Chatham House exterior.
In the first of a new annual series, Chatham House experts examine how aspects of the established order in global affairs are shifting.
Resources and Climate
Another Casualty of Protectionism?
Rising international trade frictions could have unintended consequences for food security, low-carbon innovation and climate policy.
If they continue to escalate, tensions over international trade will have many ramifications for sustainability. The concerns fall into three broad areas. First, trade frictions and disputes could harm food security. Second, they could slow the ‘energy transition’ – society’s structural shift away from the use of fossil fuels – by dampening competition over low-carbon technologies. Third, tensions over trade are likely to undermine international cooperation in other priority areas, including climate change.
The most obvious short-term risk is to food producers. Although trade restrictions recently announced by the US hone in on steel and manufacturing, China’s response has focused on agricultural exports that are politically sensitive in the US farm belt. Proposed Chinese measures have targeted US products such as soybeans, pork, corn, apples, cranberries and ethanol (produced from corn), which are economically important for states such as Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan.204 US soybean exports to China are worth $14 billion a year.
Poorer consumers everywhere, though not the intended target of either US or Chinese import restrictions, stand to lose the most from
a trade war
The negative impact on US producers would mean that international markets – especially rival producers in Latin America and Australia – would need to take up the slack in supply. While there may be some benefits for farmers in these places in the short run, an increasingly fragmented international market would prove a lose-lose for producers and consumers. A recent report by the International Food Policy Research Institute reminds us that such barriers ‘lead to high food prices in land-scarce countries, depressed food prices in land-abundant countries, and lower real incomes in both’.205
Professor Tim Benton has argued that the consequence of a rise in protectionist policies on a global scale is likely to manifest itself as significant upward pressure on food prices. In the short term, in well-supplied markets, prices may fall if local farmers face barriers to exporting their produce. However, when stocks are lower and harvests poorer, protectionism is likely to be a strong driver of higher prices, as witnessed during the 2007–08 and 2010–11 international food price crises.206 Poorer consumers everywhere, though not the intended target of either US or Chinese import restrictions, stand to lose the most from a trade war.207
An escalation in trade disputes could also undermine progress on green technologies, just as the markets for many of these are set to take off. Higher steel prices, for example, will have a direct effect on some green-technology industries. Over the next five years, steel demand from the offshore wind sector is expected to reach tens of millions of tonnes.208 The racks needed for large-scale solar energy installations also use significant volumes of steel. Since many other energy technologies are also steel-dependent, rival energy options are likely to be affected too.
A more potent disruption of the low-carbon transition might come through targeted tariffs on new energy technologies. At the time of writing, the trade protections announced by the US included tariffs on Chinese wind turbines, lithium batteries and electric vehicles – though solar photovoltaic (PV) products had been spared.209 China has had limited success so far in capturing US market share for these technologies, and the US could source them instead from South Korea or Japan. But barriers to trade would dampen precisely the kind of competition that in recent years has dramatically reduced costs for solar PV systems, lithium batteries and ultra-efficient LED light bulbs.
Moreover, one of the key demands of the Trump administration in its ongoing dispute with Beijing has been that China scale back a $300 billion package of measures to support industrial innovation – measures which the US considers anti-competitive. Were the US to have some success in this objective, this would slow the development of next-generation technologies essential for sustainability – from novel battery technologies to industrial applications of artificial intelligence. This would mark a distinct loss of impetus on innovation: as recently as 2015, some 22 countries (including the US) committed to doubling their investments in energy R&D by 2021.
