Sharing 40-minutes of urbane eco-talk and a ride in his swank limo into Nusa Dua a year ago for the so-called “make or break” Bali UNFCCC meeting on Global Warming, I conclude the conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s ADC in true cheeky chappie tabloid, mike-in-your-face style with obligatory ‘you-an’-me-both-know ‘ ingratiating smirk - “So tell me Ajay, wot’s reely goin’ on ‘ere, ven?”, says I. Class act that he is and ignoring the impertinence, he answers simply and directly to the point, “it’s the Americans and the Chinese negotiating the emergence of the new economic world order, while the rest of us watch and pray”.
So there you have it. And praying is what we may well be reduced to if what many of the scientists, who put together the definitive UN IPCC Report on global warming is anything to go by. They now tell us the battle against climate change has already been lost, that we now face not the uncomfy 2? C warming by 2050 but a catastrophic 4?C. All we can do is adapt as best we can. The reason they say this is, that contrary to expectation, carbon emissions far from levelling off since 2003, have continued to rise at an unprecedented and accelerated rate due to the rapid growth of developing economies like China and India. To put it bluntly, our jet planes, our compulsion to shop and our smoke stacks are sending the carbon emissions graphs through the ceiling and will do us in. Nothing is likely to hasten the process of our downfall more effectively than the continued use and introduction of more old polluting coal-fired generating plant.
Fossil fuels currently dominate primary energy supply, meeting 80% of global energy needs and will supply 81% of energy in 2030. So as oil depletes and becomes ever more expensive increased energy demands between 2005 and 2030 will be met by increased use of other fossil fuels, particularly coal. Other sources: biotechnology and biomass; hydrogen systems; nuclear energy; tidal, wind and solar energy, and end-use energy (read trash dumps) accounting for a measly 20% of the rest. So says the OECD’s World Energy Outlook 2006. Of all fossil fuels, coal is the most abundant, affordable and geographically dispersed. Against a background of global rising demand for energy, coal provides a level of energy security unmatched by any other fuel. Coal therefore has to continue to play a vital role in underpinning global economic development, improving standards of living, and alleviating poverty for the foreseeable future. Global coal demand will rise by 73% between 2005 and 2030, with developing countries accounting for a 74% share of this increase. Unlike diminishing oil reserves, nearly everyone’s got coal of their own, so hopefully we won’t need to fight wars about it.
China is the largest emerging economy and soon to be the world’s biggest emitter of GHGs (the US is currently No.1). While China has announced a programme to reduce GHG emissions via diversification, their priority remains economic development and poverty eradication. China is not prepared to accept any imposed quantitative GHG emission caps and the current worldwide financial meltdown will only make them more intransigent in this respect.
So unless the world goes through some collective and simultaneous transformation, whereby we all become unselfish eco-saints, with those of us in the developed world prepared to live a lot more modestly than we do and all those in the developing world prepared to forego any chance of a quality of life we take for granted, it doesn’t look so good.
Could a return to King Coal really make all the difference and get us through this? It just might.....
Barring the immediate invention and global application of some new wonder eco-fuel or energy source, which is not in the offing right now, coal is the only thing that could maintain growth levels and be affordable. Unfortunately coal is dirty and for this to make any sense coal is going to have to come clean, clean up the act and do it fast. This is going to be difficult, but not impossible. The World Energy Council points out that bringing dirty coal-fired plant in China or India up to the level of a new German plant would deliver emissions savings similar to those expected from the entire Kyoto process. In America a near zero-emission power plant can be had for just US$1.5 billion. Then there’s Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) whereby carbon emissions are captured at source and transported to a storage location, usually geological. The good news is that CCS can capture 90% of emissions and there is more than enough geological storage space to last us until we invent something better. The bad news is that CCS is expensive, possibly risky and the technology needs another 10 to 15 years to develop.
So that’s encouraging isn’t it? It just takes money and we’ve solved the problem.
Well, yes and no. Most of the technology to cut carbon emissions comes from Europe and the US and it will require a very significant technology transfer to the developing countries to make a difference, and who is going to pay for that? The technology owners ask why they should be expected to forego the usual obscene profit levels on their intellectual property in order to subsidise a competitor whose low cost goods will put them out of business? To which the Indians and Chinese reply, “because if you don’t we’ll all go down the plughole and, who was it who got us into this mess in the first place?”. Both have a point and both need to meet somewhere in the middle. One thing is very clear. The political will has to be found on a global basis requiring the progressive installation of technology which massively reduces emissions from coal-fired plants and for this to happen soon.
And that’s what these interminable meetings, which seem to achieve so little, are all about. Money, and who will undertake to cut emissions, by how much and when. The most recent fortnight’s waffle last month in Poznan, Poland, was meant to set the agenda for a meeting a year from now in Copenhagen which will really really set the agenda for UNFCC 2012, which is when the Kyoto Protocol expires and the world has to really really, really commit to ways to contain global warming to 2?C by 2050 or really go down the tubes. The money shouldn’t be a problem if we stop arming ourselves to the teeth and blowing trillions on unnecessary wars. That leaves national self-interest and bureaucratic obfuscation to be overcome. Difficult but do-able, what with planetary survival at stake one would’ve thought, after all you don’t expect the Maldives to sign on for it’s own extinction, but it only takes one recalcitrant among the major players and it all breaks down.
Does this mean if our governments get off their stuff and do what we pay them to, instead of giving us all this old moody about how it’s up to us to cut our carbon footprint as individuals, as businesses, and to greenmail all our suppliers into being good eco-citizens, then we’re going to be OK? Alas no. Unless we as individuals do genuinely become mindful of our carbon footprint in all that we do, then the prognosis for our current civilisation is a bad. For what we do accounts for a good half of GHG emissions and, in the final analysis, we not only are our governments, but to paraphrase the saying, we (and our fate) are what we consume.
