“Our goal is not small, our ambition is not modest: we hope that today will mark the beginning of the end of natural gas and oil”. The formula chosen by Dan Jorgensen is a bit pompous. But the alliance that Danish Minister for Energy and Climate and
Andrea Meza, his Costa Rican counterpart came to present at COP21 this Wednesday noon is not anecdotal either.
His little name: BOGA, for Beyond oil and gas, a coalition of countries determined to stop producing oil and natural gas on their territory,
two fossil fuels with a heavy impact on global warming. “At the last
United Nations General Assembly, at the end of September, the two countries had already expressed their desire to no longer issue permits for the exploration and extraction of gas and oil and to create a coalition of countries in this direction ”, contextualizes Aurore Mathieu, head of international policies
Climate action network (RAC), federation of French climate NGOs.
BOGA to launch international momentum?
It is therefore done with BOGA. In addition to Denmark and Costa Rica, ten other countries and regions have joined the coalition. France, Greenland, Ireland, Quebec, Sweden, Wales as full members, as well as California, New Zealand and Portugal as associate members.
Admittedly, in this group, none of the main producers of these two fossil fuels appears, although Denmark either in large hydrocarbon producers in the European Union (EU). “This is a first step,” insists Dan Jorgensen, who hopes that this BOGA coalition will launch international momentum. “We are in dialogue with many other countries,” he assures us. Including Scotland that we can already mention. “
Aurore Mathieu is not underage in this new coalition announcement either. “This is the first diplomatic initiative to focus solely on gas and oil production, when announcements in the direction of an exit from fossil fuels have hitherto mainly focused on coal,” he begins. she. In addition, this BOGA coalition is added to the list of announcements made at COP26 since its opening which go in the direction of an exit from fossil fuels. In the first week, the alliance of countries and organizations (local authorities, financial institutions, companies, etc.) committed to phasing out coal was thus enriched with 23 new states, including Poland and Vietnam, which are now very dependent on this other fossil fuel with a carbon footprint even heavier than gas and oil. Nineteen countries and five organizations * also pledged in Glasgow to stop
their funding for fossil energy projects abroad by the end of 2022.
A message starting to get across?
All of these ads have their weaknesses. These are already declarations of intent, not backed by binding legal objectives. They also each have their share of imprecision. Even with this BOGA coalition, “its members do not put forward a date on which they intend to end the exploration and exploitation of oil,” explains Lorette Philippot, campaign manager for “private finance” to Friends of the Earth, NGO member of the RAC. They also do not specify whether this commitment to no longer issue new building permits also applies in areas where exploration permits have already been granted to companies. Finally, these Boga alliance countries are announcing that they will be phasing out oil and gas on their territory, but not all of them are committed to no longer simultaneously financing fossil energy projects abroad. “
All the same, put end to end, these coalitions launched with great fanfare help to anchor in people’s minds the necessary exit from fossil fuels to limit global warming below 2 ° C, or even below 1.5 ° C. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already been hammering out the message for several years through its reports. “The International Energy Agency (IEA) also now, adds Lorette Philippot, referring to
to the report released last May, in which the IEA calls for the immediate abandonment of any new oil or gas exploration project.
A mention of fossils even in the final decision of the COP?
This is already a good first point to credit the COP26: “In Glasgow, much attention has been paid to fossil fuels and the role they play in global warming”, observes Aurore Mathieu. This COP could even go down in history by mentioning these fossil fuels in the hat of its final decision, this text which summarizes all the elements on which the delegations of the 197 parties (countries represented at the COP) have agreed. And therefore undertake to keep. In the first draft published on Wednesday morning by the British Presidency, one of the paragraphs calls on “Parties to accelerate the phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”.
Admittedly, it is vague, but “it would still be the first time that there are these explicit references to fossils in a final decision of the COP, explains Lola Vallejo, director of the climate program of Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri), which does not get carried away. “This first version will change a lot by Friday evening [une nouvelle version est attendue dans la nuit] and this paragraph, precisely, should be attacked from all sides, ”she said. “By all the countries which have their economy based on fossil fuels, whether they are large producers or large consumers, summarizes Aurore Mathieu. Either India, China, the United States, Russia, Australia, Saudi Arabia… ”
A double game for France?
And France? At the COP, Paris negotiates under the aegis of the EU like the 26 other member states. But the country still has a certain aura in the climate negotiations… That it would not put at the service of an ambitious mention on fossil fuels in Glasgow for the RAC. Aurore Mathieu and Lorette Philippot point out in any case the inconsistencies of Paris on this subject. “On the one hand, France is joining the Boga coalition, which does not force it to make new commitments since the Hulot law [adoptée en décembre 2017] Act already the end of the production of gas and oil on the French territory by 2040, begins Laurette Philippot. On the other hand, it has still not joined the countries which pledged, last week, to no longer finance fossil energy projects abroad by the end of 2022. While Germany and the Spain have since done so. “
Worse, for the RAC, France is positioning itself more and more as a defender of natural gas. In particular, it pushes for this fossil fuel to be included in the future taxonomy on EU green investments, this classification of “clean energies” that Brussels must stop this autumn and which will be able to benefit from financing at lower cost to accelerate the ecological transition of the Member States. Aurore Matthieu describes a game of billiards with three cushions. “France supports natural gas in support of the countries of Eastern Europe, which are major producers of natural gas,” she explains. And the latter give him back the device by pushing in the same way so that the same nuclear treatment is reserved. “
For her part, Barbara Pompili, Minister for the Ecological Transition, said “to be very comfortable” with the French position on natural gas, during a meeting with French journalists on Tuesday in Glasgow. But gives any other reason for this support. “The absolute priority is to drastically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, especially those of countries today heavily dependent on coal,” she begins. If to ensure the energy transition in these territories, that is to say to support the development of renewable energies, to manage peaks in consumption, we need a little natural gas, then it will be less evil. “