14 December 2015, Energy Post, Paris emission cuts aren’t enough – we’ll have to put carbon back in the ground. With the Paris climate deal, the world has created the mother of all take-back schemes, writes Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford. According to Allen, fossil fuel companies don’t necessarily have to stop producing CO2 – they just need to be required to ensure it doesn’t end up in the atmosphere. #takebackCO2 – start tweeting it now! Courtesy of The Conversation. I wonder how many of the delegates in Paris realise that they have just created the mother of all “take-back schemes”. As a consumer, you may have already come across this sort of deal: if you don’t want to dispose of the packaging of your new sofa, you can take it back to IKEA and it’s their problem. In many places, you can even take back the sofa itself when your kids have wrecked it. For the Paris climate deal to succeed something similar will have to happen, where companies that rely on fossil fuels will be obliged to “take back” their emissions. The agreement reaffirms a commitment to stabilising temperature rises well below 2℃, and even retains the option of limiting warming to 1.5℃ if possible. But it also confirms national targets that do little more than stabilise global emissions between now and 2030. Given those emissions, sticking to within 2℃ will require us to take lots of carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the ground. The parties to the agreement are, in effect, saying “we’re going to sell this stuff, and we’re going to dispose of it later”. How do I know? Well, peak warming is overwhelmingly determined bycumulative carbon dioxide emissions. To stabilise temperatures at any level, be it 1.5℃, 2℃ or even 3℃, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. Most governments, environmental groups and business leaders now understand this. And it is acknowledged, albeit implicitly, in Article 4 of the Paris agreement, which calls for greenhouse emissions to be “balanced” by carbon sinks some time after mid-century. But we’re unlikely to hit “net zero” emissions before temperatures reach 2℃, and even less likely before they reach 1.5℃. Warming is currently at about 1℃ and rising by 0.1℃ every five to ten years. We could slow the warming by reducing emissions, of course. But if we fail to reduce at the required rate – and the inadequate emissions targets indicate this is the intention – then we will be left with no option but to scrub the excess CO2 back out of the atmosphere in future. Read More here
Category Archives: Fossil Fuel Reduction
10 December 2015, Renew Economy, Adani hits panic button over Carmichael coal mine. In a seemingly desperate move the billionaire chairman of Adani has announced that early in November he met the new Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and demanded legislation be passed to extinguish legal actions challenging the proposed Carmichael coal mine. On Saturday, a little over a month after his meeting with Turnbull, Gautam Adani complained to journalists that legal challenges against the $15 billion mine, railway and port project had caused banks to refuse to finance the project. “Ultimately, a decision lies with the politicians. They have to go to Parliament for enacting a special law which says that once government gives approval, no one can challenge it. That is what our request is to the Australian government. You come up with a special legislation which they have done in the past also,” Adani complained. “Even though there is no stay, because of the judicial review, no lender will finance the project. They do not know what will be the outcome,” Adani told journalists, including the Indian business news website LiveMint. Adani also bemoaned the dramatic slump in thermal coal process in the seaborne coal market. “In the meanwhile, coal prices have also slumped. We have to revive to the next cycle,” he said. Adani’s loneliness on display Adani’s comments, which reveal how isolated the company has become, are extraordinary for three reasons. Firstly, the fact that Adani has chosen to go public just over a month after the November 4 meeting suggests that Turnbull didn’t immediately accede to Adani’s demand to extinguish the legal rights. In other words, having failed with his behind-the-scenes lobbying, the company is now pinning its hopes on publicly pressing its case via comments to Indian journalists. Read more here
10 December 2015, Energy Post, The electricity network is changing fast – here is where Australia is heading. The Australian electricity sector is changing extremely fast, writes Paul Graham, Chief Economist CSIRO Energy at CSIRO (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) in Australia. CSIRO Energy sees solar and storage costs still dropping rapidly. According to Graham, scenarios under which a third of people may be leaving the grid and 25-45% of electricity will be generated on-site are “plausible”. Things are changing extremely fast in the electricity sector. In 2013 the electricity industry and its stakeholders came together in the CSIRO Future Grid Forum to imagine the possibilities for the future of electricity industry to 2050. Electricity demand was falling, solar panels were being adopted en masse, retail prices were rising, and air conditioner ownership had doubled. By 2030, customers with solar panels are expected to be A$150-210 better off on average each year. By 2050 that balloons to $860-$1140 each year. Two years on we’ve updated those scenarios as part of the Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap project with the Energy Networks Association. We expect retail prices to rise further in coming decades, but not as much as we originally thought. Concerningly, we also expect the gap in electricity costs between households with and without solar to increase dramatically. Read More here
9 December 2015, Renew Economy, Paris, COP21: Australia digs in on fossil fuels, sees coal as solution to hunger. One of the big themes of the Paris climate talks has been the focus on renewable energy – wind and solar in particular – as a means to reach emission reduction pledges, and cut pollution in the cities. Australia’s Coalition government, however, is sticking to a familiar theme: it has invested heavily in fossil fuels with long-life assets it is keen to retain and, anyway, coal is still good for humanity. Foreign minister Julie Bishop used a forum hosted by Indonesia called “Pathways to a Sustainable Low Carbon and Climate Resilient Economy” to push the case for Australian fossil fuels. “Right now we are in a transition phase,” Bishop said. “Traditional energy sources, fossil fuels like coal, will remain a significant part of the global energy mix for the foreseeable future. “Barring some technological breakthrough fossil fuels will remain critical to promoting prosperity, growing economies and alleviating hunger for years to come.” Hunger? It seems a variation of the “coal is good for humanity” theme, despite repeated estimates by the likes of the IEA, the World Bank and others that suggest the needs of poor countries are probably best served by renewable energy. The comments yet again underline the disconnect between Australia’s apparent support for a global target of “well below 2°C” and its lack of policies to get its economy beyond the fossil fuel age – few renewables are being built and none of the major coal generators are being closed. Bishop suggested this would be the status quo. “It is a fact that energy is the mainstay of our respective countries’ export markets and underpins economic growth,” she said. “The capital stock and infrastructure we have in stock to create and supply energy, both fossil fuels and renewables, have long life spans.” So no early closures then. Read more here