One of the key demands of the Trump administration in its ongoing dispute with Beijing has been that China scale back a $300 billion package of measures to support industrial innovation – measures which the US considers anti-competitive
Trade tensions could also indirectly undermine efforts to address sustainability challenges, creating distrust between key players and adding to policy uncertainty.210 It will remain difficult, for example, to advance cooperative action through the G20 or G7 around natural resource risks or environmental concerns when a trade war looms. With the IMF and World Bank seeing a disruption to trade as one of the more significant risks for the global economy,211 policymakers may have to deprioritize other issues until such a time as trade frictions ease. At the last G20 summit, in 2017, the declaration on climate change was only agreed after the 19 other members proceeded without the US.212
Of course, trade policy is far from the only area in which challenges to long-held norms about rules-based governance and its supporting institutions are emerging; similar question marks hang over many multilateral institutions tasked with the delivery of global public goods. Some of these uncertainties are likely to have serious implications in the immediate short term – for instance, the US has announced severe cuts in support for international programmes dealing with food security crises, at a time when more than 20 million people are at risk of famine, including in parts of Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.213
Felix Preston is a senior research fellow with, and deputy director of, the Energy, Environment and Resources Department.
Energy Security in a World of ‘Electrons’
The transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon alternatives presents new challenges for international energy relations, as concerns about cross-border electricity interconnection and cybersecurity could eclipse traditional preoccupations with oil markets.
As countries strive to improve air quality and reduce CO₂ emissions, the global energy system is in transition from the use of fossil fuels to low-carbon electricity. The technical, economic and societal dimensions of this transition, led by rapid reductions in renewables costs, are well documented. Less well understood are the implications for international relations, as concerns about energy security within the major economies refocus on the power sector and electrified transport, and as the influence of major oil exporters starts to erode. Global energy governance is unprepared for this so-called shift ‘from molecules to electrons’, in which energy security will increasingly be defined by the continuity of cross-border electricity trade and the resilience of power grids to cyberthreats.
Dramatic price
declines for solar and wind power, especially in the past couple of years, have driven the displacement of coal and oil from the
power sector in
many countries
Until recently, international energy relations have been a function of the trade in fossil fuels. For oil-importing countries, energy security has largely rested on ensuring supply from a limited number of major producers and on the physical functioning of strategic shipping routes. But established conceptions of energy security – not least the reliance of most OECD countries on the emergency oil-sharing mechanism overseen by the International Energy Agency – are being challenged by two trends. The first is a shift in producer–consumer dependencies. In the US, the shale revolution has boosted domestic production, altering the dynamics of the global oil trade and prompting debate over the extent to which lower imports provide more foreign policy flexibility.214 At the same time, China’s increasing dependence on Middle East oil has implications for the relative geopolitical importance of key transit routes.
These shifts may have obscured a second, and far more fundamental, reconfiguration of international energy relations. It is increasingly clear that a major transition is under way in energy systems – one that will ultimately diminish the importance of fossil fuels and lead to low-carbon options playing a more prominent role in energy provision. Uptake of low-carbon technologies is increasing. Dramatic price declines for solar and wind power, especially in the past couple of years, have driven the displacement of coal and oil from the power sector in many countries. In the vanguard is the EU, where the contribution of solar and wind power to electricity generation has increased from 3 per cent to 13 per cent over the past decade.
In Europe, Brexit will continue to undermine investor confidence in interconnector projects unless there is greater clarity over the UK’s future electricity-trading relationship with
the EU27
Falling costs of electric vehicles (EVs) are also expected to accelerate this shift towards electrification. OPEC forecasts a global fleet of 338 million hybrids, plug-ins and battery-only EVs by 2040.215 The use of EVs is likely to displace at least 2 per cent of current oil demand within 10 years, and more than 14 per cent by 2040.216
In addition to challenging traditionally ‘oil-led’ energy cooperation and governance, these trends raise questions about the adequacy of international arrangements for electricity trade. Two principle physical differences between electricity and fossil fuels are significant here. First, seasonal storage of electricity is prohibitively expensive. This lack of longer-term storage, combined with the second physical difference – the need to balance electricity supply and demand on the millisecond level – means that the transportation of power from surplus to deficit regions must occur near-instantaneously, along high-voltage cables.
High-voltage interconnection capacity between countries has almost doubled in the past decade, and is likely to double again by 2025. Yet this necessary expansion is contingent on investor confidence, which in turn is facilitated by robust and efficient trading arrangements, such as those adopted by the EU in 2015 to enable cooperation between grid operators, power exchanges and regulators.217 In Europe, Brexit will continue to undermine investor confidence in interconnector projects218 unless there is greater clarity over the UK’s future electricity-trading relationship with the EU27. Over the next year, given the leading role Europe has played in developing the rules and regulations governing interconnector-facilitated electricity trade, any failure to maintain efficient electricity market coupling will likely undermine interconnector projects, especially between the EU and bordering countries seeking to synchronize their power systems.
