​As clean energy technologies reach global scale, a new report from the Institute for Sustainable Futures finds that the transition to a 100% renewable energy system will require high volumes of environmentally sensitive materials - such as copper, lithium, silver and rare earths -  to manufacture renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, and battery storage.

The report, Responsible Minerals Sourcing for Renewable Energy, which was prepared for the non-profit organization Earthworks, advises that: "The supply chains for these materials and technologies need to be appropriately managed, to avoid creating new adverse social and environmental impacts along the supply chain."

Researchers assessed supply chains for solar photovoltaic power, wind power, and batteries for use in electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems to identify the main ‘hotspots’ or areas of concern in the supply chain, including technologies, metals and locations.

​Key findings include:

1. Encouraging recycling and responsible sourcing are the key strategies to promote environmental stewardship and the respect of human rights in the supply chain. 

2. Recycling is the most important strategy to reduce primary demand. 

3. Responsible sourcing is needed where supply cannot be met by recycled sources.

4. The EV and battery industries have the most urgent need to avoid negative impacts in their supply chains. 

The full report is available to download here. 

By Megan Darby, Climate Home News. The next UN climate summit will take place December 2-13, 2019 in Santiago, Chile, officials announced in March. 

COP25, as it is known, was originally scheduled for November in Brazil, but the plan changed after Jair Bolsonaro’s incoming administration withdrew the offer to host.

Environment minister Carolina Schmidt led a successful bid for Chile to take over the presidency. She will be the first woman to oversee the negotiations in eight years.

While there was no immediate comment from her office, Schmidt has publicised some of her early preparations for the role. She met last year’s Cop president Michal Kurtyka, of Poland, earlier in the week and on Wednesday tweeted: “We must move towards effective climatic action.”

There had been talk of deferring the conference until January 2020, to give the country more time to raise funds and prepare. However the UN Climate Change Bureau ultimately agreed to squeeze it into 2019. The precise venue is to be confirmed.
It is not the only high-profile event in Santiago’s calendar: leaders of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries are due to convene November 16-17, 2019.

“The Piñera admin is making a bold statement in favor of multilateralism,” tweeted Latin America climate expert Guy Edwards.

A ‘pre-COP’ ministerial meeting is expected to take place in Costa Rica, possibly as soon as October, according to sources.

This article originally appeared on Climate Home News.

Image: United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019

The government of Costa Rica has released an ambitious plan to decarbonize the country's economy by 2050. The plan has received international attention and praise as the latest example of Costa Rica's climate and clean energy leadership.

The introduction to the plan states:

- Decarbonization and resilience are conceived as a means to transform the development model to one based on the bioeconomy, green growth, inclusion and the improvement of the quality of life of citizens.

- The definition of the key actions was carried out based on the paradigm of transformational change - in contrast to the logic of incremental change - which is required to abolish the use of fossil fuels in our economy.

- In order to bring the concept of decarbonization to practice, a methodology was used whose starting point is a long-term vision of Costa Rica: to have a decarbonized economy by 2050, which has reached the lowest possible level of emissions consistent with the global climate goal - that is; the goal of containing the increase in global temperature well below 2 ° C (and ideally a limit of increase to 1.5 ° C) with respect to pre-industrial levels.

- From this global goal and applying a "backcasting" exercise considering the national reality, the public policy packages and actions that must be implemented from today to reach the goal to 2050 were identified.

A link to the full plan (in Spanish) is here.

A key component of the plan will be electrifying transportation, which accounts for 40% of Costa Rica's greenhouse gas emissions. 

In 2018, 98% of the country’s electricity came from renewable sources, and the economy grew 3%.

Decentralization has emerged as a key theme in energy policy and planning as small-scale renewable and distributed energy technologies – such as energy storage, electric vehicles, and demand response – make it possible to design energy production, delivery, and consumption systems that are cleaner, more efficient, and more responsive to the needs of communities.

The Institute was honored to participate in the conference “Decentralization and Energy” at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in The Netherlands on January 23-25, 2019, where energy decentralization was explored from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, architecture, art, engineering, history, law, social justice, and urban planning.
 
