Good morning, readers of tomorrow, good month of December, this is a new issue of areasNewspapers on climate, energy, earth and the future. Let’s start, we have a lot of things to think about.
Twist in the UK
Shell has withdrawn from oil and gas extraction from Cambo, a new region in the Scottish Shetland Islands. This is the most important news of the week on the decarbonization front, as it puts the development of one of the most controversial oil and gas projects in recent years at great difficulty and explores how these initiatives can be stopped. Is: From below, with social pressure, protests and demonstrations.
At COP26 in Glasgow, the United Kingdom came up with the specter of cambo and all its climate and energy impacts to undermine the credibility of its ambitious strategy to reduce emissions by 2030 and zero by 2050. Sikkar Point Energy, the company that manages it and discovered it in 2002, expects Kambo to be operational in early 2022, with the wells to produce 170 million barrels of oil over the course of a quarter century. For, drilled in water 1000 meters deep, 125 kilometers northwest of the Shetland Islands.
The British Oil and Gas Authority has yet to give its final approval and threats from lawsuits from environmental organizations from Greenpeace to ClientEarth threaten Cambo’s future. Stop Cambo was a prominent point of protests in the streets of Glasgow on the sidelines of the climate summit.
It was in this scenario that the news came: Oil giant Shell, which accounted for 30 percent of the operation and was therefore vital to its growth, has decided to withdraw.
Shell’s official words are: “After an in-depth analysis of Cambo’s growth perspective, we have determined that the economic benefits of this investment are not sufficiently clear, given the potential for delays in its development.” These are quiet words, but historic in their own way: given the government’s support of Boris Johnson for the project, there is only one direction this delay could take and that is civil society, in order to withdraw Shell from Cambo. was persuaded. An epoch-making victory.
On the scales were the potential benefits to be collected over a period of twenty-five years on the one hand, the economic and political costs of facing years of protests and legal proceedings on the other.
The front, which ranges from Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon to environmental organizations, has shown itself to be large and compact enough to discourage even a giant like Shell, which however in note reiterated its interest in oil and gas development in the North Sea.
So this is not a win that will completely change the energy landscape of neither Shell nor the United Kingdom, as the project still stands and Sikkar Point Energy will seek new partners for its development, but it is a Important example.
The Stop Cambo movement featured not only Johnson’s political commitment to zero emissions by mid-century for COP26 climate diplomacy and related British plans, but also the latest report from the International Energy Agency. The IEA wrote in its May 2021 report that no new oil or gas extraction projects should start from 2022 if we are to keep the 1.5°C target within reach.
Leaving coal, gas and oil where they belong is the setting up of an underground, usually conservative Paris-based agency. Shell’s exit from the cambo is an important step in that direction.
italian gas match
And in Italy? What happens in Italy? Vanessa Ricciardi told it about Domani, the . begins with the Roman presentation of Declaration of Work and Energy for Sustainable Change, in which Draghi and Singolani also participated.
The most obvious words were spoken by Giuseppe Ricci, president of Confindustria Energia and Eni’s manager: “The exploitation of gas must be accompanied by maximum emphasis on renewable energy.” And again, in the manifesto: support for the capture and storage of Co2 (which this week branded as technically and energetically useless by the CEO of Enel Starace) and for the production of hydrogen regardless of color, so neither Not only green (from renewable sources) but also blue (from gas).
Ecological Transition Minister Singolani praised the document, saying: «Can I translate it? That’s why I bring this document to the Energy Ministerial on Thursday and convey this good result ». The game we are playing is that of taxonomy, the Italian strategy to incorporate gas into sources of clean energy, while Singolani also reiterated the Italian opening for fourth generation nuclear power.
Full article here.
what happens in the arctic doesn’t stay in the arctic
As you know, I did not accept the story of COP26 as a complete failure. There have been results in terms of both tangible and operational impact and legacy on future climate action. But in the end the only reality that matters is the atmosphere and what happens in the atmosphere, and the Glasgow Climate Conference only made the distinction clearer and more concise that still exists amid the alarm that science and politics do (or what it can do) , or what it is capable of, we can do any mitigation).
In the meantime, research continues to produce alarming information that is important to know, however, because they are maps that mark the distance between us and the precipice.
So: An international research led by the University of Manitoba, Canada, has reconstructed a new potentially devastating impact of the climate crisis based on its model: In the Arctic, rain could replace snow as the most frequent rainfall in the coming decades. And it will be an era of change with unpredictable consequences, triggering a system collapse, because “what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” as said scientist Michelle McChrystal, who led the project.
