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By Jeff Young
Environment and Sustainability Editor
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Panelists at Newsweek's latest "Pillars of the Green Transition" event tackled some of the thorniest challenges for negotiators at the United Nations COP29 climate talks underway in Azerbaijan, from the enormous gap in global climate financing to the recent tectonic shift in U.S. politics.
Climate Group CEO Helen Clarkson helps to organize Climate Week NYC, an annual gathering of climate action leaders that takes place each September in New York. Clarkson told the audience in COP29 host city Baku that since the last Climate Week "one of the pillars of the transition had been removed," a reference to the coming change in U.S. climate leadership as a result of the November election.
Former President Donald Trump's victory promises to bring an abrupt reversal on climate policy from President Joe Biden's administration. Biden enacted the biggest climate action in U.S. history with government support for clean energy and regulations aimed at cutting emissions from autos and power plants, and he returned the U.S. to the global Paris Agreement on climate change.
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Trump has promised to undo many of Biden's climate policies, and he will likely pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, as he did during his first presidency.
Clarkson said Trump's policies will not only result in more greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. industry, they could also influence how other countries approach climate policies.
"How much will that allow other countries to say, 'Well if you're stepping back, we're stepping back'?" she asked. The timing could affect the next round of climate commitments countries are scheduled to submit in the COP process in the coming year.
However, Clarkson said, the "silver lining in this recent dark cloud" is that the world is quite different now than in 2017 when Trump last pulled the U.S. out of international climate action.
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"The market dynamics around climate have completely shifted," Clarkson said, noting the recent global surge in investment that has made solar the cheapest form of energy and is driving down costs of other clean tech such as battery energy storage for renewable power. "The energy transition is well underway and, we think, unlikely to stop."
Neom Green Hydrogen Company CEO Wesam Alghamdi talked about the clean energy transition happening in oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
"It's a source of pride," he said.
Neom is Saudi Arabia's ambitious, multifaceted, and multibillion dollar effort to pivot from dependence on oil. The project includes a new futuristic horizontal city along the Red Sea powered by clean energy and a massive facility to produce hydrogen from renewable energy.
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The Saudi sovereign wealth fund has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in Neom projects but recently abruptly replaced its CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr amid cost concerns, according to reports in Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
The Neom Green Hydrogen Project, however, is on track, Alghamdi said, with construction about 60 percent complete. The goal is to launch the world's largest hydrogen facility powered entirely by renewable energy. With a targeted start in 2026, the project is expected to use four gigawatts of solar and wind power to produce hundreds of tons daily of green hydrogen and green ammonia.
Hydrogen and ammonia can be used as clean-burning alternative fuels in shipping and many heavy industries that currently rely on fossil fuels. But hydrogen fuel is still an emerging technology and Alghamdi described "mixed feelings" in responses he gets when he explains the hydrogen project.
"The full ecosystem, the full supply chain has to start at the same time," he said, meaning that the production and uses for hydrogen must be developed together. Despite that uncertainty in the development of a new fuel system, he said, demand for hydrogen is expected to outpace supply in the project's first years.
Johnny Ayoub is a partner and head of Energy and Natural Resources for India, Middle East and Africa for Oliver Wyman, a U.S.-based management consulting firm that has advised the Saudi government on aspects of the Neom project.
"Green hydrogen is one of the most ambitious among the clean technologies that are being pushed forward," Ayoub said. "Personally, I think it is one of the most promising."
Ayoub joined Net Zero Think CEO and founder Manoj Kumar Singh and moderator Rosanna Lockwood for a portion of the event that focused on financing for the green transition. COP29 has been called "the finance COP" because the shortage of global funding for climate action is a major agenda item for COP delegates.
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Fifteen years ago, wealthy nations pledged to collectively contribute $100 billion annually to help developing nations adopt cleaner technologies and adapt to the impacts of climate change. But rich countries have been slow to fulfill that pledge and as climate impacts become more severe, the funding need has become more urgent.
"In terms of financial commitment, we are still far from what's needed," Ayoub said, noting that a study by his firm estimated the total global need for climate financing is about $5 trillion to keep the world on track for the climate targets nations committed to in the Paris Agreement. "The gap is still high."
Singh said that in India, where his company is based, he sees a need for more action to encourage small and mid-sized companies to adopt clean technology.
"The green transition cannot happen until we focus on the main culprit, which is the emissions," he said. A carbon tax or another means of pricing carbon emissions could help level the economic playing field for clean tech, he said, putting it within reach of more consumers.
"The price of carbon should be the cost of removal," he said.
The COP29 panel was the third of Newsweek's "Pillars of the Green Transition" events. Previous events at COP28 in Dubai in 2023 and during Climate Week NYC in September also brought together business leaders engaged in the hard work of decarbonizing the economy.
"Newsweek's role here is to facilitate a meaningful dialogue," Amit Shah, Executive Vice President, Newsweek International, said in opening remarks in Baku. "To challenge assumptions, spotlight strategies that work, and help identify pathways that drive real change."
Correction: This story was edited on Tuesday, November 19, to reflect Amit Shah's new title.
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