Energy researchers and professionals from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Iran, Italy, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, and the US gathered to analyze energy transitions, including historical transitions and the one currently in process.

At the conference, the Institute’s Exeuctive Director Heather Rosmarin presented a paper entitled “Decarbonizing and Decentralizing Power in California: A Report on the Energy Transition."
 
This conference was the third and final in a series of conferences on the theme of decentralization and planning. The first two conferences were organized by universities in Grenoble (November 2017) and Milan 
(November 2018). Selected papers from the three conferences will be published through TU Delft Open/BK Books. 

Climatescope 2018 is a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) that compiles and analyzes data on clean energy deployment, investment, and government policies in 103 developing nations. According to the report, developing nations are now leading the global clean power transition.

Key findings include the following:
​

• Renewables: For the first time, renewables accounted for the majority of all new power-generating capacity added in developing countries
• Financings: In 2017, new clean energy financings in emerging markets totaled $143 billion (Figure 1). Foreign direct investment supporting clean energy rose to an all-time high of $21.4 billion. 
• Costs: Clean energy costs continue to fall, making clean energy technologies competitive with fossil generation in many markets. Over 35 emerging markets have held reverse auctions for clean power-delivery contracts to date, including Mexico ($21/MWh for PV) and India ($41/MWh; wind). BNEF's estimated levelized cost of electricity for wind and solar is below $50 for many developing nations.
• Coal Trends: In 2017, new coal-fired capacity additions fell to their lowest level in over a decade, but actual generation from existing coal-fired plants rose 4%.
• Challenges: Challenges include how to address the continued reliance on coal - particularly in China and India - and how to effectively integrate large amounts of low cost intermittent clean electricity into existing market structures.

The Climatescope analysis ranked Chile as the top nation for clean energy investment due to "strong government policies, a demonstrated track record of clean energy investment, and a commitment to de-carbonization despite grid constraints." 

​Climatescope's free searchable database with profiles of all 103 countries can be accessed here. 

By Gabriela Volpato. The Brazilian gasoline crisis of May 2018 demonstrated the need for alternative transportation solutions in Brazil. In response to that crisis and other incentives, the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) approved in June 2018 a new regulation to establish the procedures and conditions for installing electric vehicle (EV) charging stations throughout the country.
 
The projected increase in the number of automobiles in Brazil will require a corresponding  increase in the supply of transportation fuel in the coming years, which makes the use of electricity as a fuel in the transportation sector an interesting alternative, from both the energy security and environmental points of view. A supportive regulatory environment for charging stations will be needed to supply the demand for electricity to charge EV batteries.  ANEEL opted to start with a minimum regulation of this emerging industry.
 
Technically, this regulation allows any entrepreneur to install a charging station, paying the energy distributer for the energy consumed, according to the existing meter at the property and based on the tariffs already charged and defined by ANEEL. 
 
This initial regulatory approach of ANEEL aims to eliminate barriers, accelerate the deployment of charging stations, and provide an attractive framework for the deployment of EVs in Brazil. The regulation allows use of electricity for EV charging with no additional fixed commercial or residential tariff, as distinct from what happens with fuels such as gasoline and diesel, for example, which are subject to additional tariffs.
 
According to the app “Plugshare” there are only 26 public charging stations in Brazil to supply the current demand of 6,000 electric vehicles. This number can be explained by the prior lack of supportive regulation and public incentives for this type of transportation alternative. Dargay [1] predicts that with an average US$ 15,900 per capita income and a population of 222 million Brazilians in 2030, the national fleet of cars would be the around 80 million vehicles in Brazil. This would represent an increase of 127% of number of cars in the country and would make Brazil the fifth biggest automobile market in the world.
 
While the new regulation for EV charging stations is a positive start, there is still much to be done so that electric cars can in fact spread through the streets of Brazil. The main obstacle is the lack of incentives and investments in the sector, both for car manufacturing and for components such as batteries. For the Brazilian population in general EVs are still too expensive and inconvenient to refuel when compared to combustion cars. However, as other markets such as California’s show, with the right incentives and infrastructure in place, EVs become a popular choice.
 
