Unabated: the Key to an Agreement on Taming the Fossil Fuels Dragon?

It is widely expected that the contentious issue of phasing out fossil fuels will be high on the agenda of the COP28 meeting later this year in Abu Dhabi.[1] Many attempts so far to find common ground on addressing this issue have failed, with the exception of a few that included the term ‘unabated’. The agreement to phasedown coal (COP26) was for unabated use of coal.[2] The agreement to stop financing fossil energy (COP26) was for unabated fossil fuels.[3] The recently published EU Council conclusions on Climate and Energy Diplomacy also included the term ‘unabated’[4].

Considering how widely used this phrasing has become you would expect there to be a proper definition of what is meant by ‘unabated’ (or ‘abated’ for that matter).

This is not the case.

The lack of a clear definition may hinder progress towards broad support for phasing out unabated fossil fuels. Energy security and affordability are very important to the leaders of most countries. They will not support commitments that could pose a threat to their energy security and sovereignty. Similarly, countries and groups that want more restrictions on fossil fuel production and use will not support commitments that are too vague and therefore unlikely to lead to real and measurable changes.

A clear and broadly supported definition of ‘unabated’ is therefore urgently needed and could be the key to a break-through result at COP28. That is the purpose of this article.

This is a topic that will benefit greatly from in-depth discussions with as many stakeholder groups as possible. This article represents my first thoughts on this. I am sharing them in the hope of triggering a discussion that will lead to a better understanding of the challenge and a better definition of ‘unabated’ as this will increase the chances of a successful outcome at COP28. Please engage and share in your network!

In this article I will:

??Evaluate the IPCC definition of unabated

??Propose an objective and scope for the ‘fossil fuels’ statement

??Define unabated and define fully abated (fossil fuel use)

??Look ahead and propose a possible text for a COP28 statement

IPCC definition

The IPCC report appears to be the only place where an attempt has been made to define ‘unabated’ in a bit more detail: “In this context, ‘unabated fossil fuels’ refers to fossil fuels produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of GHG emitted throughout the life cycle; for example, capturing 90% or more CO2 from power plants, or 50–80% of fugitive methane emissions from energy supply.”

The definition is not discussed in the main text (only in footnotes!), lacks a justification for the chosen definition, and there is no reference to underlying reports or articles. Most likely therefore this definition has been introduced by the IPCC authors themselves.

Although the IPCC definition is clearly better than the more general ‘unabated fossil fuels are used without carbon capture and storage’ it is still not a very good definition. Why is this definition not good enough?

??It suggests that reducing methane emissions by 50% could be enough to qualify as ‘abated’ (if the natural gas is not used in power plants).

??The required methane reductions are poorly defined. 50 to 80% reduction compared to what? In some countries (Norway, Netherlands) methane emissions have already been reduced to a very low level. In other countries (USA, many countries in North Africa) methane emissions are still very high. Some form of benchmarking would be needed to make this more meaningful, fair and effective.

??Capturing 90% means that 10% is still being emitted. To reach net zero there will have to be carbon removal from the atmosphere for this 10%. ?Depending on the objective of this statement (on fossil fuels) this may or may not be acceptable (see below). ???

??There are many different applications of CCS which have different optimum capture percentages. Power plants is just one of the many applications.

??This leaves out a possibly important ‘abatement’ option, namely to compensate a residual emission with Carbon Dioxide Removal technologies (CDR).

??In conclusion: the IPCC definition raises more questions than it answers and as a result will be difficult to translate into clear targets that can be monitored for progress. Different countries may also interpret the definition in different ways. Therefore it is not a good basis for a broadly supported COP28 decision.

Objective and scope of the fossil fuels statement

Before I discuss possible definitions of unabated (and abated) it is important to consider what the objective is of adding a fossil fuel statement to the COP decisions. You could argue that the focus should remain on emissions and that as long as emission reduction targets are ambitious enough there is no need for additional statements on fossil fuels. This argument, and a very strong lobby of fossil fuel producing countries and companies, used to be the argument and reason why fossil fuels were never mentioned. However, with every year that emissions continue to rise and new fossil fuel reserves are brought into production, the call for a more explicit statement on how to put the brakes on fossil fuels (the root cause of the climate change problem) is becoming louder and louder. This has led to the explicit decisions and statements as mentioned in the introduction of this article.

Therefore, the following objective is proposed for this statement: The objective is to stop fossil carbon production and use from causing (additional) global warming. It is not about emissions from land use change or forestry or other non fossil carbon related greenhouse gas emissions. It is also not about commitments to invest in renewable energy; there are other decisions and statements that refer explicitly to the need for parties to set targets for that. The ‘fossil fuel statement’ is intended to make countries think about how they can reduce and/or clean-up the use of fossil fuels thereby ensuring that any remaining use will be net zero in line with stated net zero targets.

Which Fossil Fuels

One of the choices to be made is which fossil carbon to include. So far, most statements have focussed on coal and more recently (COP27) there has been a failed attempt to include oil and natural gas. However, ultimately a truly ambitious and comprehensive statement should include ALL fossil carbon: coal, oil, natural gas and cement.

