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By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

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Europe takes the focus today as the continent’s green agenda is starting to fray. From Britain giving the go-ahead for one of its biggest new oil and gas projects in years, to Italy demanding that the European Union water down a directive aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings.

Although we covered it in our Aug. 10 Sustainable Switch, ‘Greenlash surges across Europe’, the growing pushback against climate policies has gained momentum this month inside and outside the EU. Click here for a feature on which countries are facing the greatest “greenlash”.

This comes as the International Energy Agency (IEA) said the world would need to invest nearly $4.5 trillion per year in the transition to cleaner energy from the start of the next decade, up from spending of $1.8 trillion expected in 2023.

Britain has given the go-ahead for one of its biggest new oil and gas projects in years. Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during an interview. REUTERS/Hollie Adams/Pool

The IEA’s pathway to net zero report urges countries to invest in renewables to make it possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) and asks advanced economies to reach net zero sooner than developing economies.

However, the same “advanced economies” are still investing heavily in fossil fuels.

In the UK, Norwegian energy group Equinor obtained approval for its North Sea Rosebank oil and gas project this week, located west of the Shetland Islands, which would start output in 2026/27.

The announcement comes after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak watered down interim plans for the government’s 2050 net zero emissions target, a move that critics said could also encourage other countries to rein in their climate ambitions.

The government says Britain needs new domestic fossil fuels to improve energy security and that oil and gas would still feature in the country’s energy mix even by 2050.

Environmental campaigners, however, had urged the UK government to halt development of Rosebank, saying it contravened the plan for a net-zero economy.

Uplift, a campaign group, said Britain would struggle to benefit from Rosebank as most of the oil would be processed abroad. “By approving Rosebank, Rishi Sunak has confirmed he couldn’t care less about climate change,” Uplift’s Tessa Khan said.

Over in Germany, the country will indefinitely halt plans on more stringent building insulation standards, environment minister Robert Habeck said on Sept. 24, after industry complaints the measures are too costly and hurt the depressed construction sector.

Germany’s lower house of parliament passed a bill in September on phasing out oil and gas heating systems, though the legislation was criticized by conservatives as too costly and by environmentalists as not strong enough.

Arguing over the law had brought the ruling coalition close to collapse until it agreed to water down the original bill.

Italy’s right-wing government is pushing back on an array of European Union initiatives aimed at greening the economy, arguing that local business can ill-afford transition goals.

Italy has demanded that the EU water down a directive aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings, rewrite plans to phase out combustion engine cars and questioned a drive to slash industrial emissions.

Under current policies, Italy is behind schedule in hitting the decarbonisation goals for 2030.

Poland’s government, long conservative on environmental policies at home and facing elections in October, has gone a step further by suing Brussels.

So far it says it has filed complaints with the Court of Justice on the EU’s 2035 ban on combustion vehicles, the increase in the bloc’s emissions reductions target, the reduction of free CO2 permits, and what it called interference in national forest management.

Facing pressure from mining unions, Poland has also deferred a plan to cut its reliance on coal by downgrading the status of its upcoming energy policy update to simply a “consultation”.

A view shows a collapsed part of the Rhone glacier, amid climate change, in Obergoms, Switzerland. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, minister of industry and advanced technology of the United Arab Emirates and COP28 President Designate, shares his thoughts on what he hopes will come out of the summit:

“I am calling on leaders from both the public and private sector to come to COP28 with real and actionable commitments to address climate change.

“We need to rapidly decarbonize both the supply side and demand side of the energy system at the same time. 

“We need to triple renewable energy by 2030, commercialize other zero carbon solutions like hydrogen and scale up the energy system free of all unabated fossil fuels, while we eliminate the emissions of the energies we use today.

“We need to protect and enhance nature, safeguard carbon sinks and transform food systems that account for one third of emissions. And we need fundamental reform of the international financial architecture that was built for the last century.

“I believe we can deliver all of this while creating sustainable economic growth for our people, but we must urgently disrupt business as usual and unite like never before to move from ambition to action and from rhetoric to real results.”

Four of South African state utility Eskom’s 15 coal-fired power plants are breaching government emissions regulations as it pushes aging facilities to their limits, a Reuters analysis of company data found and Eskom officials confirmed.

Africa’s most developed economy is facing its worst power crisis on record, with a persistent electricity shortfall necessitating daily scheduled rolling blackouts – known locally as ‘load shedding’ – of up to 10 hours for the past 18 months.

Shukri Mohamed Abdi and Fathi Mohamed Ahmed, journalists at Bilan Media, Somalia’s first all-women media team in Mogadishu, Somalia August 20, 2023. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Today’s spotlight shines a light on women in business in Somalia and Pakistan, from running newsrooms to managing a skill center for Afghan refugees.

Fathi Mohamed Ahmed runs the first and only all-female newsroom in Somalia, one of the most dangerous places on the planet to be a reporter.

With more than 50 journalists killed since 2010, Somalia is the most dangerous country for journalists in Africa, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Bilan, the media house where Ahmed works as chief editor, produces a daily mix of hard news and in-depth features for local and sometimes international audiences.

In its almost 18 months of operation Bilan, which means “to shine a light”, has overcome prejudice and insecurity to illuminate some of the most taboo subjects in Somalia, including a female drug epidemic, albinism, women living with HIV and period shame.

An Afghan girl attends painting and art class at the Skills Academy for Needy Aspirants (SANA) in Peshawar, Pakistan. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz

Over in a small workshop in the bustling northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, a dozen Afghan women sit watching a teacher show them how to make clothes on a sewing machine.

The skills center was set up last year by Peshawar resident Mahra Basheer, 37, after seeing the steady influx of people from neighboring Afghanistan where they face an economic crisis and growing restrictions on women since the Taliban took over in 2021.

Trying to create options for women to become financially independent, she opened the workshop to teach tailoring as well as digital skills and beauty treatments. Basheer quickly found hundreds of women enrolling and has a long wait list.

“I was recently told by someone on Capitol Hill that a carbon tax can’t pass because it would be too effective. He wasn’t speaking about Republicans as much as he was about Democrats in fossil-fuel-dependent states. But ESG may meet increasing resistance. If a carbon tax can crest that hill just one time, that would be that, a lot else would fall into place.”

Ray Welch, energy consultant at international grassroots environmental group, Citizens’ Climate Lobby

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