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Long live the economic crisis?
There is an upside to the global recession: greenhouse gas emissions are expected to fall with 3% this year. This would lead to emissions in 2020 being 5% lower. This contrasts to a 60 year history of an average 3% growth in emissions a year. While this may be good news for our climate, government budgets suffer as a result. But we need these government budgets. To keep our planet from warming more than 2° Celsius, $400 billion a year between now and 2020 will need to be invested in greening our energy infrastructure.
The carbon recession
The International Energy Agency (IEA), the world's premier energy analysts, published their World Energy Outlook this Tuesday. (link)
They predict a drop in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 3% in 2009, mainly because of the economic crisis. Three quarters of the reduction is the result of less industrial activity, with the rest coming from countries turning to renewable energy and nuclear power.
This is good news for our climate as business as usual would mean an increase in temperatures by 6° Celsius.
Since the 1950s GHG emissions have been increasing globally by roughly 3% a year. The 2009 fall in GHG emissions is the biggest in 40 years. The biggest drop occurred during the oil crisis of the early 1970s when many companies were forced to close down due to a doubling of the oil price. The second drop in GHG emissions occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union which depended heavily on coal. The most recent drop took place in 1998-99 when carbon emissions fell by 0.3%, interestingly the world economy continued to grow, mainly though information technologies and service sectors which use less energy. (The Guardian)
The 3% cut in emissions is the result of less industrial activity.
The cost of change
To prevent the earth from warming more than 2° Celsius, we need about “18 nuclear power stations, 17,000 turbines, 100 concentrated solar power stations and 16 carbon capture and storage plants to be built every year until 2030” according to IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol. This adds up to an annual investment requirement of $400bn a year building more than 350 new nuclear plants and 350,000 wind turbines in the next 20 years. As a point of reference, the record sized U.S. economic stimulus plan is worth a total of $787 billion.
According to the IEA oil, coal and gas needs to peak at 2020 and then decline. the share of renewables and nuclear which is now 18% worldwide needs to go up to 33% by 2030. However the key to success, is improving energy efficiency of the world economy.
We also need to move away from the traditional internal combustion engine for cars. By 2020, maximum 40% of cars should make use of internal combustion engines. To hold emissions to 450ppm [parts per million], which corresponds with a global warming of 2° Celsius, you need more and more hybrid and electric cars.
Facing these huge figures, it is easy to despair. Yet we need to act urgently and now. “Every year of delay adds an extra $500 billion to the investment needed between 2010 and 2030 in the energy sector” according to IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka.
The importance of Copenhagen
It is thus extremely important to achieve success in the Copenhagen climate summit in December this year. Not only our climate, but also our future energy supply and government budgets will depend on it.
If Copenhagen is a success we can perhaps hope to no longer need a recession to start the switch from carbon-based fuels to green energy.
Comments
There is no physical mechanism linking anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to observed increases in global mean average temperature during the 20th century.
Furthermore, our emissions account for less than 1% of the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Reducing our CO2 emissions by 80% would be tantamount to slaughtering 4,000,000,000 men, women and children. I have total confidence that many of you actively support this rapid depopulation of the planet.
You advocates of death and suffering have already killed over 50 million people in the past century and billions remain entrenched in poverty because of you. You impede human progress at every corner, you shove your propaganda down our children’s throats and turn them against us.
The real pioneers of humanity are not the psychotic lunatic environuts and their agenda of death. They are the engineers, the entrepreneurs and independant scientists who make real discoveries and real progress that benefit us all. You would have us believe that you somehow know something we don’t already know, something we haven’t already rigourously researched, developed and tested.
There is no such thing as green. If there was something more green (more efficient) out there we would already be doing it, and it wouldn’t be called green. It would be normal.
Renewable energy technologies are not renewable, they never come close to recovering the energy it takes to produce them. Nor can we afford the raw materials in such massive quantities to build these monstrosities. And to top it all off, they are unreliable and degrade rapidly over time.
