News round-up, August 2, 2023
Quote of the day…
British director of ‘Napoleon’ compares French emperor to Hitler, Stalin
‘He’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott says of the military leader.
In a recent interview, renowned British director Ridley Scott made controversial comparisons between Napoleon Bonaparte, the French military leader, and dictators Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Scott, widely acclaimed for his directorial work on films such as "Gladiator" and "Blade Runner," did not mince words when discussing Napoleon, stating that the former emperor had "a lot of bad shit under his belt."
POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, AUGUST 1, 2023
Most read…
Trump charged in probe of Jan. 6, efforts to overturn 2020 election
The indictment alleges four different crimes and describes six unnamed, uncharged co-conspirators
TWP by Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, and Jacqueline Alemany, August 1, 2023 The U.S. Clean-Energy Company That Hit the Subsidies Jackpot
First Solar stands out among beneficiaries of Biden’s climate legislation, but lots of green energy companies are ‘trying to get on the gravy train’
TWJ By Phred Dvorak, July 31, 2023 Focus: For investors, green companies still hard to find with new emissions reporting rules
REUTERS By Simon Jessop and Huw Jones, August 2, 2023The Race for Resources
British director of ‘Napoleon’ compares French emperor to Hitler, Stalin
‘He’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott says of the military leader.
POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, AUGUST 1, 2023 China and Russia Are Beating the West in Africa
This week, leaders from 17 African countries will be guests of Vladimir Putin. Alongside Russia, all the major powers are vying for influence and raw materials on the continent. The conditions are increasingly dictated by the Africans themselves, with the West often coming away empty-handed.
Spiegel by Heiner Hoffmann, Maximilian Popp and Fritz Schaap, August 2, 2023
At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.
Source: TWP/Editing by Germán & CoTrump charged in probe of Jan. 6, efforts to overturn 2020 election
The indictment alleges four different crimes and describes six unnamed, uncharged co-conspirators
TWP by Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, and Jacqueline Alemany, August 1, 2023 A grand jury indicted former president Donald Trump on Tuesday for a raft of alleged crimes in his brazen efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory — the latest legal and political aftershock stemming from the riot at the U.S. Capitol two and a half years ago.
The four-count, 45-page indictment accuses Trump, who is again running for president, of conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiring against people’s civil right to have their vote counted. The maximum potential sentence on the most serious charge is 20 years in prison.
“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” special counsel Jack Smith told reporters after the indictment was filed. “It was fueled by lies, lies by the defendant.”
Smith also praised the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol, saying that they “did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people.”
The charges represent the third indictment of the former president filed since March — setting the stage for one of the stranger presidential contests in history, in which a major-party front-runner may have to alternate between campaign stops and courtroom hearings over the next year and a half.
A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Trump last month on charges of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing government efforts to get them back. A state grand jury in New York has charged him with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments during the 2016 campaign. And a state grand jury in Georgia is weighing whether to charge Trump for his efforts to undo the 2020 election results there.
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, denies all wrongdoing related to the 2020 election as well. His spokesman, Steven Cheung, accused the Justice Department of trying to interfere with the 2024 election by targeting the GOP front-runner, and he compared the Biden administration to some of the worst authoritarian regimes in history.
“President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys,” Cheung said in a statement that compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany. “Three years ago we had strong borders, energy independence, no inflation, and a great economy. Today, we are a nation in decline. President Trump will not be deterred by disgraceful and unprecedented political targeting!”
Tuesday’s indictment paints Trump in late 2020 as a sore loser and an inveterate liar, willing to say almost anything to try to reverse his defeat at the hands of his Democratic rival.
“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment charges, accusing Trump of unleashing a blizzard of false claims about purported mass voter fraud and then trying to get state, local and federal officials to act to change the vote results.
“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” the indictment states. “In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue — often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts — and he deliberately disregarded the truth.”
The former president was ordered to appear in federal court in Washington on Thursday. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, a 2014 Obama appointee and a former D.C. public defender.
While Trump’s legal woes have grown exponentially in recent months, he has only solidified his early lead over the field of 2024 GOP presidential contenders. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), an ardent Trump supporter, issued a statement criticizing the Justice Department, claiming that the indictment was an effort to “attack the frontrunner for the Republican nomination” and distract the public from stories about President Biden while his son Hunter is trying to plead guilty to tax charges.
In broad strokes and specific scenes, the indictment recounts much of what was already known about Trump’s efforts to stay in the White House despite losing the election, actions that were the focus of extensive hearings last year by a House select committee investigating Jan. 6.
The indictment frames that conduct as a criminal conspiracy to demolish a bedrock function of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of political power.
No one else is charged alongside Trump, but the indictment describes six unnamed co-conspirators, who appear to be in significant legal jeopardy. Smith said the investigation was ongoing.
At the top of that list is Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and former lawyer for Trump. He appears in the indictment only as Co-Conspirator 1, but his identity is clear from the document’s descriptions of that person’s actions.
Most of the other uncharged co-conspirators are identifiable based on details in the indictment and previous reporting by The Washington Post and other outlets. That reporting shows that Co-Conspirator 2, described in the indictment as “an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding,” is John Eastman.
The indictment describes Co-Conspirator 3 as “an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud” Trump himself said sounded “crazy” — a description that matches Trump ally Sidney Powell. Co-Conspirator 4 is described as a then-Justice Department official who “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations.” Other details of that person’s actions match Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump considered appointing as attorney general in the final days of his administration.