If rain becomes the most common precipitation over the Arctic Circle, sea levels rise, dangerous melting of permafrost accelerates even more, less sea ice is formed and local ecosystems are at risk . (You don’t want to be a buck in the Arctic, where it rains more often than it does).
In a world warmer than 3 °C this would occur across the region, even in extremely northern latitudes, but even within the limits of the Paris Agreement (2 °C), Greenland and northern Norway would become places where It’s easy to find it yourself. Under a snowfall, under a storm.
permanent joint flight history
There’s one flight that’s worth mentioning: the United flight between Chicago’s O’Hare and Washington airports. This is the first time in history the Saf-il. is 50 percent powered by sustainable aviation fuel, sustainable aviation fuels, including waste oils, agricultural residues and waste.
United Flight is produced by World Energy, but several large oil and gas companies are working on this front (Eni, Shell, BP). It’s not a silver bullet for decarbonizing aviation, real sustainability is something else, but certainly these fuels have the potential to bridge the gap in the future of electricity (which is still a long way to go for aviation). ). The problem is not to be on this bridge permanently.
SAF is already used mixed with regular fossil fuels, but in a much smaller percentage than in combined flight, which was intended to demonstrate the performance of engines powered entirely by kerosene. And may be equal to security.
This is the first time this has happened on the trade route. The main constraint in the use of these fuels at present is the cost, which is much higher than that of conventional kerosene. But it is a step and all steps matter.
local lithium conflict
Environmental organizations in Serbia are very agitated and in recent days have blocked Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities in protest against a project by the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto to extract lithium deposits discovered fifteen years ago in the western part of the country. Is. ,
The mining company has already started buying land, planning to invest $2.6 billion but has yet to obtain a license from the government (although it is about to pass legislation to encourage the acquisition of related land). ).
Lithium is one of the basic materials for the energy transition, a fundamental component for the batteries of electric vehicles and for the accumulation needed to make sustainable renewable sources of energy.
This year in the north of Portugal, the province of Tras-os-Montes had a similar conflict with a similar dynamic: the fear of permanent ecological damage (lithium is a polluting and energy-consuming extraction) against the desire to exploit the most prestigious of the future. Stockpile of one of the elements: Lithium production has increased by 335 percent over the past ten years and we are only at the beginning of the energy transition. In addition, Portugal has some of the most significant reserves in Europe and a clear strategy involving this mineral.
Today the main producer is Australia, while the main user is China, which is also the third extractor. And finally there is the South American Lithium Triangle between Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Europe is absent from the global lithium map.
readings for the holidays
We end with two books, because sometimes it’s important to even talk about books and it’s been a while since we were done. They are very different from each other, but both bring us back to a fundamental idea for environmentalist thinking. That’s complexity.
the first is Ecologist for whom? By Roberto della Seta (Salerno Publications). It is an essay that begins with an interrelationship, so clear that it has often been interpreted in a somewhat arbitrary manner: between the environment and the pandemic.
Della Seta is dodging them by two contrasting interpretations that can be given about the relationship between man and nature at the time of covid-19 (nature that attacks us versus we attack it) to order something To try, with ardor and rationality.
Della Seta was the president of Legambiente and is one of the fathers of environmentalist thought and action in Italy. He will present the book in Rome, a more free books, in Sala Luna, on December 5 at 5.30 pm, in a debate with Nicola Zingaretti, Ermete Realacchi and Domani’s journalist Daniela Preziosi.
another was written by a friend of areasLuigi Toregiani, co-host and co-writer of the podcast Wow, the title is my forest belongs to all (Compagnie delle Forest), a novel for children, novels for children that are also a good investment to read as adults.
It is a story of formation that takes place at the edge of a forest, intended as a physical and social place of confrontation and conflict. The two boys fall in love, they come from two families that have a very close relationship with the Italian jungle, but from two different directions. Pietro’s parents are forest dwellers, Gemma is environmentalist, the two factions probably need to stop considering each other on opposite sides of the fence, and this is Torregiani’s view in the book and in all of his works.
my forest belongs to all Presents all this in a delicate, funny and intense story. Editorial goals are middle school students, but editorial goals are built to be exceeded as well. find it here,
That’s all for this week, thank you very much for reading so far, as always for writing to me at [email protected] for comments, thoughts, criticisms and comments. On the other hand, to communicate with Domani, the address is [email protected] . Is
Thank you!
ferdinando cotugno
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