We need a more realistic approach

From inadequate oil supply to the Srilanka food crisis

Countries have made ambitious pledges to reduce emissions and announced climate change
mitigation policies to honor those commitments. A
lack of investment in new oil and
gas supplies, amid a shift in focus totally ifnoring the fact that we a
they account for 84 percent of total and it wil takea ot of time to
switch from them 

The transition have to be smooth and set on realistic goals

to cleaner fuels drived price volatility as demand for traditional

energy sources grows
The pandemic made us realize that how dependent we really are on fossil fuels.

Due to extreme weather, the retirement of older power plants, and

delays in restarting nuclear reactors that were shut down after the
Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Japan is grappling with a
limited electrical supply. It is also reducing its reliance on Russian
energy suppliers as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
While Japan is already dealing with insufficient power supply for
the remainder of the summer, the next winter is predicted to be
even more so.
Ten of Japan's 33 operational nuclear reactors have been
reactivated in accordance with post-Fukushima safety regulations
and an additional seven reactors have been allowed to restart
operations by the nation's nuclear authority, but have yet to do so
due to required improvements or a lack of local support.

According to the results of a survey conducted by

In a survey by the Asahi Shimbun in January, nearly two-thirds of the
Japanese do not trust the government to ensure the safety of nuclear
power generation. And an even greater number disapprove of how the
government has handled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in particular.
To reduce the dependence on Russian fossil fuels, European countries like
Austria and Germany have decided to temporarily delay the Green Deal
and reopen some closed coal-fired power plants. This was a tough decision
to make since the increased usage of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, obviously
goes against the principles of the EU’s Green Deal, a raft of new policies
launched by the EU to meet their climate change goals of reducing 55% of
emission from 1990 levels by 2030, as well as a long-term goal of reaching
net-zero emissions by 2050. 

The transition have to be smooth and set on realistic goals

Renewable power deployment as a whole still needs to expand significantly to

meet the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario share of more than 60% of
generation by 2030.
 Sri Lankan  government imposing a nationwide ban on the importation
and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2
million farmers to go organic.
 Prior to the pandemic’s outbreak, the country had proudly achieved upper-
middle-income status. Today, half a million people have sunk back into
poverty. Soaring inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency have forced
Sri Lankans to cut down on food and fuel purchases as prices surge
But the solutions to these problems—be they innovations that allow farmers
to deliver fertilizer more precisely to plants when they need it,
bioengineered microbial soil treatments that fix nitrogen in the soil and
reduce the need for both fertilizer and soil disruption, or genetically
modified crops that require fewer pesticides and herbicides—will be
technological, giving farmers new tools instead of removing old ones that
have been proven critical to their livelihoods
 They will allow countries like Sri Lanka to mitigate the environmental
impacts of agriculture without impoverishing farmers or destroying the
economy. there is literally no example of a major agriculture-producing
nation successfully transitioning to fully organic or agroecological
production.  

The transition have to be smooth and set on realistic goals

China’s call to boost coal supplies following the power shortage last year and
subsequent surge in approval for coal-fired plants has climate experts worried
about the nation’s carbon-neutral goals.

China, the world’s largest carbon emitter which relies on coal for over half of its
total electricity generation, two years ago announced a plan to peak carbon
emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060
2
A coal-fired power plant is pictured near a construction site in Beijing. China’s quickened pace of
approvals for new coal plants is a setback for the country’s climate goals, experts said. Photo: Reuters

China’s call to boost coal supplies following the power shortage last year and subsequent surge in approval
for coal-fired plants has climate experts worried about the nation’s carbon-neutral goals.

Provincial governments across China approved plans to add a total of 8.63 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired
power plants in the first quarter of 2022 alone, nearly 50 per cent of the capacity approved in the whole of
2021, according to a new report from Greenpeace East Asia on Wednesday.
The nods for coal-fired plants gathered pace in the fourth quarter of last year, after China experienced a
nationwide power shortage since September. In 2021, China only okayed 18.55GW of coal capacity, a
year-on-year decrease of 57.66 per cent, according to the environmental group. However, more than 11GW
was okayed in the fourth quarter alone.

“Building more coal-fired power capacity will not provide energy security for China. This is a deep-seated
falsehood,” said Wu Jinghan, a climate and energy campaigner in Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office.
“An overcapacity of this one energy source is a major hurdle for energy security, as well as China’s energy
transition.”

China increases coal production to ensure winter

supplies, easing energy shortage
China, the world’s largest carbon emitter which relies on coal for over half of its total electricity
generation, two years ago announced a plan to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality
by 2060.

Following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s announcement in April 2021 that the government would “strictly
control the expansion of coal power” and start phasing down coal use from 2026, the rate of approvals for
new coal capacity dipped. In the second and third quarters of 2021, less than 3.3GW of capacity was
approved, just 17.76 per cent of the overall approved capacity for last year.

However, after a series of power outages across the country last fall, the government began to signal a
renewed focus on “energy security” and “energy supply”. In April, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang again
called for boosting coal supplies to ensure energy security. He said coal production should be increased by
300 million tonnes this year, or 7 per cent of last year’s output of 4.1 billion tonnes.

59:59 / 00:30

Power crisis in China leaves highway in the dark

The most cited reasons for new coal capacity on approval documents were “taking advantage of local
resources”, and “supplementing shortcomings in local power generation”, according to Greenpeace.

“Energy security has become sort of a code word for coal, rather than for reliable supply of energy,” said
Wu.

China hurting global efforts to phase out coal by building new plants
26 Apr 2022
“Provincial governments look to Beijing closely for guidance. So long as ‘energy security’ is the code
word for traditional, emissions-heavy economic planning, they will use it. Coal-dependent provinces need
the right directions to move forward,” she said.

China’s power inadequacies do not originate from low generation capacity, but from from poor integration
of generation, grid, load and storage, Wu said.

01:50

China scales back emissions target with half of new electricity use to come from renewables by 2025
China scales back emissions target with half of new
electricity use to come from renewables by 2025
If China wants to reduce carbon emissions urgently and further accelerate the transition to zero-carbon
energy, China must get a hold on the runaway coal expansion, climate experts said. The government
should either control the approval process or set up a policymaking guidance for new coal power projects,
they added.

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Expanding the coal power fleet will further lock in a coal-heavy energy mix and slow down China’s green
steps towards the “dual carbon” goals, said Shen Xinyi, researcher at Helsinki-based Centre for Research
on Energy and Clean Air.

“The rebound in new coal power construction is in sharp contrast with the central government’s
strengthened pledges to reduce emissions,” she said

The phase out of Germany's last three nuclear plants is highly sensitive for the ruling
coalition: The Greens, who are governing with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats
and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), have pushed for ending the use of nuclear
power by the end of this year, and until Monday this had been the official position of the
government.

The FDP, however, has strongly advocated for extending the use of nuclear energy amid the
current crisis, arguing this would reduce the need to use gas power plants for energy
production and thereby help to curb Germany's overall dependence on Russian gas. However,
economists have challenged that argument.