As interdependencies grow in cross-border electricity trade, international governance mechanisms designed to integrate electricity markets will be tested. In March, the European Commission began investigating a German grid operator, TenneT, in response to claims by Danish power producers that the company was limiting their access to interconnector capacity.219 Similar disputes may arise in other regions where interconnector expansion is progressing rapidly – in Asia, capacity is expected to triple by 2030.220
Power grid operators and regulators also face a balancing act between market integration – which benefits from open data flows and shared networks – and cybersecurity. Cybersecurity concerns have increased since the attack on the Ukrainian grid in 2015, which resulted in 225,000 consumers losing power. The potential for geopolitical tensions was highlighted earlier this year by the UK defence secretary’s claim that Russia could cause ‘thousands of deaths’ by targeting UK energy infrastructure.221 In the US, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security recently released a security update indicating the scale of cyber reconnaissance of energy infrastructure carried out by ‘threat actors’.222 The fear is that over the coming months and years such activities may move from a reconnaissance phase to one in which intelligence is utilized in actual cyberattacks, with physical consequences.223
Fossil fuels will play a vital role in the global energy system for many years to come. But there is an urgent need for enhanced cooperative approaches around future energy systems – centred on vast, near-instantaneous flows of electricity across borders, the continuing development of low-carbon energy technology, and the balancing of open approaches with security and privacy concerns.
Daniel Quiggin is a research fellow with the Energy, Environment and Resources Department.
Planning for the ‘Wrong’ Resource Risks
Emerging and early-stage oil and gas producers that follow old models of development will lock in carbon risks and squander green growth opportunities.
The production of fossil fuels has traditionally offered countries an opportunity for investment and export revenues, as well as the chance to deploy fuels in their domestic energy systems and industries in order to drive economic growth. But it has also presented a range of what are often known as ‘resource curse’ risks: from the inflationary effects of export revenues to the negative governance impacts that political ‘crowding’ around resource rents can bring.
The global shift to a decarbonized energy system is changing the nature of these risks. Delivery of the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal – limiting the increase in the global average temperature to ‘well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels’ – will have profound implications for markets for fossil fuels, which are responsible for around 70 per cent of global emissions. Under a 2°C carbon budget, around one-third of the world’s oil reserves, half of its gas and nearly all of its coal will have to stay in the ground.224 If emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) fail to materialize at a speed consistent with their role in most modelled 2°C scenarios, this would further constrain future fossil fuel use.225
While the exact implications for fossil fuel producers will vary depending on their resource base and production costs,226 the broader trend is clear. The collapsing cost of clean technologies has driven significant policy shifts in the largest consumer markets for fossil fuels. Projections for electric-vehicle uptake have soared, with dates for the banning of internal combustion engines announced in China and Europe. The cost of renewable energy – notably wind and solar – now undercuts that of fossil fuels in major markets, including India. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that, globally, all mainstream renewable energy technologies will be competitive with or cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020.227 This raises the prospect of markets, rather than policy, being a key driver of the ‘stranding’ of fossil fuel and thermal power assets.
In the past year we have seen a turning point for conversations around ‘carbon risks’ – or the risks associated with exposure to fossil fuel and other high-carbon assets set to be devalued by the shift to a decarbonized economy. Through the G20-mandated Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a growing number of investors and companies are assessing their alignment with the Paris Agreement and their likely resilience throughout the transition, in terms of their exposure both to carbon risk and to the direct impacts of climate change.228 Meanwhile, central banks and regulators are exploring the implications of the transition for fiscal stability, and the potential to introduce ‘carbon-stress tests’ for banks and penalties for investors in fossil fuels and other high-carbon assets.229
Yet for governments in countries that hold the majority (>80 per cent) of the world’s ‘unburnable’ carbon, the conversation is only just beginning. Established producers such as Norway and Saudi Arabia are already rethinking the role of oil in their economies, and reforming the mandates of their national oil companies, with a view to a ‘post-oil’ world. By contrast, most early-stage and emerging producers, particularly in the developing world, retain high expectations for fossil fuels as a driver of economic growth and improved energy access. In countries with recent fossil fuel discoveries, such as Tanzania, Guyana and Lebanon, political dialogue tends to focus on harnessing what is seen as the potentially ‘transformative’ opportunity of fossil fuels – and thus on managing traditional resource curse risks – rather than on the challenge that decarbonization presents for this growth model.
