Category Archives: Politics

The Petrostate Dinner Party

Over the last two weeks of COP29, taking place this year in Baku, Azerbaijan, there has been a lot of discussion about petrostates – and for good reason. By definition, a petrostate is an oil rich nation in which a significant amount of its gross domestic income comes from oil and natural gas and whose economic and political power are typically held by an elite minority while government institutions are often weak, poorly run, and subject to widespread corruption.

Currently there are about 40 petrostates around the world and as mankind considers ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption it’s estimated that 28 or so of those face significant economic risk from our global energy transition as demand for oil and gas declines along with prices for those products. Not surprisingly, the petrostates are fighting back by touting their oil and gas resources, and one of the schemes they are using is to host COP sessions like this year’s in Azerbaijan or 2023’s in the UAE.

The December 2023 chart below, based on data from the International Monetary Fund and an analysis by the Carbon Tracker Institute, illustrates petrostates that are most vulnerable from the transition to sustainable energy and away from fossil fuels. That analysis concluded that 28 of the 40 petrostates could lose more than half of their revenue under a moderate-paced energy transition in-line with current governmental climate commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The size of each circle illustrates the population of each country. Those listed in the upper right of this table are deemed most vulnerable to the transition while those in the lower left corner less vulnerable.

The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook forecasts that demand for oil, gas, and coal will likely peak by 2030 as the prices for alternative forms of energy become less and less expensive. Such predictions are the reason that many nations around the world (this is especially true of the seven major industrial nations, or G7, as they are known within the UN: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and USA, as well as the EU nations) have announced various plans to ban the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles, as well as gas fired boilers in the future, thus, reducing demand for such fuels. And many of the world’s nations, at least most of them, plan to increase, perhaps even double, steps to become more energy efficient by 2030 or so. Such steps and realities will make maintaining current revenue from polluting fuels nearly, if not, impossible for the petrostate nations and the pressure is on them to transform their economies while the world, in turn, transforms its approach to energy.

Much of the discussion at COP29 and around the world has become centered on whether a petrostate should be allowed to host future COP meetings given the possibility for bias in wanting to prolong their fossil fuel revenues for as long as possible. As part of what I sense is their strategy to fight back, to protect their established oil and gas industries for as long as possible, petrostates have become active in hosting the UN’s annual climate conference. In fact, the last three host nations (Egypt in 2022, the UAE in 2023, Azerbaijan in 2024) are all petrostate nations.

“A Gift From God”

Selecting Azerbaijan to host this year’s COP has long been controversial not only because it’s a petrostate in which oil and gas accounts for an estimated 2/3 of its total economy (GDP) and an estimated 90% of its exports, but because Mukhtar Babayev, an oil company executive at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company SOCAR, was selected as its COP President.

Or there’s the Azerbaijan President, Ilham Aliyez, who in his opening speech in Baku to begin COP29 ordained his country’s oil and gas reserves a “gift from God,” stunning COP attendees intent on reducing fossil fuel emissions. Needless to say, when the host country’s top governmental official wants to tout his rich fossil fuel resources at a conference supposedly focused on transitioning the world away from those exact products, we have a problem.

“There are a lot of joint ventures that could be established. SOCAR [State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan] is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia. We will have a certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps forever. At any case, this is something you need to be talking to SOCAR and I’d be happy to create a contact between yourself and them, your team, and their team so they can start discussions.”
Elnur Soltanoz, Azerbaijan COP29 CEO
Azerbaijan Deputy Energy Minister & SOCAR Board of Director’s Member

Then to make matters worse, as I posted last week, there is also COP29’s CEO, Elnur Soltanov, Deputy Energy Minister for the country and a SOCAR Board member, who was secretly filmed touting the “investment opportunities” in the state-owned oil company (SOCAR). The video was recorded by the human rights organization Global Witness, which had a person fictitiously posing as an investor from Hong Kong explain that his business was interested in helping sponsor COP29 but wanted to discuss investing in SOCAR in return. Mr. Soltanoz was eager to suggest potential investments in gas production in his country and to offer to introduce the pretend investor to his buddies at SOCAR.

I suppose it will not at this point surprise you to learn that nearly 1,800 coal, oil, and natural gas lobbyists obtained access to COP29 in Baku. That’s more than the delegations of every other country attending except for the host nation (Azerbaijan), next year’s host nation of Brazil, and Turkey. Heck, it’s been reported that the 10 nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, especially sea rise, collectively only have 1,033 delegates in attendance. As was obvious last year in Dubai and is again in Baku, it is increasingly an unfair fight where fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber those trying to solve the climate crisis.

