Living Planet: Our planet, our future | DW – Environment |

As world leaders debate how best to move forward with implementing the goals of the Paris Agreement, cities and civil society are wasting no time in taking action.

 

○ France to ban sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040
○ Volvo to go all electric, hybrid by 2019

Trudeau, Merkel push common climate goals at G20 summit in Hamburg | CNBC |

Trudeau has been more careful than some other world leaders in criticism of Trump, and many other world leaders or their officials have leaned on him to try to reach out to the U.S. president.

“I expect that there will not be perfect unanimity. But I think we will find common ground in a number of areas,” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told Canadian reporters.

…
Freeland said there are a lot of other issues, including environmental based, that they can work on with the U.S. She wasn’t keen to portray Canada as a go-between amid U.S. and European tensions.

While Trudeau is playing a leadership role, she said, “our European partners are incredibly effective international diplomats and they are very effective at having direct bilateral relationships with all the countries with whom they need to have bilateral relationships.”

All but Trump may sign on

Merkel and Trump — who met privately themselves — have a difficult relationship and the tensions between the two have threatened to overshadow the G20 meetings, particularly as it relates to getting agreement on climate change.

At the G7 meetings in Sicily in May, Trump refused to agree to the climate change language in the communique, making it a six against one scenario.

Merkel’s energy plan is a separate document, the working draft of which includes language on everything from fossil fuel subsidies to requirements for companies to disclose the climate impacts of their investments and business practices.

For Merkel, getting 19 of the G20 leaders to sign the document would be a tremendous political success in her battle with Trump but doing it is no sure bet. Even a back door effort to influence Trump on climate change seems to have failed thanks to protests.

Merkel scheduled a tour of the German climate change centre in Hamburg for G20 spouses. The centre uses supercomputers to model climate change impacts around the world and First Lady Melania Trump was to have been part of it.

Below the fold: Hydrogen Council established at Davos 2017

Toyota, Shell Among Giants Betting $10.7 Billion on Hydrogen | Bloomberg |

Toyota Motor Corp. and four of its biggest car-making peers are joining oil and gas giants including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA with plans to invest a combined 10 billion euros ($10.7 billion) in hydrogen-related products within five years.

“The world of energy is transforming very, very fast,” Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Hydrogen has massive potential.”

Fuel cell vehicles are a cornerstone of Toyota’s plan to rid 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from its vehicles by 2050. The automaker has long contended it’s more likely to convince consumers to use gasoline-electric hybrids and fuel cell vehicles rather than battery-electric autos, which tend to have less driving range and take longer to recharge than filling up with gasoline or hydrogen.

“In addition to transportation, hydrogen has the potential to support our transition to a low-carbon society across multiple industries and the entire value chain,” Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota’s chairman and a council co-chair, said in the statement.

‘Hydrogen Council’ established in Davos

Meeting in Davos for the first time, the `Hydrogen Council’ is currently made up of 13 CEOs and Chairpersons from various industries and energy companies committed to help achieve the ambitious goal of reaching the 2 degrees Celsius target as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The international companies currently involved are: Air Liquide, Alstom, Anglo American, BMW GROUP, Daimler, ENGIE, Honda, Hyundai, Kawasaki, Royal Dutch Shell, The Linde Group, Total and Toyota. The Council is led by two Co-Chairs from different geographies and sectors, currently represented by Air Liquide and Toyota.

    “The 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change is a significant step in the right direction but requires business action to be taken to make such a pledge a reality. The Hydrogen Council brings together some of the world’s leading industrial, automotive and energy companies with a clear ambition to explain why hydrogen emerges among the key solutions for the energy transition, in the mobility as well as in the power, industrial and residential sectors, and therefore requires the development of new strategies at a scale to support this. But we cannot do it alone. We need governments to back hydrogen with actions of their own – for example through large-scale infrastructure investment schemes. Our call today to world leaders is to commit to hydrogen so that together we can meet our shared climate ambitions and give further traction to the emerging Hydrogen ecosystem.” Benoît Potier, CEO, Air Liquide.

○ Climate Change: China and EU Fill Leadership Void Left by U.S.
○ World’s Biggest Polluters Ratify Paris Agreement
○ The Isolated and Ridiculous GOP
○ The story of “Climate Chancellor” Angela Merkel

On new developments …

○ Kawasaki ship designs support Japan’s hydrogen-society plans
○ Oil Stocks Soar After Donald Trump Victory, But Coal Is The Real Winner
○ Lithuania and Poland sign LNG deal as Trump promotes U.S. energy in Warsaw
○ Trump says gas deal with Poland should take ’15 minutes’ | The Hill |

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