There is an urgent need for better understanding of the ways in which carbon risks might translate into broader economic impacts at the national level
Of course, the nature of the challenge looks different from country to country. Established producers with fossil fuel-intensive industrial bases, such as Trinidad and Tobago and many of the Gulf economies, face entrenched, economy-wide transition risks compared to those anticipated for early-stage producers such as Ghana, which largely exports the oil it produces and plans to use gas for domestic power only. Meanwhile, countries such as Guyana and Senegal that are developing recent oil discoveries are starting with a blank slate. They have the opportunity to plan and structure their industries and economies for the future – in a way that avoids the risk of disruptive transition by anticipating decarbonization trends (and their investment and revenue impacts), limiting the development of high-carbon infrastructure, and supporting ‘green growth’.
With growing international consensus around the need to actively manage carbon risks, there is an urgent need for better understanding of the ways in which these risks might translate into economic impacts at the national level. For fossil fuel producers, this means considering the impacts of the energy transition on fossil fuel revenues and national fiscal stability; and considering the economic and climate implications of locking in high carbon dependency through domestic power and industry, and of ‘locking out’ more competitive technologies and business models. In short, they must reassess the likely time frame for economic diversification, given a narrowing window in which fossil fuel production will remain viable. Traditional approaches to managing ‘resource curse’ impacts offer limited insight here, and may even compound risk where they encourage the development of deeper linkages between the fossil fuel sector and the wider economy.
Siân Bradley is a research associate with the Energy, Environment and Resources Department. Glada Lahn is a senior research fellow with the Energy, Environment and Resources Department.
Information-sharing and Dialogue to Tackle ‘Chokepoint Risk’
Although pressures on vulnerable food trade ‘chokepoints’ will likely continue to rise, an initiative to improve monitoring of the global food supply chain may help governments and traders to anticipate blockages – and avert shortages.
A new initiative to improve monitoring of the global food supply chain offers an opportunity to more effectively address ‘chokepoint risk’ – the risk of blockages or disruptions at strategically vital transit locations, such as along key shipping routes. In collaboration with Chatham House, the G20-initiated Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) is considering how monitoring of trade chokepoints may be incorporated into existing supply and policy tracking, building on new models of information-sharing and dialogue between public- and private-sector actors.
The development of new tools for monitoring the risks of chokepoint closure or disruption is becoming ever more important in the context of the growing interconnectedness of the global food system
The development of new tools for monitoring the risks of chokepoint closure or disruption is becoming ever more important in the context of the growing interconnectedness of the global food system. The vast majority of the world’s supply of staple crops – wheat, maize, rice and soybean – is grown in a small number of highly productive regions across North and South America, Europe and the Black Sea region, and Asia. Supporting the movement of food from these regions to final markets is a complex network of physical trade interconnections – overland and maritime transport corridors that link farm to port, exporter to importer, silo to consumer.
As international trade in staple crops continues to grow, the pressure on this network is rising, particularly for a small handful of chokepoints through which pass exceptionally large shares of such crops. Examples of major chokepoints include the Panama and Suez canals, the Strait of Hormuz and the inland waterways of the US.230
In the coming months, the need to ensure the efficient functioning of these chokepoints will likely be thrown into sharp relief. China’s announcement in early April 2018 of 25 per cent tariffs on US soybeans implies a realignment of global supply in which Brazil – the US’s main competitor in global soy markets – would capture a significant percentage of the US market share.231 Notwithstanding continuing fluctuations in the state of US–Chinese trade tensions, any reduction in US soybean exports (or market anticipation of such) will likely prompt Brazilian producers to ramp up production.232 This would increase demand for trucks along Brazil’s fragile roads – only 12 per cent of which are paved233 – and for handling capacity at the country’s southern ports. Past experience points to the risk of major congestion and delays at Brazil’s ports when operations are disrupted during times of peak demand.
