have found that carbon capture can be a valuable tool for curbing emissions from certain activities, like cement manufacturing.

But its use is likely to be limited: It would be nearly impossible for countries to keep burning fossil fuels at current rates and capture or offset every last bit of carbon dioxide that goes into the air. The technology is expensive, and in many cases there are better alternatives.

In theory, companies could attach a carbon capture device onto almost any factory or power plant that burns fossil fuels today. But in practice, it’s often cheaper to shut down a coal plant and replace it with some combination of wind, solar and batteries, or to swap out a gas boiler for an electric heat pump.

The International Energy Agency estimates that it would cost $3.5 trillion per year to capture or offset all of the emissions from today’s oil and gas output. Carbon capture, the agency concluded, “is not a way to retain the status quo.”

Despite billions of dollars in investment, countries and industries have also struggled to get carbon capture projects up and running so far.

“Carbon capture and storage definitely could be a critical technology,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “But the history of carbon capture to date has largely been a disappointment.”

Abatement at COP28

John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, spent the last several months as a big user of the word unabated. It seemed to be a central pillar of America’s climate agenda, E&E News reported.

Some diplomats think abatement could create a path to an agreement on fossil fuels, the major goal in this year’s negotiations. Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states oppose any efforts to reduce fossil fuels gradually, much less to end the use of the oil and gas that underpins their economies.

On Wednesday, Kerry seemed to change rhetoric slightly, when he told reporters that the United States supports “largely” ending the burning of coal, gas and oil, my colleague Lisa Friedman reported. He also said nations would need to deploy technology to capture and store carbon emissions from industries for which there are no low-carbon or zero-carbon alternatives, like steel and cement manufacturing.

And it’s unclear what “largely” really means — perhaps a subject for a future Climate Forward newsletter.

Other climate news
Bayer is paying
billions of dollars to settle claims that its weedkiller, Roundup, caused cancer.
Governments, particularly in Europe, are trying to counter the Biden administration’s clean energy policies
with their own incentives.
New York just switched on
its first offshore wind farm.
The extreme rain and flooding in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia in October has been made twice as intense by climate change,
according to a new study.
Reports of a slowdown in electric vehicle sales have been greatly exaggerated,
Bloomberg reports.
Lawmakers in Norway decided to allow commercial deep sea mining in the Arctic Ocean,
The Associated Press reports.
Al Gore has a plan to weaken the power of oil producers over global climate agreements,
Bloomberg reports.
In an opinion article, Wanjira Mathai of the World Resources Institute touted the power of “
fearless women” to fight the climate crisis.

Manuela Andreoni is a writer for the Climate Forward newsletter, currently based in Brazil. She was previously a fellow at the Rainforest Investigations Network, where she examined the forces that drive deforestation in the Amazon. More about Manuela Andreoni

A Climate Summit at a Key Moment

Diplomats and leaders have gathered in Dubai for COP28, the annual United Nations climate talks. The summit runs from Nov. 30 through Dec. 12.
Uproar Over a Remark: Simmering tensions around the decision to hold the U.N. climate summit in a petrostate burst into the open after Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati oil executive who is leading COP28,
said there was “no science” to support a phaseout of fossil fuels.
Inflation’s Effect: A global campaign to tame inflation is hurting the fight against climate change by
steering developing countries away from renewable energy, raising anxieties among the officials gathered at the summit.
A Spiritual Place: The
first-ever Faith Pavilion at COP28 offers a space for meditation, prayer and something that feels often lacking from global warming talks: hope.
Funding Issues: One of the big tests facing this year’s summit is whether it will fare any better than earlier talks at
shoring up the huge sums of money that are needed to fund the energy transition.
An Ambitious New Rule: Biden administration officials at the summit announced that the U.S. government would, for the first time,
require oil and gas producers to detect and fix leaks of methane , a potent greenhouse gas.
Artificial Intelligence: The idea of using A.I. to fight emissions has made a splash at COP28, but there’s a catch:
The energy the technology requires could make matters worse.