The Dubai Document

Not surprisingly, last year’s host country (Dubai, UAE) had similar ethical challenges that illuminated the potential conflicts of interest petrostates and the COP meeting present to the UN. There were, for example, a reported 2,500 fossil fuel industry lobbyists in attendance. Then there was the fact that while greatly touting his country’s investments in sustainable energy, the conference was, you guessed it, led by the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Dr. Sultan al-Jaber.

It was not lost on attendees, myself included, that while hosting a conference intent on phasing out fossil fuels, ADNOC plans to spend upwards of $150 billion to increase its oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day, something that’s estimated to vault them into becoming the world’s seventh largest oil producing nation. Adding to the understandable concern over UAE as the COP host last year was the news that it had used the conference as a device to negotiate nearly $100 billion in oil, gas, and petrochemical sales for ADNOC. That figure was reported to be five times more than what ADNOC had negotiated just one year before, in 2022, and more money than in the four years prior to COP28 combined.

Dr. Sultan al-Jaber also took the opportunity to use the global stage as the host nation to question the science related to climate change, suggesting that there was “no science behind phasing out fossil fuels” (there are reams of such science and only someone with a vested interest in protecting the goose that lays the golden egg, as they say, would suggest otherwise). You can read more about the shenanigans that took place in Dubai, much of which I witnessed there firsthand, in a post I wrote last December entitled COP Out? The Dubai Document here.

COP30: Here We Go Again?

Brazil, next year’s COP30 host, while not a petrostate, given its diverse economy is the largest oil producer in Latin America, the 7th largest producer of crude oil in the world as of 2023, and is expected to vault into the number four position over the next couple of years based on newly discovered oil reserves it intends to harvest. In fact, Brazil’s government has announced plans that indicate their oil production will double by 2029, peaking at around 5.4 million barrels of oil per day, while also saying it plans to join the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Here’s the Top 10 Oil Producing nations in 2023 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA):

So far as allowing petrostates to host future COP meetings, it’s my thinking that since we have a global climate problem every nation on earth should have a seat at the table that decides how to solve the issue by phasing out mankind’s use of fossil fuels, including oil and gas. However, that table does not need to be located in a petrostate country as it hosts a COP conference. The farce that pretends that such countries are not foremost protecting their main industry must end.

In addition to rethinking which countries deserve to host these talks, it has become clear that as petrostates become more desperate to protect their main source of income, the UN must implement aggressive, non-negotiable, ethical guardrails for all attendees. That most certainly starts with host nations and their leadership. If we are ever to phase out fossil fuel use, then host countries and their leaders must be as unbiased as possible while being required to follow strict policies and procedures related to their nations’ oil holdings. They should obviously not be attached to those industries and most certainly should not be touting the businesses that distribute the very products causing the world’s climate pollution. Such things should be strictly outlawed and vigorously monitored.

And while we rethink the effectiveness of future COP conferences, the time has also come to address the extraordinarily excessive number of oil and gas industry lobbyists participating in COP. To be clear, those industries should also have a seat at the negotiating table; I mean, who knows, perhaps one or more of them will come up with viable solutions to our climate crisis as they too increasingly face the threat of lost revenue and dying businesses. But, the current sheer number of attendees reeks of corruption and deceit. One or two lobbyists per company or trade group would seem more than enough to participate.

COP has served a remarkable purpose in bringing the nations of the world together to discuss solutions for a truly global, shared crisis. But change is needed. After 29 COPs the time has come to consider a radical new design that’s intensely and only focused on phasing out fossil fuel use, helping build a resilient world for those suffering from the damage mankind’s pollution has already caused, and from what they will increasingly suffer from in the future. Just as is the case in fighting our climate crisis, reforming COP needs to happen quickly and comprehensively if we are to ever hope to solve this growing, obvious issue.

Brazil, Climate Change, Delaney Reynolds, Eco Warrior, Global Warming, Miami, Miamisearise.com, Petrostate, Politics, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, The Sink or Swim Project

3.1 Degrees

As the second week of COP29 continues, it’s worth considering that the Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty that was adopted in Paris, France during COP21 in late 2015 when 196 of the world’s nations agreed to a primary goal that seeks to limit global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” above pre-industrial levels, while also setting what was called an ambitious goal to limit the actual increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius versus pre-industrial levels. It is these goals, especially the 1.5 degrees mark, that the nations of the world have since been focused on achieving so as to mitigate and avoid the most catastrophic and costly impacts of our climate crisis should temperatures rise above that mark by century end.

How are we doing since those goals were established?

Well, nine years after the Paris Agreement’s goals were published, society is currently on track to have temperatures increase between 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Based on existing technologies, a rapid, seismic adjustment is needed by the nations of the world, especially the largest polluters such as China and the United States, if we are to have any chance of achieving the goals from Paris in 2015.

