A spirited competition for low carbon energy

By John C Topping Jr

In September, some remarkable breakthroughs occurred in climate protection - almost enough to balance the grim news on the scientific front indicating rapidly thinning Arctic sea ice and acceleration of deglaciation in Greenland.

The promising signs include India’s announcement of willingness to commit to greenhouse limits and adoption of a domestic cap and trade plan for energy efficiency in eight industry sectors; massive investments by China in wind and solar energy; and an announcement by Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatayama, that Japan will commit to reduce its greenhouse emissions 25% below current levels by 2020. The Republic of Korea’s Green New Deal stimulus package, launched in January, had already disbursed 20% of the U.S. $38.1 billion pledged for 2009-2012. Indonesia has also indicated the potential for cuts in carbon emissions of 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 through reductions in deforestation, peat land degradation, and energy consumption.

Despite this progress, the outlook is not auspicious for a sweeping North–South emissions accord by the conclusion of this December’s Copenhagen Climate Conference. Different perceptions by developed and developing countries over historic emissions, per capita emissions and emissions growth complicate near term efforts to get a deal on CO2. Yet, the overall outlook for global emissions reduction is more promising if we look past the negotiations to what is actually happening as a global competition develops to dominate emerging low carbon energy fields.

Just as it became clear that cap and trade climate legislation was facing rough going in the U.S. Senate and would be unlikely to be enacted before the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference, environmental visionary Lester Brown reported the startling news that U.S. energy sector carbon emissions based on data through summer 2009 had dropped 9% since 2007. In a few other instances in the last generation significant reductions in greenhouse emissions occurred quickly in major industrial countries.

In the UK, the National Union of Mineworkers led by Thatcher foe, Arthur Scargill, went on strike in March 1984 against the prime minister’s efforts to close some inefficient coal mines; when the strike ended a year later the union was broken and Thatcher managed to move the UK’s electricity base to natural gas, much coming from the North Sea. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification the next year of Germany led to a closure of highly inefficient factories in the East and a dramatic drop in overall German greenhouse emissions. Closing of some greatly inefficient factories and forcing individuals and industry to pay for energy consumed following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in a sharp drop in greenhouse emissions in virtually all of the countries that had once been part of the Soviet Union.

Yet, unlike these moves produced by political upheaval, the sharp and quick drop in U.S. emissions may be a harbinger of a profound change in perception by industry, investors and consumers of the need to adopt a more environmentally sustainable path. Some of the drop was, as Brown notes, likely attributable to the sharp spike in gasoline prices in 2008 and some to a slowdown in the economy.

Much of it, however, appears attributable to shifts throughout the economy to a lower carbon path with new coal plants becoming as difficult to finance and license as nuclear plants have been since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, wind emerging as a large-scale power technology, and greater use of a range of renewable and efficiency systems. This sharp U.S. emissions drop happened largely before there would have been a chance for the Obama administration’s green energy policy changes and stimulus package energy spending to take hold. It seems likely that they will give further momentum to this U.S. de-carbonizing trend.

The remarkable U.S. emissions change may be an indication that the U.S. economy is already moving rapidly toward a low-carbon path. On Sept 14, just a week and a half before the opening of the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, The Climate Institute (Australia), a widely respected climate protection group that has since its founding in 2005 helped catalyze an about face in Australian climate policy, and E 3 G, a London-based environmental think tank, released a report tracking the positioning of each of the G-20 member nations on what the report characterized as “low carbon competitiveness,” namely the ability to have their economies thrive in a carbon-constrained world. These emission trends in the U.S. likely reflect a broad-based move to de-carbonize, a product of actions of thousands of entrepreneurs and investors, many state and local policy makers, and millions of consumers whose growing environmental interest has reinforced the interest of investors and entrepreneurs in low and non carbon energy.

Already there are signs in China of a similar concerted effort to move toward a low-carbon economy. Fed partly by perceptions of vulnerability to climate change and the air and water pollution associated with coal burning, this Chinese thrust may be driven even more by a desire to be preeminent in such technologies as solar, wind, and carbon capture and storage related to fossil fuel burning. It is likely that such change is underway in India, Japan, Korea, and many other countries and driven by competitiveness concerns as much as environmental commitment.

It is important to sustain investors’ and entrepreneurs’ perceptions that there will be a price to pay for emitting greenhouse gases and heat trapping particles, so it is vital that progress occur at Copenhagen. It is equally crucial, however, to pay much greater attention to short-lived greenhouse gases such as methane and heat trapping particles whose reduction could result in near term cuts in the radiative forcing that drives climate change.

It is vital to develop a Global Warming Potential (GWP) for black carbon that would facilitate investment in cleaner cookstoves, retrofitted two stroke engines and much cleaner trucks. A shift to a 20-year rather than 100-year time frame for GWP calculations in trading could result in much sharper reductions in radiative forcing that threatens to cause climate change to move past irreversible tipping points.

Fortunately, the United Nations Environment Program recognizes that black carbon reductions are a crucial part of an effective climate solution, and the United Nations Foundation has been examining the feasibility of greatly expanded clean cook stove programs that might slash both indoor air pollution deaths and global black carbon emissions. Building these win-win strategies into a climate deal would ensure that a climate treaty would have a lasting effect, whether negotiated in Copenhagen this Dec or 11 months later at COP16, expected to be in Mexico.

John Topping Jr is the president of the Washington, DC-based Climate Institute.