To date, efforts by the international community to mitigate the risk of food market dislocations have focused on using the World Trade Organization to respond to, and contain, protectionism. But awareness is growing of the need for new tools that promote certain norms of behaviour among market players.
In the wake of the 2010–11 food price crises, during which the threat of supply shortfalls prompted a wave of reactive export restrictions, the G20 called for a new initiative – AMIS – to promote transparency of information on market fundamentals. Now, in collaboration with Chatham House, AMIS is considering how systematic monitoring of trade chokepoints and their functioning – both in terms of physical performance and institutional or political management – may be incorporated into existing efforts to track supply data and policy developments.
The expansion of AMIS’s remit poses certain challenges, both technical and political. While information-sharing on market conditions – production, exports, stocks – is the main function of AMIS at present, monitoring chokepoint risks would require additional information from new sources: port-level data on throughput volumes, storage capacity and vessel turnaround times; geospatial data on the movement of grain-carrying vessels along maritime trade routes; and indicators of climate, political and security hazards at export hubs.
Maritime, coastal and inland chokepoints and major shipping routes
— Sources: Bailey and Wellesley (2017), Chokepoints and Vulnerabilities in Global Food Trade. Shipping routes adapted from Rodrigue, J.-P., Comtois, C. and Slack, B. (2017), The Geography of Transport Systems, New York: Routledge, https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans.
Maritime, coastal and inland chokepoints and major shipping routes
Gathering and analysing these data is now easier than ever before. Recent years have brought a step-change in the technology available to improve the traceability of shipments and the transparency of logistics. GPS technology, the Internet of Things, low-power wireless technology, advances in big data and ‘distributed ledger’ blockchain technology, coupled with developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, are transforming companies’ ability to track commodities and monitor environmental conditions in real time.234 The challenge is that such information is not systematically collated by any one actor, and much of it is commercially or politically sensitive. For example, data on vessel movements are often viewed as a proprietary secret, as the location of vessels along trading routes may determine the price of the commodity in question.
Recent years have brought a step-change in the technology available to improve the traceability of shipments and the transparency of logistics
However, a proliferation of data partnerships between companies and the public sector in recent years suggests that this space may be opening up. In December 2015, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) entered into a partnership with Google to improve geospatial tracking and mapping of products and to make these data more accessible.235
Similar partnerships between private data owners and multilateral actors could allow for the triangulation of existing knowledge and data to deepen understanding of the patterns of international agricultural trade, how these evolve from season to season, and where there exist particular hotspots of congestion or disruptive risk. If fully integrated into the policy dialogue and market-monitoring activities of AMIS, such data could inform real-time monitoring of evolving risks to food trade, promote evidence-based policy coordination among and between governments, and throw light on areas where investment or policy intervention is urgently needed.
Laura Wellesley is a former research fellow with the Energy, Environment and Resources Department. Johanna Lehne is a research associate with the Energy, Environment and Resources Department.
Squaring Competing Demands in Global Land Use
Scaling up carbon sequestration technologies to reduce emissions will increase competition for land, as other pressures on its use are rising. However, the search for solutions may soon gain momentum.
As global temperatures rise and the size and prosperity of the global population expand humanity’s footprint, the pressures on land are mounting. Land is needed to produce food, provide habitat and – as tackling climate change becomes ever more urgent – sequester carbon. Expansion of each of these land-based ‘ecosystem services’ is central to attaining various of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, but more effective governance and technological solutions are needed if the competing demands for land are to be reconciled.