Co-Conspirator 5 is described in the indictment as a lawyer who tried to implement a plan “to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding” — a reference that appears to match Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump attorney who worked on the scheme involving false presidential electors.
Eastman attorney Charles Burnham said in a statement that Eastman is not involved in any plea bargaining and would decline any such invitation, casting Trump’s indictment as an effort by the Biden administration to attack a political opponent and “cast ominous aspersions on his close advisors.” Attorneys for other uncharged co-conspirators did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday night. An attorney for Powell declined to comment, and a Giuliani spokesman questioned the basis for the allegations.
Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said an unindicted co-conspirator is, by definition, someone prosecutors already believe has committed a crime.
“There are many reasons why prosecutors refer to unindicted co-conspirators, some of them evidentiary and some of them strategic, but it most often is used to send a strong message to a potential defendant who the prosecution wants to turn into a cooperating witness, but who is holding out,” said Mintz. “It is essentially like being in the on-deck circle for the superseding indictment in that prosecutors are no longer deciding if they can bring charges, but only if they want to.”
Tuesday’s indictment says Trump used private phone calls, memos and other meetings to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to help him overturn the election.
There were at least four calls before Jan. 6, the indictment says, including a call on Dec. 25, 2020, and one on New Year’s Day. On Christmas, Pence told Trump he did not have the “authority” to overturn the election. On Jan. 1, he repeated that to Trump, according to the indictment.
“You’re too honest,” Trump allegedly responded.
Pence rejected Trump again on Jan. 3, according to the indictment. The indictment says Pence and his team were also pressured by Eastman in the days leading up to Jan. 6. After that conversation, the indictment says, a Pence adviser told Trump that even Co-Conspirator 2 “had conceded that his plan was ‘not going to work.’”
The indictment also alleges that on the night of Jan. 6, after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to prevent the formal certification of Biden’s victory, “the White House counsel called the Defendant to ask him to withdraw any objections and allow the certification. The Defendant refused.”
Trump for more than two weeks had publicly predicted that he would be indicted, announcing on social media on July 18 that his attorneys had been told he might be charged in the case. On Tuesday, the grand jury panel hearing evidence in the case gathered early at the D.C. courthouse, within sight of the U.S. Capitol. The jurors were seen leaving in the afternoon.
About 5 p.m., reporters in the courthouse saw a prosecutor with Smith’s office and the grand jury foreperson deliver the indictment to a magistrate judge.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya accepted the grand jury return, saying, “I do have one indictment return before me, and I have reviewed the paperwork in connection with this indictment.”
A short time later, the document was available on the federal court computer system for all to see.
Smith was tapped in November to take charge of the Justice Department’s classified-documents probe and 2020 election investigation, after Trump launched his 2024 campaign and Attorney General Merrick Garland — a Biden appointee — concluded that an independent prosecutor should oversee the probes.
A state grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is also considering whether to file broad charges against Trump and his lawyers, advocates and aides over their efforts to undo the 2020 election results. A decision is expected this month, although previous plans to announce a charging decision have been delayed. Michigan and Arizona are also investigating aspects of the efforts to block Biden’s victory in their states.
Trump is scheduled for trial in March on the New York state charges of falsifying business records, and a federal judge in Florida has scheduled the classified-documents trial to start in late May.
Smith vowed Tuesday to seek a speedy trial in Washington on the election conspiracy charges.
That investigation proceeded along multiple tracks in recent months, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post, with prosecutors focused on ads and fundraising pitches claiming election fraud as well as plans for “fake electors” who could have swung the election to Trump.
Smith sought to navigate thorny issues of where the line should be drawn between political activity, legal advocacy and criminal conspiracy.
A key element of the investigation was determining to what degree Republican operatives, activists and elected officials — including Trump — understood that their claims of massive voter fraud were false at the time they were making them. The indictment is peppered with instances in which prosecutors try to show that Trump knew he was spewing lies, including times when the nation’s top intelligence officials and White House lawyers allegedly told Trump that there was no evidence of voting fraud or irregularities.
A spokesman for Giuliani suggested that prosecutors cannot prove that Trump knew he was lying when he claimed voter fraud.
“Every fact Mayor Rudy Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good-faith basis President Donald Trump had for the actions he took during the two-month period charged in the indictment,” said the spokesman, Ted Goodman. He said the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment and criminalizes the ruling regime’s number one political opponent for daring to ask questions about the 2020 election results.”
At a community event in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening, Garland briefly addressed reporters outside a police district headquarters. He did not discuss the specifics of the indictment but expressed confidence in how the investigation has been handled.
“Mr. Smith and his team are experienced, principled career agents and prosecutors” who “follow the facts and the law wherever they lead,” said Garland.
A First Solar plant in Walbridge, Ohio. The solar-panel maker expects to receive as much as $710 million this year from U.S. government subsidies./Editing by Germán & CoThe U.S. Clean-Energy Company That Hit the Subsidies Jackpot
First Solar stands out among beneficiaries of Biden’s climate legislation, but lots of green energy companies are ‘trying to get on the gravy train’
TWJ By Phred Dvorak, July 31, 2023 Of all the beneficiaries of the U.S.’s green-energy push, few have hit the jackpot like First Solar FSLR -2.28%decrease
The Arizona-based solar-panel manufacturer expects to receive as much as $710 million this year—nearly 90% of forecast operating profit—from subsidies the U.S. government rolled out a year ago to encourage domestic renewables production. One analyst estimates the incentives could be worth more than $10 billion for the company over the next decade.
