Today’s ESG Updates
- EU Warns Albania Over Luxury Resort: Brussels raised environmental concerns over a Kushner-backed coastal development as Albania pursues EU membership.
- UK Unblocks Renewable Energy Projects: Neso cleared a grid bottleneck, enabling hundreds of clean energy projects to move forward.
- Malaysia and Japan Deepen LNG Ties: Petronas signed a 20-year LNG supply deal with Japan’s largest power producer, JERA.
- Wealthiest Linked to Major Climate Costs: A new report estimates the richest individuals drive nearly $1 trillion in annual climate damage.
Albania faces EU warning and coastal protests over luxury resort
Albania must quickly comply with EU environmental legislation if it wants to join the 27-member bloc, the European Commission warned, citing a planned luxury resort backed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama, who has been in power for 13 years, dismissed environmental concerns and said the country will proceed with the coastal project once it has completed an environmental impact assessment.
The project has triggered protests in Tirana and along the southern coast. The protests were called the “Flamingo Revolution” because the area is a migratory pit stop for the birds.
The European Union has said it could accept new members, including Albania, Montenegro, and Ukraine, by 2030, but only if they comply with its environmental laws.
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Further reading: Brussels presses Albania as Kushner resort threatens to flout EU environmental law
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Renewable projects move forward as Neso ends grid connection logjam
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) has successfully unblocked a grid-connection bottleneck in the UK, allowing almost 60% of the renewable energy projects needed to meet Great Britain’s 2030 clean power targets to connect to the electricity grid. Since the start of the year, Neso has offered grid connection dates to over 700 shovel-ready clean energy projects, representing 37 gigawatts of new capacity out of the 100 gigawatts required to achieve a virtually carbon-free grid by the end of the decade.
The breakthrough comes after a two-year reform process that began in late 2023 to clear a huge logjam caused by a “first come, first served” system, with hundreds of speculative “zombie projects” eliminated that had expanded the queue to more than twice the capacity needed for the 2050 net-zero target. The new rules require projects to meet rigid criteria such as acquiring land rights and planning permission, so only feasible schemes are offered connection dates.
The grid upgrades would insulate bill payers from fossil fuel price spikes and help meet the broader Labour government’s pledge made two years ago to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind capacity, said Energy Minister Michael Shanks.
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Further reading: More than half of clean energy schemes needed for Labour’s 2030 target offered grid connection
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Long-term LNG deal deepens Malaysia-Japan energy partnership
Malaysian state energy company Petronas has signed a 20-year agreement to supply JERA, Japan’s largest power generator and LNG buyer, with 2 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas. The deal is scheduled to begin in 2028, aiming to secure stable energy reserves for Japan during a global LNG crunch heightened by the war in Iran.
JERA’s long-term strategy is to retain about 10% of its LNG supply from Asia and to use Petronas LNG Ltd’s new-generation 174,000-cubic-meter carriers to transport the fuel. Malaysia is Japan’s second-largest LNG supplier after Australia, accounting for about 15% of the country’s current imports. The two countries also pledged to increase trade using the ringgit and yen and boost cooperation in a range of key fields, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, nuclear energy, defense, maritime security, fertilizer feedstocks, and critical mineral supply chains.
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Further reading: Malaysian energy firm Petronas signs 20-year LNG supply deal with Japan’s JERA
World’s richest linked to nearly $1 trillion in annual climate damage
The ultra-wealthy are responsible for an outsized share of the greenhouse gases that are overheating the planet, not just through their consumer lifestyles but primarily through their bank accounts, investments, and ownership of carbon-intensive assets. Through their shareholdings and investments, the top 1% by wealth control about a quarter of global annual emissions. Greenpeace calculated the “climate debt” of high net worth individuals by attributing to them their share of asset damage, estimating that the world’s richest cause nearly $1 trillion a year of climate damage.
Ownership-based emissions, which include the pollution associated with privately owned financial and physical assets, account for 60% of global carbon output, and the top 1% by wealth are responsible for about 40% of them. The ultra-wealthy 0.1% bracket accounts for about 17%, and the 0.01% tier of the wealthiest accounts for about 9% of ownership-based emissions. On the other hand, the bottom half of the world by wealth accounts for a mere 3% of these ownership-based emissions.
The report comes as global wealth inequality soars and governments gather in Bonn, Germany, for two weeks of talks ahead of the COP31 UN climate summit, where discussions will focus on a “just transition” to help workers shift away from fossil fuels.
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Further reading: Super-rich’s assets cause outsized amount of climate harm, study says
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Buneci Beach on the Albanian Riviera. Cover Photo Credit: Marie Volkert.