To meet projected demand in 2050, given current efficiencies, world agricultural production would need to increase by 60 per cent from 2005–07 levels
Although the challenge is considerable, a number of ‘big wins’ that could help to balance these demands are possible, given sufficient commitment from governments and actors in the food system. Areas of opportunity include encouraging people to shift towards more sustainable diets, and redesigning agricultural subsidies to support environmental best practice. Given anticipated developments in multilateral policymaking in 2018–20, however, two of the most promising areas are around the restoration of degraded lands to support ecosystems and sequester additional carbon; and the accelerated deployment of certain negative-emissions technologies (NETs). NETs encompass a broad range of CO₂ removal techniques, from nature-based solutions through to geoengineering approaches.236
Sizing up the problem
Farming, forestry and land-use change are responsible for just under a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Farming is the most expansive human activity. It accounts for 38 per cent of global land area, and is the principal user of the world’s freshwater and the main driver of biodiversity loss.237 As global demand for food – particularly for more resource-intensive livestock products – increases, the unsustainability of the system is being thrown into ever sharper relief. To meet projected demand in 2050, given current efficiencies, world agricultural production would need to increase by 60 per cent from 2005–07 levels.238 Nothing short of a transformation in production and consumption will be needed to ensure the food system becomes more nutritionally and environmentally efficient, and to prevent demand for agricultural land overwhelming other land uses.
Preserving stores and sinks of carbon is critically important to slowing climate change, but this imperative is in tension with rising demand for agricultural land
The role of land resources in removing CO₂ from the atmosphere is also garnering attention. Preserving stores and sinks of carbon (especially forests, peatlands, wetlands and natural grasslands) is critically important to slowing climate change, and offers multiple other ecological and biodiversity benefits. But this imperative is in tension with rising demand for agricultural land – and in any case, preservation of carbon sinks alone is unlikely to have a sufficient impact on emissions. To meet the 2015 Paris Agreement’s target of keeping the global temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (the ‘2°C scenario’), most climate models suggest global emissions must stabilize and start declining by around 2030, and turn net negative by 2070.239
This will require new and additional NETs. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) – which involves burning CO₂-absorbing biofuels, capturing the emissions and storing them in long-term underground reservoirs – is one of the principal NETs included in the models, but it presents particular difficulties for balancing global land use. The land take associated with growing additional energy crops implies a decrease in the area of land available for food production or preserved as natural habitats. Depending on the energy crop used and the efficiency of production, the extent of BECCS deployment suggested by many 2°C scenario models240 may require anywhere from half to five times the land area used to grow the world’s entire current cereal harvest.241
Other technological solutions to CO₂ removal present comparable resource use challenges – for instance, requiring large amounts of energy and water – whereas natural solutions such as afforestation and reforestation could be similarly expansive in terms of land area needed, and run the risk of being easily reversed at some future date.
Given the scale of the challenge, and considering that deployment of NETs is assumed by many 2°C scenario models to commence in the 2020s, informed planning about how to achieve land-based carbon sequestration at scale is urgently needed. Among policymakers there is little awareness and understanding of the assumptions in, and the limitations of, modelled scenarios with respect to NETs. For example, there is a risk that BECCS is seen as the preferred option – simply because it is the default technology assumed by the models – without its implications being fully comprehended.
A window of opportunity
The prospect of intensified multilateral action in the next two years presents a window of opportunity for the international community to address these issues. Later in 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish a special report on achieving a more ambitious 1.5°C temperature increase, followed by another special report in 2019 on the relationships between land and climate change. These will almost certainly increase the attention paid to negative-emissions options such as BECCS, and should raise awareness of the trade-offs entailed. This is timely, as during 2018–20 governments will be re-evaluating and in some cases ratcheting up their 2025 and 2030 emissions reductions commitments under the UN climate agreement; and will be drafting long-term low-emissions development strategies under the same framework.
Increased scrutiny of the limitations and opportunity costs of NETs would reduce the likelihood of moral hazard arising from their indiscriminate use to meet emissions reduction commitments. It may help to increase the ambition of emissions abatement strategies. Scientists and policymakers also need to rally around immediately available ‘do no harm’ actions, such as restoring degraded lands and sourcing BECCS crops from wastes and residues, while applying the precautionary principle to piloting and planning for new technologies.