First Solar expects to have as much as a 60% share of the U.S. market for large-scale solar installations this year, largely a result of government policies that are pushing clean-energy developers to buy more made-in-America components.
The company’s shares have more than doubled to $208.40 in Friday trade since the beginning of 2022, despite a string of earnings disappointments during that period. Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last August, First Solar has promised so far to plow more than $2.8 billion into new manufacturing and research facilities in the U.S., including a new factory announced on Thursday.
Some industry executives attribute the company’s good fortune to luck and sharp elbows as it pushed for policies that would give it an advantage against low-cost competitors from countries such as China, which controls more than 80% of the global supply chain for solar panels.
First Solar Chief Executive Mark Widmar credits persistence and smart strategy, saying the company has worked for years to build factories and a supply chain in the U.S. He says the current U.S. energy policy is helpful.
The Biden administration’s signature climate legislation could ultimately provide $1 trillion in support for clean-energy projects, largely through tax credits tied to benchmarks such as the amount of wind power generated or solar panels produced. So far, it has helped spur around $110 billion in announcements for factories and other facilities to make everything from wind turbines to battery components, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
Most of those projects involve overseas clean-energy giants; many won’t be finished for years. First Solar is one of a handful of big U.S.-based manufacturers with sizable U.S. factories that are already eligible for the incentives.
First Solar photovoltaic panels lined up at the Desert Stateline Solar Facility in California. PHOTO: BING GUAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
“Lots and lots of companies are trying to get on the gravy train—in the solar industry, in the battery industry, in lithium mining,” says Pavel Molchanov, a renewables analyst at Raymond James. But in terms of the amount of incentives it can reap now, “First Solar really stands out.”
Making solar panels, like a lot of other clean-energy components, is a commoditized, low-margin business where companies vie to drive down prices. For years, that meant factories fled to low-cost places such as China or Southeast Asia.
First Solar, which was founded in 1999, makes solar panels using a technology called thin-film, where layers of photovoltaic chemicals are spread onto glass in a process that is faster, cheaper and simpler than the procedure for common silicon-based panels. That technology helped the company compete with the big Chinese solar-panel makers and their suppliers.
First Solar also changed business models when needed, says Widmar, who joined the company in 2011 and has steered it through several slumps. The company built factories in cheaper locations such as Malaysia and Vietnam, where it hosted more than 80% of its manufacturing capacity as late as 2018.
At the same time, the company lobbied in the U.S. against cheap Asian imports, pushing to slap duties on solar components made by Chinese companies. Some in the industry say such policies have boosted solar costs in the U.S. and could slow the rollout of renewables.
Those protectionist measures combined with pandemic shipping bottlenecks to boost First Solar’s U.S. sales. The company is likely to provide more than half of the panels sold for large-scale solar installations in the U.S. this year, compared with around a third before the pandemic, Widmar estimates.
During the first three months of this year, as the U.S. government considered green tax-credit details, the company spent $270,000 on lobbying—nearly 80% of its entire 2022 spend, according to data collated on OpenSecrets.org.
First Solar’s lobbying efforts have primarily been aimed at securing a level playing field versus cheap Chinese manufacturers that get subsidized by their government, Widmar says. The U.S. needs to focus on goals beyond lowering panel costs, such as energy security, he says. “We believe that this should not be an environment of solar at any cost.”
Rules governing the tax credits are still being completed. First Solar says it should be able to qualify for a series of lucrative credits linked to its U.S. panel production. The credits could be worth $11 billion over the next decade, according to a report by Philip Shen, managing partner at boutique investment bank Roth Capital Partners. That is roughly equivalent to the last four years of sales.
First Solar hasn’t received any credits yet, but it is already counting future credits’ value on its books.
A key question is the definition of a U.S.-made solar panel for tax-credit purposes, which could unlock a lucrative incentive meant to spur renewables developers to buy more homemade equipment. Rules favoring First Solar could help boost the company’s sales further, because the company estimates 90% of the pieces that go into its newest panel are already made in America.
First Solar is trying to take advantage of its moment. The company is tapping into buyers’ demand for U.S.-made equipment by amending contracts to stipulate that its panels will be produced domestically, charging a premium for that feature. It is pushing customers hungry for panels to sign multiyear contracts, accumulating an order backlog the company estimates at more than $20 billion.
The company also is investing heavily in research into new solar technologies, and it is building new factories fast. First Solar expects to have more than 20 gigawatts of global manufacturing capacity by the end of 2025, four times what it had at the end of 2018 and one-and-a-half times the amount of large-scale solar the U.S. installed last year. Nearly half of that will be in the U.S.
“It’s a moment of opportunity,” Widmar says.
“AES El Salvador Team Awarded the “Golden Hard Hat” Award 2022.
Bernerd Da Santos, First AES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean EnergyAES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean Energy“The AES El Salvador team has been awarded the 2022 "Golden Hard Hat" Award, a highly prestigious accolade that recognizes their unwavering commitment to safety. This award, presented by AES Corporation, highlights the team's exceptional dedication to making safety a priority. The team demonstrated professionalism and dedication by working 8 million hours, conducting 30,000 inspections, and dedicating 45,000 hours to technical and environmental training to ensure safety standards. However, the most important thing to note here is that the AES El Salvador team achieved a remarkable feat without any fatalities, demonstrating their exceptional commitment.