Please do the world a favour and don’t reproduce. You get to reduce your carbon footprint and I’ll be able to sleep at ease knowing there aren’t any more of you. It’s win win. Better yet, why don’t you just off yourself now and let your family claim your carbon-credit insurance?
Mike, what exactly are you looking for in this blog? While I think your opinions are valuable, this comment is nothing less than slander.
How did you calculate that cutting CO2 emissions by 80% would kill 4,000,000,000 people? Is this a “physical mechanism”?
Moreover, in your comment you accuse Waldo of advocating death and suffering, and claim that environmentalists are responsible for 50 million people in the past What are you referring to here? Stalin? One of the great environmentalists of the 20th century…
Thanks for taking up my defence Daniel. I hope it’s clear to all I do not advocate depopulation or a severe recession (which would also hurt many), just to reduce carbon emissions. Let’s take just laugh at this kind of slander
According to the dogma, we must cut emissions by 80% by 2050 in order to “save the planet”. This would put us at about 1920’s emission levels, when the world population was about 1.8 billion. Today the world’s population stands at 6.8 billion.
An 80% reduction of CO2 essentially means an 80% reduction in energy usage, since renewables cannot replace it. I reason that by extension an 80% reduction in energy usage would REQUIRE the population to drop back to when we used 80% less energy than we do now.
6.8 - 1.8 = 5. I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt of 1 billion lives to take into account technological advancements such as nuclear power.
50 million deaths and counting from preventable malaria thanks to the ban on DDT thanks to environuts citing “human health” reasons. 40 million of these deaths were children.
What am I looking for? I’ve been repeating it from the beginning.
Someone please explain to me, the fundamental pillar to AGW hypothesis, the very reason for this blog’s existance:
What is the physical mechanism linking anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to observed rises in global mean average temperature during the 20th century?
I am not here to debate climate change as I consider this proven. For discussions on the climate change science I would like to refer you to other bloggers.
I discuss the economics & politics behind a shift to a greener economy. This implies an increase in energy efficiency and renewable energy.
You seem to disagree with the IEA’s World Energy Outlook, saying a shift to renewables and increase in energy efficiency is not feasible. If you would motivate this, we could talk.
Let’s discuss economics and politics then. Here I make the following statements:
- Every dollar spent has an associated energy cost with it. This cost is relatively uniform across all applications.
- The cost of solar, wind and biofuels are several times greater than the cost of purchasing the electricity it produces over its lifetime.
Therefore, I conclude:
- Solar, wind and biofuels are energy negative and therefore unsustainable.
Your rebuttal?
It is indeed only recently they have started selling solar panels which are energy positive. Wind power is already a long time energy positive. Biofuels are questionable but second generation performs quite well, also in relation to food vs. oil debate. All carry the problem of resources, so they are not truly “renewable” in every meaning of the word.
There are of course other renewable energy sources, but also, as you correctly note, carry the problem of cost in terms of money and the planet’s resources. (as a side note, may I also note that the IEA offers nuclear as another alternative?)
But in this debate we cannot forget to compare to the resources we are currently using: gas, oil and charcoal. The cost in terms of dollars, resources and energy are higher, definitely when you take account of the carbon emissions they emit.
Of course the energy debate is not only about the cliamte, it is also about energy security and creating jobs (from oil-money to worker man’s money).
Perhaps you could read what I wrote here. Words are softer!
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think2/post/why_the_ipcc_position_is_understood_so_dogmatically
We can quit fossil fuels, when we have a cheaper technology. Not sooner. When we have the technology, it spreads automatically. No need to “organise fight on climate change.”
Crisis: While the whole world suffers, the environmentalists are clapping hands with joy. This needs no further comment.
You make a mistake ... if we develop new energies the oil price will be contained and the total productivity is better.
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think2/post/indirect_competitiveness_source_of_great_richness