Climate Diplomacy to Promote Renewable Energy Investments

Dr. Aslı VAROL

The world is facing many challenges due to climate change impacts. The primary way to minimize these effects is to reduce greenhouse gas emission rates to zero. The fact that developed countries continue to use fossil fuels from the Industrial Revolution to the present has exacerbated the climate and environmental crisis.

Today, the G20 countries collectively accounting for around 75 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 80 percent of global GDP and two-thirds of the global population, has a major role in addressing climate change (Climate Analytics, World Resources Institute 2021).

Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen international communication efforts to encourage the use of clean energy resources and to support renewable energy investments. This can only be achieved through the effectiveness of climate diplomacy.

A New Foreign Policy Issue: Energy Transition and Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is in the field of both climate diplomacy and energy diplomacy. At the same time, economy, trade and business diplomacy also put renewable energy on their agenda.

Diplomacy on renewable energy is a dimension of energy diplomacy called “green diplomacy”. Low-carbon economic and industrial development trend towards increasing renewable energy requires energy transition (Katrandzhiev, 2020: 12).

The energy transition process (known also as “greening of economy” or “global low-carbon energy transition”) is the increase in the share of renewable resources (hydro, solar, wind, biomass) in the energy production of countries. However, the global economy still relies on the use of polluting non-renewable resources (coal and oil) for energy production. The EU has announced its goal of making it 'carbon neutral' by 2050 through the “Green Deal”. However, phasing out coal-based electricity generation capacities will be a challenge for EU Member States’ competitiveness. In this case, renewable energy-oriented diplomacy comes into play.  As Katrandzhiev stressed that renewable diplomacy can be defined as a new prospective dimension of energy diplomacy in times of global energy transition and movement towards economic and environmental sustainability. Because diplomacy will be needed to balance the relations between hydro-carbon energy producers based on oil, natural gas and coal exports and energy importing countries (Katrandzhiev, 2020: 14).

Today, countries should both compete and encourage each other in the production and use of renewable energy. Cooperation at the regional and global level should be strengthened to create the sustainable renewable energy market. Renewable energy in foreign policy can be an opportunity to open the way for new dialogues.

India’s Climate Diplomacy in Africa to Expand the Solar Energy Production

India uses climate diplomacy effectively in renewable energy production. According to the Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index 2020, India is the fifth most affected country by climate change (Eckstein, Künzel, Schäfer, 2021).

India should consider climate diplomacy as one of the main areas of its foreign policy. India, together with France, established the International Solar Alliance (ISA), a treaty-based intergovernmental organization. Due to the geo-economic and geopolitical importance of the African region, which is an important stakeholder of the ISA with its 34 countries, India engages in continental (with the African Union), regional (with organizations such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association) and bilateral relations (with states such as Congo, Rwanda and Mali) in the region (Shaji and Susarla, 2021).

Renewable Energy Relations between EU and China 

China is ambitious about climate diplomacy and climate leadership. This is evidenced by the Chinese government's tackling the country's air and water pollution problems and prioritizing investing in renewable energy. As it is known, although it still continues to use coal, China is the leader in renewable energy production.

In the race for climate leadership, China wants to improve its relations with the EU. China has announced its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. The EU is calling for increased targets for decarbonisation and achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 through the "European Green Deal". Both sides show that climate and renewable energy targets are compatible. Sattich et al. (2021) state that the case of the EU and China indicates that renewable energy policies can lead to more alignment and proximity between the parties on the one hand, and increased competition and friction on the other. But there is something China and the EU have achieved here. The EU and China act on the basis of their own interests and defend their individual preferences, as well as cooperate where voluntary cooperation is more productive than geopolitical struggles (Sattich et al., 2021).

Conclusion and Recommendations

The promotion of renewable energy investments is crucial to achieve low-carbon targets. Although the parties in the Paris Agreement have committed to limit the global temperature increase, they still fall short of the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is necessary to lobby for international sanctions on countries that are late in their commitments or do not comply with their commitments. In addition, diplomats should engage in dialogue with the best example countries and companies in this field, considering the economic, social and environmental benefits that renewable energy will bring to their countries. Because in the global world where interdependence is growing, it is expected that renewable energy will also reduce the foreign dependency of countries on energy.

Renewable energy investments should be increased through climate diplomacy. In this context, it is necessary to adopt a multi-stakeholder approach in climate diplomacy. It is important to ensure the participation of states and private sector as well as environmental non-governmental organizations in the negotiations.

It is necessary to form coalitions at the state level to call to countries that have not declared their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). In addition, the climate finance agenda included in the Paris Agreement should be established through these coalitions.

Concrete action plans should be established to encourage the use of renewable energy in all areas from industrial production to living and business places. It is necessary to encourage developing countries to create renewable energy policies and to provide leverage support.

In summary, states must be active in climate diplomacy for the transition to a global low-carbon economy. In order to pave the way for renewable energy investments through climate diplomacy, the private sector should be encouraged to invest in renewable energy in countries where public resources are insufficient. In the context of climate diplomacy, civil society should be mobilized in order to raise awareness in the society for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and thus to create demand for renewable energy products.

 

References

 

Climate Analytics, World Resources Institute (2021): “Closing the gap: the impact of G20 climate commitments on limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C”, Authors: Claire Fyson, Andreas Geiges, Matthew Gidden, Jamal Srouji, Clea Schumer, September 2021,

https://climateanalytics.org/media/closingthegap_web.pdf.

 

Eckstein, David, Vera Künzel, Laura Schäfer (2021): “Global Climate Risk Index 2021: Who Suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events? Weather-Related Loss Events in 2019 and 2000-2019”, Germanwatch, Briefing Paper, January 2021, Germany.

 

Katrandzhiev, Valentin (2020): “Energy Diplomacy Revisited”, Energy and Climate Diplomacy, Editor-in-Chief: Slavtcho Neykov, Foreign Affairs Research Papers 13, June, 2020, Republic of Bulgaria Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hanns Seidel Stiftung, Bulgarian Diplomatic Institute, Sofia.

 

Sattich, Thomas, Duncan Freeman, Daniel Scholten, Shaohua Yan (2021): “Renewable energy in EU-China relations: Policy interdependence and its geopolitical implications”, Energy Policy, 156 (2021) 112456, 1-10.

 

Shaji, S., Arvind Susarla, (2021): “India, Africa and climate diplomacy”, February 14, 2021, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/india-africa-and-climate-diplomacy-7188554/.