I would like to congratulate the union's leader and management team of AES El Salvador: Abraham Bichara, Daniel Bernardez, Roberto Sandoval, John Davenport, and Wilfredo Flores. Their combined efforts have been instrumental in making this outstanding achievement possible.
Once again, my heartfelt congratulations to the AES El Salvador team for this well-deserved recognition. Their tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to safety are an inspiration to us all.
An exhaust pipe of a car is pictured on a street in a Berlin, Germany, February 22, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo/Editing by Germán & CoFocus: For investors, green companies still hard to find with new emissions reporting rules
REUTERS By Simon Jessop and Huw Jones, August 2, 2023LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Is Ford (F.N) doing a better job of cutting emissions than rival Toyota (7203.T)? Is BP (BP.L) greener than Shell (SHEL.L)?
For investors looking to weed out climate laggards from portfolios, these are vital questions but existing guidelines on emissions reporting and new rules due to come in for the United States and Europe are unlikely to provide hard answers.
Most major Western companies use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) Corporate Standard for reporting emissions and the guidelines will form part of the framework for compulsory EU standards set to take effect next year.
The United States is on track to announce similar rules this year and the corporate standard, first launched in 2001 and revised in 2004, is also embedded in other international emissions reporting standards.
But the guidelines, which are overseen by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Resources Institute, define the three main categories of emissions companies should report broadly, leaving plenty of room for interpretation.
Half a dozen investors interviewed by Reuters said while the GHGP has been crucial in shining a light on corporate emissions, it can be hard to compare companies given the potential for differences in disclosures, and this will remain the case to some extent even with new mandatory norms.
"More companies are disclosing, but at what quality are they actually going to disclose?" said Vanessa Bingle, director at Alpha Financial Markets Consulting, which advises asset managers on sustainable investing.
LIFETIME EMISSIONS
Take the autos sector.
Although 20 of the top 30 automakers report emissions linked to their supply chains – known as Scope 3 under the protocol - analysis by research firm Signal Climate Analytics (SCA) seen by Reuters showed a range of approaches in how they disclose the data and for the assumptions underpinning their calculations.
For example, as of March 2023, only five carmakers have disclosed their assumptions for the average life of their vehicles and grams of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted per kilometre driven.
That makes comparisons problematic. An unrealistically low lifetime figure could make cars appear less polluting than they really are, SCA Executive Chairman David Lubin said.
In its 2021 public submission to CDP – a non-profit that runs the global disclosure system on environmental impacts for investors, companies and governments - Japanese carmaker Subaru (7270.T) said its cars run for 130,000 km (80,000 miles) over their lifetime. In 2022, it did not disclose a figure.
A search of the British version of second-hand car site AutoTrader on July 31 showed 988 Subarus for sale, of which 263, or a quarter, had done at least 80,000 miles.
Subaru told Reuters the 130,000 km figure referred to vehicles sold in Japan. For the EU, it used 162,500 km and for North America, where it books most of its sales, 228,800 km, information it has not previously made public.
A spokesperson said Subaru did not include a lifetime number in its 2022 disclosure because it wanted to avoid confusion with an incomplete description.
"We now believe it's better to disclose the lifetime distance assumptions by region in our next disclosure (2023)."
APPLES AND ORANGES
Experts said Scope 3 emissions were the hardest of the three areas to assess as companies have to rely on data from customers and suppliers for their calculations.
SCA's Lubin said Scope 3 data was quite limited in its usefulness without researching how firms come up with their numbers and how reasonable the assumptions underpinning their data are.
Nonetheless, many investors scrutinise carbon emissions data to gauge how polluting a company is, how it compares with rivals and how this might affect its bottom line and share price.
For Laura Kane, head of ESG research at Voya Investment Management, which is part of Voya Financial (VOYA.N) and oversees about $323 billion in assets, in many cases, it's like comparing apples to oranges.
Kane said her firm buys third-party data from ratings providers, which aim to normalise and score the data, making it more comparable across sectors, yet this brings its own challenges. She declined to name the providers.
"There is quite a bit of variation among providers ... due to inconsistent reporting from companies, as well as different estimation and aggregation methodologies."
Only big investors have deep enough pockets to pay for such data and employ teams to assess it, leaving smaller investors at a disadvantage, experts say.
PATCHWORK OF RULES
The EU has made carbon disclosures mandatory for about 50,000 companies operating in the bloc from next year while new U.S. rules should come this year as governments look to replace a patchwork of private sector norms with binding rules, making it easier to crack down on greenwashing or exaggerated climate-friendly claims by companies.
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), a standards-setter established by the IFRS Foundation that produces international accounting norms, has also approved rules any country can adopt. Some countries, including Britain, have said those guidelines will become mandatory.
Jimmy Jia, researcher at the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, said as well as differences in defining what should be counted under existing GHGP guidelines, companies may use different calculation processes or present data in different ways.
"Investors need to understand if a difference is due to an operational difference, or because the entities applied different accounting methodologies," said Jia said, co-author of a study on emissions data comparability.
Another area of investor concern is how companies account for their own energy use, or Scope 2 emissions.
The GHGP allows companies to buy green energy to offset their emissions, using contractual instruments such as renewable energy certificates, and reflect this in their reporting.
But the protocol also allows different accounting methods - market-based or location-based - to be used when companies calculate Scope 2 numbers. The market-based approach, however, may not accurately reflect how used energy was generated, potentially resulting in investors concluding a company is less polluting than it is, some investors said.
"Market-based methods open up the door to creative accounting," British asset manager abrdn said in its response to a GHGP consultation that closed on March 14.