What is included under the term abatement

‘Abatement’ in the broadest sense of the word could include everything that leads to less net emissions (behaviour change, replacement with renewables, nuclear energy, efficiency improvements, CCS, CDR).

A commitment to phase-out unabated fossil carbon use requires two actions:

1. Reducing fossil carbon production and use as much as possible; this is mainly achieved with ‘demand-side’ policies promoting renewable energy, nuclear energy and efficiency and behaviour change. In this article it is assumed that this will continue to be a priority for all policy makers. And that encouraging this will continue to be addressed by other statements and decisions (and Nationally Determined Contributions) of the COP parties. ?
2. Full abatement of the remaining fossil carbon production and use. Accurately defining what this means so that it can be translated into unambivalent targets (allowing progress monitoring) is the purpose of this article.

In line with the defined objective (see above) I have made the choice here to focus the term ‘abatement’ on the specific actions needed to achieve ‘full abatement’ of the emissions of remaining fossil energy use. ?

Defining ‘unabated’

Adding the term ‘unabated’ in fossil fuels phaseout commitments is an implicit recognition of the fact that it may be difficult to stop using fossil carbon altogether by the time net zero needs to be achieved. With more than 80% of the world’s energy still coming from fossil fuels it is unclear how fast that can be phased out completely. ?Energy supply, security and affordability considerations will force governments to allow production and supply fossil fuels to their citizens for at least a few more decades. ?Similarly cement will continue to be produced and needed by societies. It is important that more and more of this fossil carbon use is ‘abated’. As the IPCC points out, the existing fossil carbon infrastructure and projects already exceed safe carbon budgets.

Unabated is a negative term, in that it suggests that nothing is done to abate (reduce) emissions. It requires the definition of the term ‘fully abated’ (as IPCC has recognised and attempted) to make it an effective commitment. Phasing out unabated use of fossil carbon then becomes synonymous with phasing in fully abated use of (remaining) fossil carbon use. For political reasons it is understandable that there is a preference for talking about phasing out unabated fossil fuel use, rather than phasing in fully abated fossil fuel use.

Defining ‘full abatement’

There are 3 choices that need to be made here:

The main choice that remains for the definition of ‘full abatement’ is whether or not to allow CDR technologies to achieve ‘full abatement’. So far ‘abated’ has focussed on making a serious effort to reduce fugitive methane emissions and to capture and store a significant amount of the emissions (CCS). This is difficult to define (reasonable capture percentage and methane reductions are difficult to define at a global level) and would still allow significant remaining net emissions to take place.

In line with the above proposed objective (stopping fossil carbon use causing global warming) it is therefore proposed to allow both CCS and CDR technologies to reach ‘full abatement’. ?Full abatement is achieved when ALL greenhouse gas emissions from fossil carbon production and use are either captured before release into the atmosphere and stored permanently, or (re-)captured from the atmosphere and stored permanently. There are no net emissions remaining from fossil carbon use.

The next question is how to define ‘permanent’. As CO2 is a very long-lived greenhouse gas most experts agree that ‘permanent’ should be at least 100 years and with a high probability of staying out of the atmosphere for at least 1000 years.[5] This would typically exclude carbon storage in the biosphere (soil, forests) and therefore many of the cheaper ‘nature-based’ options. A compromise solution could be to temporarily allow a certain percentage of the carbon stored to be stored in the biosphere (with that percentage going down to zero in the net zero year). [6]

An optional additional specification could be to limit the amount of carbon that is still emitted first and offset by permanent removals. Setting separate targets for Carbon Removal is starting to become more common practice, and may allay fears of unchanged fossil fuel use with offsets. Maximum percentages are typically in the range of 10 to 25%. However, these percentages almost always include all recognised CDR options (permanent, geological storage and less permanent storage in forests and soils). In our proposed definition of ‘full abatement’ only CDR options that lead to permanent (or geological) storage would be allowed. These permanent storage options tend to be quite a bit more expensive than the less durable options (forestry, soil). Therefore, setting a maximum percentage is not needed when only permanent CDR options are allowed. The risk of overuse of CDR will be small due to the high costs. However, if it would be decided to also allow less permanent CDR options to reach full abatement then it would be prudent to include a maximum percentage of 10-25% as explained above.

The easiest and most robust way of monitoring progress to ‘full abatement’ is to accurately monitor all carbon flows in and out of permanent (or geological) storage. ?When carbon produced equals carbon stored then full abatement is achieved. A commitment to phase-out unabated fossil carbon use then becomes a commitment to reach Geological Net Zero.[7]

Text proposal

How does this all translate into a possible text proposal for COP28?

Let’s start by looking at what was agreed at COP26: “Calls upon Parties to accelerate ….the adoption of policies, to transition towards low-emission energy systems, ….., including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power, …”.[8]

Choices that have to be made include:

??Verb:

Every COP26 statement starts with a verb that indicates the strength of the agreement that follows. It ranges from invites,?requests, calls upon, to urges, decides and emphasizes. And many other verbs. The COP26 text is not a call to commit to anything concrete (yet), merely to accelerate efforts.

