ALBERT

Description: Even though unit costs for renewable energy have fallen sharply, there’s clearly more finance needed for mitigation and adaptation. The least developed countries still don’t have the technologies they need. Can the private sector deliver, or should governments and the UN intervene?

Description: An EU Border Carbon Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) may bring severe economic consequences to countries without the resources to adapt to a low-carbon paradigm. The EU should therefore consider possible policy risks and involve third-country stakeholders in CBAM policy design; use CBAM revenues to fund decarbonisation in at-risk countries; and build emissions reporting requirements around existing international obligations.

Description: Since the EU Commission announced the introduction of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) within the European Green Deal, debates intensified on its effectiveness for climate action, adhering to WTO regulations, and potential trade wars with China and the US. We argue that the implications of the EU CBAM for affected countries, especially in the Global South, have been underrepresented so far. We assess countries’ relative risk levels in two scenarios: i) CBAM addressing only emissions-intensive sectors and ii) CBAM targeting the whole economy. The paper maps relative risks in these two scenarios using a risk index encompassing the export structure of countries, their emissions intensity, emissions reduction targets, and institutional capacities to monitor and report product-based emissions. The quantitative analysis reveals that the impacts of CBAM are distributed unevenly across the globe. The spectrum of impacted nations varies between the two analysed scenarios, but in both cases most countries at relatively high risk are located in Africa. Three qualitative case studies covering Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Morocco evaluate the countries’ trade relations, their carbon intensity, energy and climate policies, and institutional capacities, with a special focus on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of carbon emissions. The analysis sheds light on different patterns of vulnerability and policy options to increase resilience.

Description: Europe's growing interest in securing green hydrogen from North Africa is part of a strategic effort to enhance its energy security. The promise of green hydrogen projects in Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania is substantial, offering economic growth and job opportunities. However, numerous factors limit these countries’ ability to develop robust local green hydrogen sectors, while political disputes—particularly around Western Sahara—complicate regional collaboration. European actors can play an important role in advancing green hydrogen’s development in the region, but must tread carefully to secure local buy-in and avoid exacerbating tensions within or between these countries.

Description: Many developing countries have made their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) conditional on receiving climate finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building support. Due to a lack of engagement from the private sector, countries from the ‘Global South’ face continued challenges in accessing low-carbon finance and technology. Technology transfer initiatives, including public-private partnerships or intellectual property rights (IPR) sharing platforms, have been suggested to bridge this ‘low-carbon technology gap’ and promote the technology transfer needed for energy systems transformation. This paper assesses whether such initiatives address the technology gap, as well as other imperatives such as climate justice or carbon lock-in prevention. The paper finds that many low-carbon technology transfer initiatives focus on transferring multiple kinds of technologies to countries that are facing electricity access and governance challenges. Yet these initiatives do not all address the key capacity-building components of knowledge transfer, and countries with poor intellectual property rights (IPR) protections have fewer initiatives on average. Initiatives are also observed less frequently in climate-vulnerable countries. To meet the Paris climate goals, there is an urgent need for the international community to address the low-carbon technology gap by mainstreaming technology transfer into trade and finance.

Description: In this article, we review the main impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global energy sector and evaluate the implications of related policy responses on prospects for a transition to a climate-friendly energy system. In doing so, we differentiate between different types of countries and different dimensions of energy supply. Firstly, we assess the impacts on leaders and laggards in the transformation of the power sector, in terms of renewable power deployment and the phase-out of coal-fired power generation. Secondly, we consider impacts of the crisis on major exporters of oil and gas resources, focusing on a selection of G20 countries. We find that the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and related policy responses vary across different types of countries but also within large countries, such as the US and China. We conclude that the COVID-19 crisis deepens the gulf between leaders and laggards of the global energy transition and will exacerbate existing imbalances in an uneven energy transition landscape. This threatens the achievement of international climate targets and points to the need for concerted international action aimed at the phase-out of fossil energy resources.

Description: Jordan’s energy transition has been rapid and ambitious: in 2021 renewables accounted for 26 % of electricity production in Jordan, up from less than 1 % in 2014. This massive leap forward was prompted by energy security concerns in the wake of the Arab Spring that forced the government to scramble for alternatives to Egyptian gas. Today, Jordan is a regional clean energy industry frontrunner, with over 300 PV companies and around 13 000 employees in the sector. However, recent policy decisions have stalled further progress. Auctions for new projects have been scaled back or postponed, and new ventures in excess of 1 MW were indefinitely suspended in January 2019. At the same time, changes to electricity tariff structures have dampened demand for residential PV. This loss of momentum is largely due to financial constraints on Jordan’s state-owned National Electric Power Company (NEPCO), which is caught in long-term purchasing agreements for fossil fuels that conflict with the goal of growing Jordan’s renewable energy sector and are exacerbating NEPCO’s already significant debt burden. With 20 % of public debt linked to the electricity sector, this also has ripple effects for the rest of the Jordanian economy. Increased regional cooperation will be needed to re-negotiate Jordan’s commitments to purchase fossil fuels and to expand the regional market for renewable energy, allowing Jordan to export surplus electricity and establish itself as a clean energy hub while at the same time giving neighbours the chance to sell energy elsewhere and increasing regional stability. And while Jordan’s top-down approach to energy policy was crucial to driving the rapid growth of renewables, the current risk of stalling progress makes it clear that stakeholders from different ministries as well as industry and civil society must be involved in future policy development processes to accelerate Jordan’s energy transition and shift the country from the current single-buyer model towards a more competitive market for electricity.

Description: The transition to low-carbon energy systems has the potential to shift geopolitical power, as it will create winners and losers across countries. The clean energy business is certainly lucrative for its winners: the IEA estimates that the transition would create a $1.2 trillion market for clean energy. Although there have been vivid debates in the past years among policymakers and scholars alike, the factors determining who will win and who will lose are still hotly debated[i]. Many scholars see physical resources as important, from solar radiation levels to critical materials. We argue that what matters for ‘winning’ transition processes are political and economic factors, such as investments in renewables and technological development, as well as relative timing of transition processes.

Description: The global energy transition, that is the full decarbonization of the world energy system until 2050, is attracting growing attention in global policy debates.