Of 8,400 companies to report data globally to CDP, 70% reported Scope 2 data, with 31% giving both market and location-based figures, 33% only a location-based number and 6% just market-based, CDP data shared with Reuters showed.
Reuters GraphicsCONSULTATION ON CHANGES
European and U.S. regulators and officials at the ISSB interviewed by Reuters acknowledge the criticisms of GHGP but argue that the new EU, U.S. and global standards are just the start of a journey to more accurate reporting.
Best-practice, pressure from markets, and peers, along with bespoke sector disclosures, will emerge over the next five years or so to improve accuracy, as will countries requiring disclosures to be independently audited, as they do for financial reports, regulators say.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.
Pedro Faria, environmental leader at EFRAG, the EU body that drafted the bloc's disclosure standards, said the priority was to make disclosures mandatory before improving the quality, and that they are just one piece of the puzzle.
"Ultimately, the thing that you need from (companies) is the big chunk of emissions and yes, there are methodological issues there, but also their investments, their transition plans, changes in strategy, and some of those aspects are even more important than precise carbon numbers," Faria said.
The GHGP's consultation on possible changes to its framework drew over 230 proposals, of which 150 were made public while the others requested privacy. Any changes would likely take effect from 2025, at the earliest, according to GHGP.
"All feedback shared during that process will be reviewed by GHG Protocol including its Technical Working Groups and will inform the scope and potential approaches to make updates to existing standards or development of additional guidance," said Pankaj Bhatia, director of GHG Protocol.
Image: Germán & CoCooperate with objective and ethical thinking…
British director Ridley Scott has said France’s first Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is like Adolf Hitler | Hulton ArchiveBritish director of ‘Napoleon’ compares French emperor to Hitler, Stalin
‘He’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott says of the military leader.
POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, AUGUST 1, 2023
France’s first Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is like Adolf Hitler, British director Ridley Scott said ahead of the release of his biopic movie on the French military leader in the fall.
“I compare him with Alexander the Great. Adolf Hitler. Stalin,” Scott said in the upcoming September edition of the British monthly magazine Empire.
Napoleon — who reinstated slavery and whose military campaigns ranged from Spain to Russia and were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths on the battlefield — has got “a lot of bad shit under his belt,” Scott said.
“At the same time, he was remarkable with his courage, and in his can-do and in his dominance. He was extraordinary,” Scott added.
After first rising to power following a coup in 1799, Corsica-born Napoleon Bonaparte led France through a series of bloody wars to briefly become a hegemonic power in continental Europe, until he was finally defeated by an alliance of European nations led by Britain in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo in Belgium.
The first French emperor then died in exile in Saint Helena, a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in 1821.
Focusing on the rise to power of the French military leader, Scott’s movie — the poster of which shows the emperor wearing a two-pointed hat — will come out in November and features Hollywood legend Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon.
In his Empire interview, Scott said he first thought of Phoenix for the role while watching the actor’s Oscar-winning performance in “The Joker.”
“I’m staring at Joaquin and saying, ‘This little demon is Napoleon Bonaparte.’ He looks like him.”
Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…
…“More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.
SpiegelThe Race for Resources
China and Russia Are Beating the West in Africa
This week, leaders from 17 African countries will be guests of Vladimir Putin. Alongside Russia, all the major powers are vying for influence and raw materials on the continent. The conditions are increasingly dictated by the Africans themselves, with the West often coming away empty-handed.
Spiegel by Heiner Hoffmann, Maximilian Popp and Fritz Schaap, August 2, 2023African leaders don't often travel by train. But in mid-June, four heads of government from Africa boarded a train in Poland headed for Ukraine. In a group photo, the travelers look a bit lost in the imposing compartment, with only the leader of the mission, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, offering a contented smile.
The delegation traveling with Ramaphosa wanted to achieve what many large and middle powers had thus far failed to accomplish: to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. The Africans met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv and later with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
The African initiative didn't produce a breakthrough, but from the perspective of Ramaphosa and his colleagues from Senegal, Uganda and Congo, among others, it was a success, if only because of the images it produced. Their message: We Africans no longer just look on helplessly, we get involved. Heads of state from the global north used to come to Africa to mediate crises and conflicts, but now it's the other way around.
The trip is an example the continent's growing self-confidence and desire to decisively get rid of its reputation as a passive recipient of development aid.
Despite their claim to be pursuing "policy at eye level," Western nations are still searching for the right way of dealing with this emerging partner, and Africa often still isn't taken seriously.
But nearly all major powers are showing a huge interest in Africa, not just because of the war in Ukraine. The continent, once largely perceived as a trouble spot, is now increasingly seen as a strategic partner.
Moscow is sending Wagner mercenaries to, among other countries, Mali, where they are propping up the junta, to the dismay of former colonial power France. The European Union and the United States have launched a charm offensive on the continent to avoid losing more countries to Russia and China.
Raw materials from Africa – oil and gas, but also lithium and cobalt – are becoming increasingly important. Heads of state and companies from around the world are lining up in countries like Senegal, Congo and Namibia. China, Turkey and now Europe are trying to build up influence in Africa through infrastructure projects. Some are speaking of a new "scramble for Africa" – a reference to the colonial conquests in the 19th and 20th centuries and the bloc politics of the Cold War.