Cleantech Asia Online

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12 Comments

michaelqtodd at 06:31 AM JST - 6th October

Fascinating that the most important and relevant news item on this website in recent weeks has drawn no comments after 25 hours!I cannot agree with this writers complacency.Right now we have a massive crisis going on well exemplified by the totally weird weather of the last week.Floods in India after a monsoon, heavy snow across New Zealands North Island, dust storms in Australia,flooding in the Phillipines ,Indonesia,Thailand etc.Believe that the quickest way we can start making some serious impact is to stop eating meat and to stop flying. Did you know that if we all did both those things just for one day it would have the same effect as taking all the cars off the roads for the whole year.
Sarge at 06:35 AM JST - 6th October

"the quickest way we can start making some serious inpact is to stop eating meat and to stop flying"

I can't believe some people really believe that.
cow76 at 11:46 AM JST - 6th October

Sarge, produce some reasoning to back up your opinions, or they're worthless. A huge amount of greenhouse gas (about 20% of the total) comes from meat farming, directly and indirectly. This is the same as that produced by cars.
cow76 at 11:51 AM JST - 6th October

From a UN site

Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, ****the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Didn't take long to find this information but, hey, parroting Rush Limbaugh's hateful ideology beats doing research any day. Just stick to that.

Here's the link

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html
fritatten at 02:38 PM JST - 6th October

I know about the cows producing a lot of methane, which is s serious greenhouse gas, but in terms of CO2 they must certainly be regarded as renewable energy. I mean, why is a plant that grows taking up CO2 which is later released when it is burned as biofuel any greener than a cow that takes up CO2 and emits it partly on the field or when it is consumed? More importantly, the humankind suddenly becoming all vegetarians just isn't going to happen. Not even a 5% increase. It's been advertised as healthy and what-not-all and people didn't convert. They certainly aren't going to do it for "global warming", which has much less immediaty personal consequences. I think it better to focus on realistic ideas, technological progress or just simply: saving energy. There is so much energy wasted that could be saved without any consequences for the individual, it is a shame. And instead of making a top-down approach, campaigning to do this (turn off TV when not in unse), banning that and enforcing another (low-power light bulbs), governments should just raise taxes on energy and cut them on workforce. No wonder energy is wasted when an hour of work (like repairing stuff) is taxed over 100% (if you add all the taxes up from paycheck to sales tax) and energy is basically free (large companies get it so cheap as an "incentive" to come to this plaxe instead of anoher). Then let the market work the rest out... Imagine you had like 30% more money every month but the elctricity (and gasoline) bill just tripled. You'd start thinking about saving energy at home, and so would the companies.
Sarge at 05:01 PM JST - 6th October

"the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport"

How do they measure livestock sector gas emissions?

Well, if that's true, then we should kill even more cows than we already do, eh?
cow76 at 09:01 PM JST - 6th October

Sarge, surely you could put a cow in a sealed area, measure accurately the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted and then multiply by the number of cows.

Yet again, another negative, snipey, poorly thought out question. Try positive arguments defending your own side for a change. Warning: may involve thinking.
cow76 at 09:56 PM JST - 6th October

why is a plant that grows taking up CO2 which is later released when it is burned as biofuel any greener than a cow that takes up CO2 and emits it partly on the field or when it is consumed?

It's a good question but the most important thing is efficiency. If you grow plants, you degrade the land. If you raise cattle, you also degrade the land. But the latter is much worse because cattle eat plants, not just grass but corn, soy, maize etc. So you're degrading the land to make plants and then further degrading the land by feeding those plants to cattle.

Also, fruit and vegetables produce many times more food in a given area than cattle farming (or any other kind of animal farming). So less land is required. Hey presto, more forest.
pawatan at 02:32 AM JST - 7th October

Lower polluting = admirable goal. We all want clean air, clean water, and plenty of green spaces. Any initiative that can encourage countries to get greener is an inherently good thing for everyone's quality of life.

This slavish devotion to the notion of carbon as the world's leading environmental evil coupled with doomsday climate predictions that are impossible to scientifically prove is just bad science. Sad that the well-intentioned environmental movement has come to this.

They'd be better off - and totally correct - to concentrate their efforts on clean air (not just a low-carbon society) and coming up with solutions for the hundreds of millions of people without access to clean drinking water. I suppose finding a bogeyman and spouting doom-and-gloom is sexier.
cow76 at 09:49 AM JST - 7th October

predictions that are impossible to scientifically prove is just bad science

Actually, no. Adopting the most likely scientific explanation is called the scientific method. Heard of it? That carbon in the atmosphere is trapping heat is considered the most likely explanation for global warming but if anyone can come up with a better explanation then the scientists will switch to that.

And doomsday predictions? Another word would be risk/benefit outcome. They're generally a good idea.
Damien15 at 02:12 PM JST - 7th October

carbon in the atmosphere is trapping heat is considered the most likely explanation for global warming

Counter theory is that CO2 makes up very small percentage of the atmospehere and can't be responsible of trapping heat. Water vapor has even stronger effects on heat trapping. But scientists will not swtich to this idea because this idea is not financed by governments. If you want to go document the arctic melting, you get funds, but if you want to ivestigate how CO2 is a heat trapping gas any more than water vapor, no funding is given. Scientists are the puppets of governments.
cow76 at 08:38 PM JST - 7th October

I believe oil companies have donated large amounts of money to scientists that are prepared to dispute global warming.