Over the same 2018–20 period, government signatories to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity will be establishing the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and updating the existing 2020 Aichi biodiversity targets. This will give policymakers the opportunity to introduce and strengthen biodiversity safeguards against land-intensive forms of carbon sequestration and storage.
Concerted effort is required to increase attention and understanding of the challenges and trade-offs around land-based emissions reductions and removals during this formative period of enshrining new targets, commitments and strategies. This then might just galvanize joined-up policy progress that supports better use of land resources, in a manner compatible with preserving and regenerating the health of the planet for its present and future inhabitants.
Richard King is a research fellow in the Energy, Environment and Resources Department.
204 Stoil, R. S. (2018), ‘What If Tariffs Cost Trump The Farm Vote?’, FiveThirtyEight, 26 April 2018, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-tariffs-cost-trump-the-farm-vote/; The Economist (2018), ‘Donald Trump alienates farmers’, 19 April 2018, https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21740769-unpredictable-polices-are-costing-president-fans-donald-trump-alienates-farmers.
205 International Food Policy Research Institute (2018), Global Food Policy Report 2018, ‘Related Documents: Synopsis’, Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute,
https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896292970.
https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896292970.
206 Benton, T. (2017), ‘Food security, trade and its impacts’, article on resourcetrade.earth, a Chatham House initiative, https://resourcetrade.earth/stories/food-security-trade-and-its-impacts….
207 Thin, L. W. (2018), ‘Climate change and protectionism could harm efforts to feed the world: report’, Reuters, 20 March 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-agriculture-trade/climate-change-and-protectionism-could-harm-efforts-to-feed-the-world-report-idUSKBN1GW0CI.
208 S&P Global Platts (2017), ‘Steel for windpower: a burgeoning market’, 12 December 2017, http://blogs.platts.com/2017/12/12/steel-windpower-burgeoning-market/.
209 Pyper, J. (2018), ‘Trump Targets Chinese Wind, Battery and EV Imports, With Limited US Impact’, Greentech Media, 4 April 2018, https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/trump-targets-chinese-wind….
210 Lee, B., Preston, F., Kooroshy, J., Bailey, R. and Lahn, G. (2012), Resources Futures, Chatham House Report, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/187947.
211 World Bank (2018), Global Economic Prospects, January 2018, Chapter 1, p. 6,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-economic-prospects.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-economic-prospects.
212 Dambeck, H. (2017), ‘G19 Gipfelerklärung zum Klimaschutz’ [G19 Summit declaration on climate protection], Spiegel Online, http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/g20-gipfel-in-hamburg-klimaschutz-19-zu-1-gegen-trump-a-1156777.html.
213 Allen-Ebrahimian, B. (2017), ‘Treasury Takes Aim at Global Food Security Program’, Foreign Policy, 10 November 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/10/treasury-takes-aim-at-global-food-security-program-obama-agriculture-farmers/.
214 Levi, M. (2012), ‘Think Again: The American Energy Boom’, Foreign Policy, 18 June 2012, http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/06/18/think-again-the-americanenergy-boom/.
215 OPEC (2017), World Oil Outlook 2040, doi:10.1190/1.1439163.
216 Chatham House calculations based on a range of publicly available EV forecasts.
217 European Commission (2015), ‘New electricity market rules allow efficient EU-wide electricity trading’, 23 July 2015, https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/news/new-electricity-market-rules-help-save-€4-bn-year.
218 Ward, A. (2018), ‘Our friends electric: interconnection and Brexit’, Financial Times, 15 January 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/eb2f93c4-f9f4-11e7-9b32-d7d59aace167.
219 Appunn, K. (2018), ‘Interconnectors & blockages – German grid at odds with EU power market’, Clean Energy Wire, 12 April 2018, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/interconnectors-blockages-german-grid-odds-eu-power-market.