But one thing is different now, as the leaders' peace mission in Russia and Ukraine show – the African countries are now self-confident. They can choose their partners and are doing so. It matters who makes the best offer: Russia, China, the U.S., the EU – in many cases, it's less a question of ideology than of cost-benefit calculations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is aggressively courting the Africans. He is not expected to attend a meeting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the so-called BRICS countries – in Johannesburg in late August. He is apparently concerned that the host could execute an arrest warrant against him from the International Criminal Court. But this Thursday, he will host representatives from around 50 African states, including 17 heads of the state and government, at a summit in St. Petersburg.
The Europeans don't seem to have found an answer yet to this shift, having for decades primarily seen Africa as a boogieman full of potential migrants. The new race for Africa is a global power shift – with an open outcome.
The ceiling tiles in Manono's community hall are rotten. There is a crack in the concrete floor. There is no electricity, so the organizers have set up a generator outside, which powers the speaker and microphone inside. But most participants at this event don't need microphones, they are voicing their concerns loudly. In Manono's "Grande Salle," in southeastern Congo, the issue at hand is global geopolitics. It is about who will have access to the metal of the future: "The Chinese" or "the ones from the West." The residents of Manono and the employees of the Australian mining company AVZ Minerals have gathered here. The company, which wants to mine lithium, set up the meeting.
Lithium is one of the most sought-after raw materials in the world, and experts believe that demand will far exceed supply. Lithium is used in battery production and is necessary for the transition to green energies. Geologists believe that the world's largest lithium deposit could lie under Manono, untapped. "Manono can play a significant role in meeting the world's demand for lithium," says Nigel Ferguson, the CEO of AVZ Minerals. Some believe that whoever controls Manono might have a say in the prices on the global markets.
"Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued the directive: Go out and get what you can."
AVZ CEO Nigel Ferguson
Africa is full of raw materials that the rest of the world depends on – lithium, cobalt but also gold and diamonds. The world' largest deposit of platinum is also on the continent. Ever since the revival of nuclear energy in many places, uranium is once again in demand, and eyes are turning especially to Namibia and Niger, which are home to large deposits. In short, the global north's industrial growth wouldn't be possible without Africa.
Colonial powers ruthlessly exploited the continent's resources and shipped them to Europe. After the countries' independence, this carried on: Countries from the north profited, leaving behind poverty and environmental damage, as well as a frequently corrupt elite. By contrast, China, which is increasingly investing in mines in Africa, and Russia, which exploits the raw materials in countries like the Central African Republic, are comparatively new to the game.
It remains the continent's paradox that resource-rich countries are often the poorest, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Decades of civil war, driven by greed for raw materials, have destabilized the country. These days, the fight for the raw materials is rarely fought with weapons but with more subtle methods, as Manono shows.
The residents of the small town could be living in wealth, but they aren't, and that's why they assembled in the community hall early this year to vent their anger. "Why hasn't anything happened?" one resident yells. "We want to work," another says.
Balthazar Tshiseke sits in front of the angry crowd in a white T-shirt and a white baseball cap. Thiseke heads Dathcom, a joint venture that was meant to have been extracting lithium from the ground for the past year. He gets his salary from AVZ minerals, the Australians who hold a majority stake in Dathcom. The attendees call him "directeur." He patiently listens to the tirades, occasionally nodding. His voice is firm as he says, "the government simply isn't giving us the mining license. We aren't allowed to mine anything yet."
The Australians found large amounts of lithium-rich rock in Manono in 2018. Because it's expensive to mine the metal, they teamed up with another company, in which the Chinese battery giant CATL has a stake. For $240 million, the Chinese were promised a 24-percent stake in the Dathcom joint lithium venture. "We would have loved to have worked with European or American companies, but unfortunately, they're afraid of investing in countries like Congo," says AVZ head Ferguson.
Europe and the U.S. are afraid of losing influence in Africa. But nobody wants to invest large amounts of money in an instable country. According to experts, most of Congo's raw materials exports go to China. "Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued the directive: Go out and get what you can. And now we're experiencing exactly that," says Ferguson.
In the meantime, another Chinese company has tried to obtain shares in Dathcom against AVZ's will. The Chinese might be benefiting from their close political connections in the capital city, Kinshasa. There are suspicions that the Congolese government is in part withholding the mining license to wear down the Australians.
The subject in the Grande Salle has now turned to major political issues. "It's about who is in charge here, the people from the West or the Chinese!" one participant says. "We don't want the Chinese!" others yell. Balthazar Thiseke nods approvingly. The event has been a success for him, with the residents of Manono coming together to support the Australian company. But it is only a small triumph, given that the government in Kinshasa has the upper hand. And there, Beijing is still a welcome partner.
It is now questionable whether AVZ will ever get a license for Manono. The Congolese mining minister did not answer a request for comment from DER SPIEGEL. For the people of Manono, the battle for the raw material of the future is leaving behind one thing above all else: frustration.
A wave washes water on board the wooden pirogue, flooding the floor. Moustapha Dieng calmly leans against a wooden plank. He's wearing a wool hat, his shaggy beard turning grey. In the village of Guet Ndar, they merely call him "father." He's the chairman of the Association of Traditional Fishermen in Senegal.
Dieng has fought many battles in his life – against storms and tides, against the trawlers from China. But his adversaries have never been as powerful as they are now. He has declared war against the world's biggest oil and gas companies. He pilots his pirogue toward a monster of steel and concrete weighing tons. At the end of the year, gas is to be extracted here, and a large part of the facilities are already in place.
A large deposit of the fossil fuel was discovered under the seabed in 2015 on the border between Senegal and Mauritania. Since then, the two countries have been working together to produce it and are hoping to derive billions in revenue. The natural gas is to be extracted for at least 30 years, with the profits shared by energy giants BP and Kosmos together with Senegalese and Mauritanian state-owned companies.