At COP29, which started last week in Baku, Azerbaijan, the world’s nations will review their progress and plans towards meeting the Paris Agreement goals and debate the updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NCDs) that I wrote about in one of my last posts, revised plans that are due to be published in early 2025. The NDCs seek to determine how the world’s nations, by country and collectively, are progressing (or regressing) towards the Paris Agreement goals and it is my view that the outcome from this year’s COP on this topic will be one of the most important issue delegates address in Baku.

Just in time for COP29, the United Nations Environment Programme has published its most recent Emissions Gap Report, its 15th in an ongoing series in which the world’s leading climate scientists review ongoing trends and possible solutions with the Paris Agreement’s goals in mind. Given our current trajectory versus mankind’s stated goals from 2015, this year’s report is fittingly entitled “No more hot air … please!” As the report aptly summarizes, when it comes to transitioning our society to renewable energy and reducing the world’s greenhouse gas pollution there is a “massive gap between rhetoric and reality.”

This year’s report includes the illustration above that depicts where the world’s temperature is headed under various scenarios beginning with what is expected to happen if current policies continue (there is, for example, an estimated 100% chance that we will exceed the 1.5-degree aspirational goal from the Paris Agreement, a 97% chance of reaching or surpassing 2 degrees, and a 37% chance of reaching/exceeding 3 degrees). This table, and the first line within it that depicts a continuation of our current worldwide approach, helps explain the report’s conclusion that there is a “massive gap between rhetoric and reality.” Without dramatically increasing our shift away from polluting products and processes to renewables, it’s clear that we will exceed our current temperature goals and in doing so place our society and planet in dire danger.

You can find the most recent Emissions Gap Report from the UN here.

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What’s the Plan? Miami-Dade Back Bay Study Update

If our community ever has a chance at saving some of South Florida from rising seas and increasingly destructive storm surge caused by our climate crisis then maybe, just maybe, historians a hundred years from now will look back at the initial ground work comprised in what’s known as the Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Feasibility Study, or it’s more common name “the Back Bay Study.”

The importance of this initial work and how it will evolve in the decades to come is why I’ve been attending the various public planning meetings hosted by the federal government’s U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) Jacksonville, Florida and Norfolk, Virginia offices, along with Miami-Dade County’s Office of Resilience, including last Wednesday’s session held at the Town of Cutler Bay’s Town Hall in south Miami-Dade. The evening served as an in-person update on the status of the plan’s six pilot projects that the USACE is proposing be installed in and around Miami-Dade, including next steps as the plan seeks refinement before seeking Congressional approval much less seed money to fund the initial pilot programs. This week’s session in Cutler Bay followed the most recent significant step in the USACE process this last August when Lieutenant General Scott A. Spellmon, USACE Commanding General and 55th U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, signed what’s called the Chief’s Report for the Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study at USACE Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The signing of the Report in August moved the $11.2 million federally funded study to the next phase of consideration for Congressional authorization and funding. The purpose of the study itself is to identify, evaluate, and recommend a set of prospective solutions for managing coastal storm surge risks to infrastructure, public health, and safety. The most recent iteration of the Chief’s Report recommends a nature-based solutions (NBS) pilot program and programmatic nonstructural studies for Congressional authorization which, together, are intended to help some of Miami-Dade County test a variety of solutions in hopes of protecting our region by reducing damage caused from future storm surge in a world where sea levels will be higher. I say “some of Miami-Dade” because the Village of Key Biscayne, the island community adjacent to the City of Miami that’s part of Miami-Dade County, is not included in the Back Bay Study but, instead, has a separate plan of its own.

Pilot Project Communities

The Back Bay Study is just that: a study. It is a test to try and learn what does and does not, perhaps, work. It is simply a pilot plan to experiment with a variety of storm surge resiliency steps, some manmade and others nature-based to learn whether they help. So to be clear, this is not a comprehensive solution but, I suppose, a start. Those six pilot projects will conceivably be expanded based on the initial test results and countless other factors. The six initial focus areas of the study include:

1. Biscayne Canal

2. Cutler Bay

3. Little River

4. Miami River

5. North Beach

6. South Beach

Sea Level Targets & Calculation Methodology

For their planning purposes the USACE is using a hydraulic model developed by the Hydrologic Engineering Center, called the River Analysis System (HEC-RAS). The HEC-RAS is used to develop a 50-year analysis of water surface profiles based on data from the USACE’s High Sea Level Curve projected out to 2095. The USACE calculates what’s called a 0.5% annual exceedance probability (AEP) stillwater evaluation from their South Atlantic Coastal Study (SACS), which is based on astronomical tide, storm surge, wave overtopping, and the USACE high sea level change scenario to the year 2095. Their process currently estimates seas could rise by about 4.5 feet and that target is what the initial plan takes into consideration.

Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)

The magnitude of this problem and project is just immense. Beyond the planning, engineering, and physical work there are, for example, countless critical questions related to social vulnerability that must be answered such as what neighborhoods are vulnerable to storm surge and should be prioritized? Or what socioeconomic factors should help identify Environmental Justice communities? The USACE intends to use their Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) to initially identify Environmental Justice Communities within Miami-Dade County.

You can find the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool here.

Summary of The 2024 Chief’s Report

Here’s a brief summary of the key current components that the 2024 Chief’s Report calls for:

1. A Nature Based Solutions Pilot Program estimated to cost about $180,000,000. Those funds, if/when approved, would be deployed throughout Miami-Dade in the initial six focus areas noted above. That money would then be used to identify, design, construct, and monitor a diverse mix of projects including mangrove installations, mosquito ditches, wetland restoration, human-made island enhancements, living shorelines, dune reinforcement, and hybrid coral reef structures as but a few examples.

2. A Programmatic Nonstructural Study that would cost about $6,000,000 is designed to create a plan to review nonstructural steps to protect complex critical infrastructure facilities (such as hospitals) and large multi-family residential buildings.

3. The Chief’s Report also includes a proposed hope for the voluntary elevation of up to 2,052 residential buildings within the six study areas. I suspect that folks all along Florida’s coast will one day face difficult decisions about whether to raise their homes or sell their property, perhaps through eminent domain type processes, as their access or use becomes impaired. For this reason I was curious about the USACE’s experience with having people raise their homes and during the public Q&A that followed this week’s meeting I asked them about it. I asked about the USACE’s experience having citizens raise their homes, how many homes have been raised in other areas as a result of their work, the process itself, and how all of this was received by people. The answer is a bit concerning in that they explained that, “only about 25 homes around the country have been raised. We have communities around different parts of the US in various planning stages where elevating structures will be part of the plan but as of today our experience is pretty limited.”

4. It is also hoped that floodproofing could take place on a voluntary basis in up to 403 nonresidential commercial buildings.

5. And there is also the hope that up to 27 critical infrastructure facilities can also be floodproofed.

As noted, the Miami-Dade Back Bay study is currently focused on six pilot areas within our county. When I asked, for example, about Key Biscayne the USACE explained that that island community is undergoing its own, separate, planning within their office. And when I asked about Monroe County, the USACE’s folks explained that some of their engineers had, in fact, been in the Florida Keys just this past week performing preliminary site visits but that the focus in that county, for now, was Hurricane Evacuation (meaning the required elevation of the road [US1] and bridges so as to allow folks to evacuate the island chain before a catastrophic hurricane were to arrive). None of these disconnected initial plans will, of course, make all of South Florida resilient to rising seas and to have any chance of saving as much of the region as possible the day will, in my view, soon need to come to have a combined, consolidated, and gosh knows unbelievably costly comprehensive plan, but for now we are nowhere near that sort of thinking today.

You can find the complete 2024 Chief’s Report here.

What’s next for the Back Bay Study?

What’s Next? Well, this is a long-term study and much of what happens will depend on what Congress says, does, and funds. As of today, the targeted near-term milestones include the following:

1. Alternative Milestone Meeting on January 17, 2025

2. Tentatively Selected Plan Meeting on February 26, 2026

3. Public Release of Draft Report on April 22, 2026

4. Agency Decision Milestone Meeting on August 20, 2026

5. Final Report Submittal on April 3, 2027

6. Signed Chief’s Report on August 2, 2027

Of course, all of those meetings and milestones depend on how the study process progresses and, ultimately, whether Congress decides to fund the Back Bay Study work any further and when. As I said, we are in the very initial stages of planning and all of this is understandably an incredibly complex long-term project that will progress in countless ways based on funding, what’s installed, how the pilot projects perform, how our society grapples with addressing the core causes of climate change (fossil fuel and greenhouse gas use), and how the scientific data and engineering evolve in the future.

For now, I’d encourage everyone to become involved in the discussion, attend future meetings, and to actively voice their ideas or concerns along the way. To learn more about the USACE Miami-Dade Back Bay Study you can visit here.

Back Bay Study, Chief's Report, Climate Change, Coastal Storm Risk Management, Delaney Reynolds, Eco Warrior, Global Warming, Miami, Miami-Dade County, Miamisearise.com, Monroe County, Office of Resilience, Politics, Sea Level Rise, Sea Rise, The Sink or Swim Project, Town of Cutler Bay, USACE
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