220 Based on announced projects.
221 Allegretti, A. (2018), ‘Russia could kill ‘thousands’ in UK power station attack, warns Defence Secretary’, Sky News, 26 January 2018, https://news.sky.com/story/russia-could-kill-thousands-in-uk-power-station-attack-warns-defence-secretary-11222844.
222 US-CERT (2018), ‘Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Sectors’, Alert (TA18-074A), 15 March 2018, https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A.
223 Symantec Blogs (2017), ‘Dragonfly: Western energy sector targeted by sophisticated attack group’, 20 October 2017, https://www.symantec.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/dragonfly-energy-sector-cyber-attacks.
224 McGlade, C. and Ekins, P. (2015), ‘The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2°C’, Letter, Nature, Vol. 51, doi:10.1038/nature14016.
225 Carbon capture and storage (CCS) captures CO2 within the energy or industrial process and prevents it from being emitted into the atmosphere, while negative-emissions technologies such as afforestation or bioenergy with CCS (BECCs) provide a net absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. Forthcoming research by Chatham House and University College London suggests that without CCS, the available carbon budget to 2100 is effectively halved. This suggests that most mainstream energy scenarios, which assume large-scale deployment of both CCS and BECCS, may be overestimating the amount of fossil fuels that can be burnt within a 2°C carbon budget.
226 On a ‘least cost’ basis, whereby those fossil fuels that are cheapest to produce and transport meet demand first. In reality, numerous political and practical factors will influence which fossil fuel reserves come online, and which are left undeveloped.
227 IRENA (2018), Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2017, Abu Dhabi: International Renewable Energy Agency, https://cms.irena.org/publications/2018/Jan/Renewable-power-generation-costs-in-2017.
228 See https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/ for further information on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
229 Hook, L. (2018), ‘Central bank chiefs sound warning on climate change’, Financial Times, 9 April 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/888616d6-3b07-11e8-b7e0-52972418fec4.
230 Bailey, R. and Wellesley, L. (2017), Chokepoints and Vulnerabilities in Global Food Trade, Chatham House Report, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/chokepoints-vulnerabilities-global-food-trade.
231 Terazono, E. (2018), ‘Beijing’s tariffs threaten 65% cut in US soyabean sales to China’, Financial Times, 11 April 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/f943b16e-3ca9-11e8-b7e0-52972418fec4.
232 Mano, A. and Samora, R. (2018), ‘Brazil soy exporters set to win big from US-China trade spat’, Reuters, 4 April 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-latin-america/brazil-soy-exporters-set-to-win-big-from-u-s-china-trade-spat-idUSKCN1HB2XK.
233 PwC (2013), Gridlines: Crunch Time For Brazilian Infrastructure, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/capital-projects-infrastructure/pdf/brazil-article.pdf.
234 Wheatley, M. (2018), ‘Real-time tracking: Is it Here yet?’, Automotive Logistics, 10 May 2018, https://automotivelogistics.media/intelligence/real-time-tracking-yet.
235 FAO (2015), ‘Google and FAO partner to make remote sensing data more efficient and accessible’, 1 December 2015, http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/350761/icode/.
236 UN Environment Programme (2017), The Emissions Gap Report 2017, Nairobi: UNEP.
237 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2017), The future of food and agriculture: Trends and challenges, Rome: FAO; FAO (2017), FAOSTAT, http://www.faostat.org/en (accessed Jul. 2017); Foley, J. A., et al. (2011), ‘Solutions for a cultivated planet’, Nature 478(7369), pp. 337–342.
238 Alexandratos, N. and Bruinsma, J. (2012), World Agriculture Towards 2030/2050: The 2012 Revision, Rome: FAO.
239 Roe, S., Streck, C., Weiner, P. H., Obersteiner, M. and Frank, S. (2017), How Improved Land Use Can Contribute to the 1.5°C Goal of the Paris Agreement, Amsterdam: Climate Focus.
240 Requiring atmospheric removals of 3.3 gigatonnes of carbon per year by 2100.
241 Fajardy, M. and Mac Dowell, N. (2017), ‘Can BECCS deliver sustainable and resource efficient negative emissions?’, Energy and Environmental Science, Vol. 10, pp. 1389–1426.