COP26 President spoke at the High Level
Stakeholder Session for the Petersberg Climate Dialogue on
Monday 27 April 2020.
This was an online session involving international
organisations, governments, business, and members of civil
society.
Firstly, thank you everyone for joining us for this
discussion, despite the very difficult circumstances
facing so many people right now.
I am very honoured to be co-hosting the Petersberg
Climate Dialogue with Minister Schulze; and it’s great to
be participating in this high-level stakeholder event
ahead of the ministerial discussions that are going to
take place tomorrow.
While we rightly focus on fighting the immediate crisis
of the Coronavirus, we must not lose sight of the huge
challenges of climate change. And Minister Ribera of
course referred to that in some detail.
We all know that climate risks are growing year by year.
And the steps we take now to rebuild our economies can
have a profound impact on our societies’ future
sustainability, resilience and, ultimately, wellbeing of
humans, but of course, nature as well.
And two of the areas that I think we particularly need to
have our attention on are the power and transport
sectors.
Energy transition and accelerating the move to
zero-emission road transport are two of the five key
campaigns that the UK is going to be focusing on in the
lead up to COP 26.
And I believe that by actually uniting around specific
issues, we hope to spur innovation, scale up solutions
and bring down the costs in both of these areas. And I’ll
talk a little about what’s been happening in costs in
these areas
The challenge we face is how do we speed up progress
towards a zero emission and climate-resilient global
economy, whilst at the same time creating jobs and
supporting communities through the transition? And, of
course, that it is particularly important now as a result
of where the global economy finds itself in the COVID-19
situation.
To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, we need to
decarbonise the global economy about three to five times
faster over the next decade than we did over the last two
decades.
And it is right that we should come together as we have
done today - international organisations, governments,
business, civil society - to discuss how we meet that
challenge together.
Now, our efforts can and they must of course support each
other. And government policy can encourage business
investment. And business innovation can create new
options for consumers. And civil society advocacy can
build on support for strong policy.
And we live in a globally connected economy, and the
options available to each country depend greatly on the
actions that we take together and the actions that are
taken by others.
And I do think that if we work together on this we can
progress a lot faster.
So, just to give you some statistics.
In the power sector, the pace of progress has actually
been pretty impressive. Globally, the cost of solar power
has fallen by 85%, and that of wind power by 49%, since
2010.
Renewables are already cheaper than new coal power in two
thirds of all countries in the world. And before long, it
will be cheaper to build new renewables than to continue
to operate existing coal plants. And I do think actually
this is a remarkable global achievement. All countries
that have deployed these technologies have helped to
increase economies of scale, to accelerate innovation, to
shift investment, and ultimately to bring down costs.
Cheap and clean electricity is very much a reality. But
the transition away from polluting coal power is not
complete.
The goal of phasing out unabated coal from power
generation is now supported by 97 members of the Powering
Past Coal Alliance, so this is 33 countries, 27
sub-national governments, around 37 businesses and
related organisations. And the Alliance now covers more
than a third of the total coal power capacity of the OECD
countries.
It’s clear that developed countries should lead the way,
and the UK is committed to achieving zero coal power by
2024.
Last year, if I can tell you, that only 2% of all our
electricity generation in the UK came from coal, which is
for us a record low. Just eight years ago, that level was
around 40%. So, where we work effectively we can make a
difference.
In parallel we also need to scale up technical
assistance, investment, and indeed, policy support, so
that clean power becomes the most attractive option for
all countries, not just developed ones.
So that the global pipeline of planned new coal plants,
which is already shrinking, we should aim to have that
eliminated entirely.
We must support heavily coal-dependent countries in
making a ‘just transition’ - it’s a phrase we use a lot,
but I think we have to really give effect to that. We
need to help them to move to clean energy in a way that
creates jobs and supports the communities that are most
affected.
And we absolutely have to work together to extend access
to electricity to almost the almost billion people -
around 840 million people - around the world who don’t
actually have access to it right now.
Turning to road transport, the promise of cheaper,
cleaner technology is, again, equally real.
Electric vehicles are cheaper to run than fossil fuel
cars and are expected to be cheaper to buy by the early
2020s.
The auto industry is being hit hard by the current
crisis, we all know that for those of us who are dealing
with this in our own governments. And of course our
immediate concerns are the businesses and jobs that are
affected.
But the long-term prosperity of the industry, and for
wider society, the challenge of transition is just as
important.
By the most optimistic estimates, over half of new car
sales globally will be electric vehicles by 2040. To meet
the Paris Agreement goals, we probably need all new
vehicles to be zero emission by then. In other words,
we’re going to need to double the pace of the global
transition.
I do believe that we can achieve this if we work
together.
The UK itself has already set the goal of ending the sale
of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040. And in
February, thanks to progress in the sector, our Prime
Minister announced we were
bringing this target forward to 2035 or, indeed, earlier
if we can give effect to that.
We have also invested in a UK Battery Industrialisation
Centre, and that’s a stepping stone to our larger
commitment for a Gigafactory – a large-scale battery
technology factory for electric vehicles.
Now, I do believe that actually the more countries that
set clear targets and policies in line with this rapid
transition that I’ve talked about, the faster investment
will shift towards new technologies, and the faster their
costs will come down. We’ve seen that in renewables and
we want to see that when it comes to vehicles as well.
Faster transitions in power and transport will absolutely
have far-reaching consequences and we all understand
that.
Cheap and clean power, and the scaling up of batteries
and fuel cells in road transport, will absolutely open
new pathways to decarbonisation in industry, buildings,
aviation and shipping.
And we are only just beginning to experience the benefits
of a clean economy, and we need to move much more quickly
towards it.
And I do believe that whether we live in the South, the
North, the East or the West, we do share one life-giving
but incredibly fragile planet. We share an interconnected
global economy. That is absolutely clear and has been
very clear as we’ve seen the consequences throughout
COVID-19.
But we also share the hope of a prosperous future.
And I hope the discussion today can explore opportunities
for stronger cooperation to meet this shared challenge,
working together. Absolutely, we can certainly make
faster progress.
Thank you.
