Germanwatch-Blog

In the beginning of July, Germanwatch published its Kosovo research study “Phasing in Renewables“ and discussed it in Pristina with development organisations, ministries, business, NGOs and academia. Kosovo faces quite typical challenges of the Western Balkans, being heavily reliant on lignite use for power generation and struggling with serious social and economic problems.

At the UN Climate Change Conference in Marrakech in 2001 (COP7), the international community agreed to establish a climate adaptation fund, which was then launched in 2007. The Adaptation Fund celebrated its tenth anniversary at the 2017 Climate Change Conference (COP23), which was held in Bonn under the Fijian presidency – a good time to reflect on past successes and future developments.

While the ongoing Fijian COP23 in Bonn and the coalition negotiations in Berlin capture media and public attention, Germany quietly released a self-review of their own fossil fuel subsidies as part of the G20 peer review process. The G20 fossil fuel subsidy review, pioneered in 2016 by US and China, is currently the only concrete step to make progress on the group's pledge from the 2009 summit in Pittsburgh to phase-out “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that increase wasteful consumption”.

Russia, the world’s third largest oil producer, is caught between two futures: diversify its fossil fuel based economy in response to changing energy markets and the end of the raw super cycle, or to restore Russian positions in fossil energy markets. While Russian leadership is torn on the subject, the future of the 1.5 degree goal hinges on the direction the nation will take.