"Look how they're just waiting here!" the captain shouts, pointing first to the left at a ship of the Senegalese Coast Guard, and then to the right, toward the horizon, where a further ship of the Mauritanian Coast Guard is anchored. "If we keep going, they'll probably arrest us." Even though there is no buoy or markings, this is where the exclusion zone around the GTA gas platform begins, 500 meters in every direction. "It's exactly where we caught the most fish," Dieng says.
Thierno Seydou Ly is familiar with these complaints, he hears them on a regular basis. The general director of Petrosen, the state oil and gas company, speaks in an interview in a hotel in the capital of Dakar. It's important to him that his message is understood, so he expresses himself in a calm manner. "Gas is an enormous opportunity for our country," he says, "also because there is a huge need for new producers as a result of the war in Ukraine." Senegal is thus trying to fast track its way to becoming a gas nation. Processes that normally take years need to be completed in months. "At the moment, everyone is knocking on our door," says Ly.
A fossil-fuel boom has broken out in many African countries. In Uganda, the French company Total wants to extract oil in a nature preserve together with a Chinese state company. There are plans for a pipeline that can transport the oil through the Tanzanian Serengeti to the Indian Ocean. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, oil fields are being auctioned off to the highest bidders. Drilling is also taking place off the southern coast of Namibia, where several platforms are already installed in the water, even though the country is presenting itself as a trailblazer in the green energy revolution. Countries are taking what they can.
Many projects are still in the early stages, but hopes on the continent are high, as is the interest of oil and gas corporations from industrialized nations. In 2021, the African countries altogether produced 260 billion cubic meters of gas. According to the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries, that volume is expected to rise to as much as 585 billion cubic meters by 2050.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Senegal last May. The visit was remarkable. The chancellor said that it makes sense to "intensively pursue" a partnership for gas extraction. Berlin is under pressure to find alternatives to Russian natural gas, and the West African nation is potentially prepared to help fill the void.
Senegal President Macky Sall and his cabinet currently have their pick of European partners: France, Portugal, Poland, Italy – all are currently vying for his country's natural gas, even though it's not even ready for production.
This despite the fact that, as recently as last year, European governments called for a shift to renewable energies on the African continent. Sall was always against it, anyway. At the UN General Assembly, Senegal's president said: "The continent that is contributing the least to pollution and is the furthest behind in industrialization should extract its natural resources." After all, he said, Europe had done this decades ago, and now, despite their past warnings, the Europeans want to immediately extract Senegalese gas. Necessity, it turns out, is preventing the transition to green energy.
Petrosen head Ly looks out over the Atlantic from the chic Terrou-Bi Hotel in Dakar. He doesn't accept the criticism from the Saint Louis fishermen. "The anger of the people affected is above all a communication problem," he claims. "The site where the gas platform is located wasn't even a fishing ground."
But the discontent in Senegal is widespread, and it's not just coming from Moustapha Dieng and his fellow fishermen. The GTA project had been overshadowed by claims of corruption from the start. There is great concern in the country that only the elite will profit from the windfall of resources. Greenpeace has warned of an incalculable risk for the ecosystem given that important protected marine areas are located near the gas facilities.
Senegal's government isn't letting itself be fazed. Elections are scheduled for 2024, the country is grappling with debt and the rising cost of living is becoming a problem. Against that backdrop, the new government revenues are coming at a convenient time. "We're certainly not going to become Qatar or the Emirates, but gas and oil could be huge drivers of Senegal's development," says Ty.
Germany and France have just signed an agreement to develop renewable energies together with Senegal. More than 2 billion euros are at stake, with fossil fuels to be gradually replaced by solar energy, among other sources. Gas is described as a transitional technology in the agreement, but the Green Party has ensured that no German tax money is to flow into its extraction. This restraint has its price: The West could now have to wait at the back of the line. Africa isn't waiting for Europe – the Africans moved on years ago.
A few months before his biggest victory thus far, the lawyer and activist Drissa Meminta steps up to a lectern in a courtyard in Bamako, the capital of Mali. He's wearing a dark-blue suit with a breast pocket handkerchief. Around him, in a semi-circle, his fellow members of the anti-colonial, pro-Russian Yerewolo movement have gathered for an internal meeting. A banner displays their goal in the national colors: "The liberation of Mali."
Meminta recalls what his movement has achieved so far. It helped bring the military junta to power in 2021, which helped spur the withdrawal of the French military one year later. Now, he wants the United Nations peacekeepers to leave the country as well. "It has to be the aspiration of every country to take its fate into its own hands," says Meminta.
As it turns out, the UN declared a short time later that their MINUSMA peace mission would come to an end this year.
The decision represents a turning point for the relationship between Mali and the international community. In 2013, France began sending soldiers to help the government in Bamako fight against Islamist terror. In the context of the BARKHANE antiterrorism operation, they stationed up to 5,100 soldiers in the Sahel region. The international community established MINUSMA in 2013, with a mandate for 12,600 blue-helmet soldiers, including some from Germany.
Nevertheless, the stabilization of Mali proved impossible. Ever larger parts of the country fell under the de facto control of the jihadists. Elements of the military carried out a coup against the government in 2020 and 2021.
What is happening in Mali is tantamount to a changing of the guard: The Europeans are leaving; with the Russians arriving in their place. Up to 1,600 mercenaries belonging to the Wagner Group are already stationed in Mali, and their influence is growing.
