Climate change window closing fast

The chance to prevent runaway climate change is slipping away. Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuel combustion reached a record high in 2011 and there is nothing to suggest the trajectory will change this year or in the foreseeable future

A 6.1% increase in CO2 emissions in countries outside the economies within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was only marginally offset by a 0.6% reduction inside the major economies,  according to estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The rise was driven by Chinese coal burning power stations which created a 9.3% increase, or 720 million tonnes more CO2 released into the atmosphere and by increased industrialisation in India where emissions rose by 8.7%. That makes India the fourth largest emitter behind China, the United States, and the European Union, overtaking Russia.

CO2 emissions in the United States fell by 1.7% due to a switch from coal to natural gas, an exceptionally mild winter, the recession alongside higher oil prices and fewer car journeys. The Obama government's rush to create new coal-fired power stations, to facilitate cheaper-than-oil energy generation, could quickly reverse that, however.

In the EU too there was a reduction of 1.9%, due to a cut in industrial production and a relatively warm winter. However, the EU is also set to turn this small reduction back by giving up on renewables and “rebranding” gas produced by fracking as “green fuel”. This is in spite of research showing that taking the production and burning process as a whole, fracking emits as much harmful greenhouse gas as coal, including large quantities of very harmful methane.

Per capita CO2 emissions in China and India still remain just 63% and 15% of the average within the advanced capitalist economies. The argument runs that, to achieve so-called climate justice, they must be allowed to increase emissions until they reach average levels.

Per capita increases do not, however, translate into higher energy use for the poorest people, who continue to struggle with light and heat. They represent rather the transfer of emissions from the consumer economies of the West to the manufacturing base in the East. The poorest in Asia and Africa will be the greatest sufferers from the impacts of climate change, as the elites in those countries grow richer.

However it is achieved, the science shows that to limit global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels (a scenario that will itself bring dramatic changes to world climate) emissions must peak in 2017. IEA Chief Economist Faith Birol said the 2011 data provides “further evidence that the door to a 2°C trajectory is about to close".

China had made significant progress in slowing the rate of its increase, but this was not neither sufficient nor a quick enough reduction.

Coal accounted for 45% of total energy-related CO2 emissions in 2011, followed by oil (35%) and natural gas (20%).Therefore the way to achieve a rapid reduction is to cut use of ALL these fossil fuels, not only the most harmful. This could be achieved by a massive energy efficiency and energy saving programme, and by switching to renewables.  

There is no political will on the part of any governments to take the measures needed to achieve peak emissions in 2017. The drive to industrialise and ferocious competition in world markets, makes it impossible for them to co-operate to achieve it. A transformation in politics and democracy so that decisions are made on behalf of people and planet as a whole, rather than in the interests of “growth” and profits, is absolutely necessary. Without it, runaway climate change become unstoppable.  

Penny Cole

Environment editor

Energy companies have burnt up the future

The abandonment of strategic energy planning has left UK consumers facing a massive bill for gas bought at high wholesale prices to cope with demand during the cold snap.

When gas was privatised in 1990, energy supply was handed to the market and everyday forward planning, such as buying gas when it is cheap and storing it for future use, went by the board.

Britain has only enough storage to supply the country with gas for 15 normal days, compared with 99 days in Germany and 122 in France (Feb 2009 figures). And these are not normal days!

As a result, wholesale gas prices in Britain rose to an 11-month high this week, a cost that will be passed on to consumers. Winter bills will already be much higher, as people are forced to turn up the heat in millions of poorly insulated homes across this country.

After privatisation, the gas poured out of the North Sea and was sold into the market at breakneck speed, bringing prices down. The ‘dash for gas’ began, as power stations switched away from coal.

But just to be clear about where we are now, the latest energy generation data shows that as the temperatures dropped, 45% of output was being produced from coal, 37% from gas, 15% from nuclear power — and just 0.2% from wind.

Now North Sea gas is running out, and the supply from other countries looks increasingly fragile. It is unprofitable to open up new North Sea oil and gas fields in the midst of a recession and the energy regulator Ofgem, warns that the UK gas market faces a "cliff edge" in 2015-16 that could cause supplies to run short in the second half of the decade.

Britain’s energy security is threatened as never before. Obsolete coal and nuclear stations will shut over the next 10 years, and there is no replacement lined up.

The recent grant of licenses for offshore wind farms does not mean they will be built. The winning consortia face huge problems: lack of affordable finance, skills shortages and the rising cost of imported turbines as supply fails to keep up with global demand. Government subsidies for wind power are guaranteed only until 2014, and who knows if they will survive the coming bonfire of public spending.

Other initiatives are being explored – for example coal gasification which pumps water and oxygen into under-sea coal seams, and the resulting gas extracted through a well. The claim is that the CO2 would then be sequestered back underground. But there is no evidence that this is safe, and that over time it will not simply leak out, with disastrous consequences.

And the cost of sequestering the CO2 will greatly add to any coal operation – whether burning or gasification – already BP has pulled out of a coal gasification initiative at Peterhead in Scotland. The French company EDF mothballed its plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent because they can’t presently see how to make it profitable.

Not only is the profit-driven capitalist market incapable of delivering a safe and renewable energy supply, that reduces CO2 emissions, it is even incapable of providing more of the same kind of energy supply that we have now. They have burned up the future, and they have no answers.

It would be madness to continue placing our energy future in the hands of that same market. The time has come to remove control of our energy futures from the hands of the energy corporations – and the governments that can’t see beyond them - and place it under democratic control.

Penny Cole
Environment Editor