[1] DARGAY, J., GATELY, D. E SOMMER, M. Vehicle Ownership and Income Growth, Worldwide: 1960-2030. Energy Journal, 2007.

Gabriela Volpato is Brazilian energy engineer, a Research Fellow at the InterAmerican Clean Energy Institute, and an energy systems management graduate student at the University of San Francisco. 

EV Charging stations in Brazil. Source: PlugShare. 

In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a Special Report projecting the impacts of global warming of 1.5ºC, compared to 2ºC, and analyzing various pathways to the lower, safer target of 1.5ºC. The pathways are presented in a Summary for Policymakers. 

Human activities are already estimated to have caused approximately 1.0ºC of global warming above pre-industrial levels. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5ºC between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.

​According to the IPCC, limiting global average temperature rise to the relatively safer level of 1.5ºC (versus 2º or more) is still possible, but it will require rapid technological transitions at  “unprecedented” scale, including the transition of energy systems to low or zero carbon sources by 2050.

The risks of global warming greater than 1.5ºC include negative impacts on human health, infrastructure, agriculture, and marine ecosystems. For example, coral reefs are projected to decline by an additional 70–90% at 1.5°C with larger losses (>99%) at 2ºC. 

The Special Report involved 91 authors from 40 countries, 133 contributing authors, over 6,000 cited references, and 42,001 expert and government review comments.

Google announced on September 12, 2018, that it plans to expand its Latin American data center near Santiago, Chile. Since 2017, the center has operated entirely on solar power from Chile’s Atacama region. The center is linked to California through a subsea cable. Google will invest an additional $140 million to expand the facility.

Google executives told Reuters that they had chosen Chile "because of its favorable climate for foreign direct investment, a clear regulatory framework and a good supply of renewable energy resources."

The International Energy Agency's 2018 review of Chile's energy policies found that the country "has emerged as a world-class destination for solar and wind energy developers."  The percentage of electricity generated from renewables has tripled in the past five years, increasing to 18% of Chile's electricity mix (excluding large hydro). Chile's favorable policies, renewable energy resource potential, and innovations in renewable energy auction design have been key factors in attracting investment.

This week the California Assembly passed Senate Bill 100, which would require 100% of the state's electricity to come from renewable and zero-carbon resources by 2045. Effectively, this would end the burning of fossil fuels for electricity. 

Current law requires the state to reach 50% renewable electricity by 2030. If Senate Bill 100 is signed by Governor Brown, California would become the world's largest economy to commit to 100% clean electricity. (With a GDP of $2.7 trillion, California has the fifth largest economy in the world.) UPDATE: Brown signed the bill on September 10, 2018.

Lawmakers said that it was important for California to continue its pioneering efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. California is already feeling the impact of climate change with intense wildfires ravaging many areas of the state. A poll found that 76% of Californians supported the 100% clean energy target, including 53% of Republicans. 

The bill advanced with broad support from environmental, faith, social justice, public health, and business leaders. 

Photo: https://ca100.org/

In 2017, renewable energy accounted for approximately 70% of net additions to global power generation capacity due in large part to the cost competitiveness of solar PV and wind, according to REN21's Renewables 2018 Global Status Report (GSR). Significantly, the world added more solar PV capacity than net additions of fossil fuels and nuclear power combined. ​

Global solar PV capacity increased by 98 gigawatts (GW) to 402 GW, an increase of approximately 33%, and ​global wind power capacity increased by 52 GW to 539 GW, an increase of approximately 11%. 

In 2017, 179 countries had national, state, and/or provincial renewable energy targets, and 57 countries had a 100% renewable electricity target at the national or subnational level. 

Multiple electricity systems are successfully integrating high penetrations of variable renewable energy such as solar and wind without affecting grid stability. Five countries generated more than 20% of their electricity from wind and solar in 2017: Denmark, Uruguay, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain (see graph below). 

Links to the full GSR report, highlights, and infographics are available here.