Yerewolo leader Meminta has welcomed the development. European diplomats, meanwhile, are convinced that his movement is being financed with money from Russia. "Anyone can come here and do business, so long as they respect the sovereignty, independence and interests of our country," he says.
"We want to completely wipe out our opponents. We don't want prisoners. We want it as brutal as possible."
An adviser to the Central African president
Long before the Wagner militia, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, waged war in Ukraine, it served as an instrument with which the Kremlin could expand its influence in Africa. Wagner mercenaries are supporting the warlord Khalifa Haftar in Libya. In Sudan, they run gold mines together with the warlord Hemeti. The Wagner network is active in at least a dozen African countries. No other state has as many bilateral agreements with governments on the continent as Russia. And no other country sells more weapons to sub-Saharan Africa.
The Russian government recently announced plans to compensate African countries for the loss of Ukrainian wheat – a loss caused, admittedly, by Russia's decision to opt out of the existing agreement. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin repeated the promise shortly before the Africa Summit in St. Petersburg this week.
Moscow is spreading the propaganda that it is the former colonial powers, like France, who are exploiting the continent, while the Russians themselves are aiming for a more equal partnership.
In fact, European diplomats in Bamako say that EU contracts in the country were steered toward French companies. They also claim that France, in turn, supplied the Malian armed forces with inadequate materiel and that civilians have repeatedly died as a result of attacks by the French military in the country. Little, if anything, has been done to address those mistakes.
There is no debate that Russia is itself carrying out an imperial war of aggression in Ukraine and, for the most part, nefariously pursuing its interests in Africa.
In the Central African Republic, for instance, the Wagner mercenaries have succeeded in infiltrating part of the state following the French retreat. Experts speak of a "state capture." They reportedly looted raw materials like gold and timber. The Sentry, an investigative website, has accused the Wagner Group of committing war crimes. Wagner mercenaries allegedly wiped out villages, raped, tortured and killed their inhabitants. An adviser to the Central African president openly explains why the government is working with Wagner. "We want to completely wipe out our opponents," he says. "We don't want prisoners. We want it as brutal as possible."
For many African despots, the Wagner mercenaries, whose "engagement" in Africa continues regardless of their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, are a convenient partner. They help them face down political opponents and insurgents and they receive access to raw materials in return. Unlike the Europeans, they don’t ask questions about democracy or human rights.
For Wagner, on the other hand, the commitment in Africa is above all a PR victory, says Samuel Ramani of RUSI, a British think tank. "They're very good at promoting autocracies and promoting Russia as a brand on the continent," he says. "They aren’t all that successful in the war on terror."
In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s seat of government, the past and the future are never far apart. There’s the old train station, built by the Germans when the region was their colony, with its battered red roof shingles. Next to it, a modern glass building rises into the sky, the new train station built by a Turkish company.
Masanja Kadogosa is standing on the platform, which is still empty, and looking contentedly into the distance. "Moving traffic from road to rail will improve people’s lives in Tanzania," he says.
As the director of Tanzania Railways, Kadogosa is overseeing what is currently one of Africa's largest infrastructure projects. The Tanzania Standard Gauge Railway, or SGR, will connect Tanzania with Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Congo. Ten billion dollars have been earmarked for investment in the project. The route will be built by Turkish and Chinese companies. The Tanzanian clients have changed partners several times to get a better deal. "It’s our choice who we work with," says Kadagosa. "We know exactly what we want. And that has also made us more picky."
The SGR is a symbol of the new balance of power on the continent. Just over three decades ago, more than eight out of 10 construction contracts in Africa went to American or European firms. Ten years ago, it was still around one out of three, but by 2020, it will only be around one in 10. Chinese companies now implement one-third of all infrastructure projects.
The Turks are also gaining a foothold in Africa. Since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took office as prime minister in 2003, the volume of trade between Turkey and African countries has increased more than a sixfold to $34.5 billion in 2021. The number of embassies has almost quadrupled to 44 in the same period.
Whether it's the Turks in Tanzania, the Russians in Mali or the Chinese in the Democratic Republic of Congo, African countries are reorienting themselves. One reason is that, for years, the West wasn’t very interested in Africa politically. The U.S. has cut development programs and withdrawn troops. Former President Donald Trump left the State Department's Africa envoy position vacant for nearly a year and a half. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Africa envoy, meanwhile, faced accusations of racism.
During those years, the Chinese pulled past Western countries to take the lead in Africa. From 2000 to 2020, Chinese financiers lent $160 billion to African governments, two-thirds of which flowed into infrastructure projects. In recent years, Beijing has relied more on direct investment and trade than lending.
But Russia's war against Ukraine, the systemic competition between China and the U.S. and the increased demand for raw materials as countries transition to clean energies is all leading to a rethink in the West. Africa is suddenly perceived as a "geopolitical marketplace," as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell recently put it.
With its $150 billion Africa-Europe Global Gateway Investment Package, much of which will go into infrastructure, the EU wants to create an alternative to the Chinese Silk Road. Roads, ports and power lines, internet cables and solar parks are planned to drive the economies of developing and emerging countries – and at the same time help Europe gain new influence. The U.S. has also announced plans to provide $200 billion in grants, financial assistance and investment to developing countries over the next five years.
Fonteh Akum of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa doubts that this alone will be enough to make up for the ground the Europeans have lost to other players. He says they will have to convince Africans that they are interested in an equal partnership and not just in outdoing their competitors.