??Phasedown or phaseout:

Phasedown clearly is a very weak statement in that it is unclear by how much and by when. Nevertheless it is progress from the current continued increase use of fossil fuels. A phaseout commitment is much stronger, but will require a broadly trusted and supported definition of ‘unabated’…the topic of this post.

??Fossil carbon included:

There are four important sources of fossil carbon emissions, coal, oil, gas and cement (limestone). A Net Zero commitment (as many countries have made) will ultimately require any remaining use of these fossil carbon resources to be fully abated (not causing more global warming). The logical choice therefore is to include all fossil carbon sources.

??Fuels or also other applications? Many proposed texts talk about phasing out or down unabated fossil fuel or energy use. Would that exclude fossil carbon production for chemicals and/or cement? Coal use for energy production or also steel production (see EU text)? Again, the logical choice (unless permanence of storage in products can be demonstrated) is to include all fossil carbon production.

??Unabated or not:

Without the term ‘unabated’ there will be no agreement on phasing out fossil carbon use. A vague phasing down commitment may still be possible, but meaningless. Including the term ‘unabated’ (well defined) may make a stronger commitment to phasing out feasible.

??Timeframe of not? A request to accelerate phasing down or out will remain vague unless there is a timeframe and planning included. As countries have different pathways to Net Zero it is probably difficult to come to a worldwide agreement on this. Nevertheless, parties should be encouraged to include specific targets and timeframes in their NDCs.

Some of these decisions are clearly interconnected. And there are many different combinations possible. What is urgently needed is a better understanding of all these options and where different key stakeholder are positioning themselves. That is clearly beyond the scope of this article. I will therefore end with sketching my views on the contours of a positive and workable outcome.

Proposed text for a COP28 statement on fossil carbon phaseout: ?

Urges Parties to commit to a year in which they aim to reach Net Zero, and to phasing out unabated fossil carbon use by that year, and to include targets in their Nationally Determined Contributions with which progress towards this goal (phasing out unabated fossil carbon use) can be tracked and reported for each fossil carbon (coal, oil, natural gas, cement).

There would also be a footnote in which ‘unabated fossil carbon use’ is defined:

In this context unabated fossil carbon use is all fossil carbon production and use that is not yet fully abated. Full abatement is achieved when ALL greenhouse gas emissions from fossil carbon production and use are either captured before release into the atmosphere and stored permanently, or captured from the atmosphere and stored permanently so that there are no net emissions remaining from fossil carbon use. [9]

Next steps

As I mentioned in the introduction, this article contains first thoughts on this topic, and are clearly a ‘work in progress’ that would benefit from a much wider discussion. I would very much appreciate feedback from all perspectives (companies, governments, ngo’s, scientists) and hope that this inspires some groups to take this to the next level by organizing discussions around this topic so that an improved proposal can develop in preparation for COP28.

[1] https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/032223-road-to-cop28-global-stocktake-fossil-fuels-phase-out-to-dominate-climate-talks

[2] “Calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies, and the adoption of policies, to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures, including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, while providing targeted support to the poorest and most vulnerable in line with national circumstances and recognizing the need for support towards a just transition;” https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_10_add1_adv.pdf

[3] Further, we will end new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector within one year of signing this statement*, except in limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a 1.5°C warming limit and the goals of the Paris Agreement.

https://ukcop26.org/statement-on-international-public-support-for-the-clean-energy-transition/

[4] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/62942/st07248-en23.pdf

The Council considers that a dependence on fossil fuels leaves countries vulnerable to market volatility and geopolitical risk and that the shift towards a climate neutral economy will require the global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, as defined by the IPCC, and a peak in their consumption already in the near term, while recognising a transitional role for natural gas. The EU will systematically promote and call for a global move towards energy systems free of unabated fossil fuels well ahead of 2050. In this regard, the Council recalls the commitment taken at COP 26 to close the book on unabated coal power through a phase down, and, calls for a resolute and just world-wide transformation towards climate neutrality, including a phasing out of unabated coal in energy production and – as a first step – an immediate end to all financing of new coal infrastructure in third countries.

[5] The 2005?Special Report on CCS by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?concluded that?appropriately selected and managed geological reservoirs are 'very likely' to retain over 99% of the sequestered CO2?for longer than 100 years and 'likely' to retain 99% of it for longer than 1000 years.

[6] Stuart Jenkins?et al?2023?Environ. Res. Lett.?18?011005 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca4e8

[7] Fankhauser, S., Smith, S.M., Allen, M.?et al.?The meaning of net zero and how to get it right.?Nat. Clim. Chang.?12, 15–21 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01245-w

[8] “Calls upon Parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies, and the adoption of policies, to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures, including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, while providing targeted support to the poorest and most vulnerable in line with national circumstances and recognizing the need for support towards a just transition;” https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_10_add1_adv.pdf

[9] An optional additional condition could be: Parties will strive to keep the percentage of emissions that need to be abated by Carbon Dioxide Removal to a maximum of 10 to 25%.?