The cost of phasing out fossil fuels to transition to renewable energy will cost $24 trillion. An estimated $116 trillion will be needed to be spent to improve overall energy efficiencies across the planet and to build a 100% electrification infrastructure. And, of course, technological innovation will deliver energy and climate-resilient solutions which will only come about with more investment.
Where will the money come from? In the WSJ article, an accompanying video breaks down the investment distribution. In it, John Kerry, the current US climate change czar, notes that a partnership of governments, the financial sector, and industry will be required to pay for the fight.
No matter what we do starting today and going forward, we are living with the latent warming that will continue from legacy amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and other anthropogenic-produced greenhouse gasses (GHG) already in the atmosphere. So mean atmospheric temperatures will continue to rise to likely exceed 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) rise by the century’s end.
This last observation is being reinforced by the latest IPCC report, released on April 4th. the final in a group of three released in the last few months. This one, called the IPCC Working Group III report, focuses on mitigation requirements needed to keep the planet from overheating.
The report states that with the right policies, infrastructure, and technologies we can change our lifestyles to achieve between 40 and 70% reductions in GHG emissions by mid-century with commensurate improvements to our overall collective health and wellbeing.
It states that limiting warming to 1.5 Celsius will require us to reach peak GHG emissions in the next three years and then begin reducing them by 43% by 2030. In the same time frame, we would have to reduce methane emissions by 33%.
If we don’t meet net-zero emissions objectives in the decade of the 2050s, we will exceed 1.5 Celsius. And even if we delay getting to net-zero by 2070 when we can expect temperatures to rise by 2.0 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), we still have to get started before 2025 with a much smaller emissions reduction target of 25%.
To achieve the 1.5 Celsius target, the report indicates there is sufficient global capital from both the public and private sectors to achieve the better result. So where should we be spending the money needed to get that result?
In 2019, the report states:
Industry and buildings produced 90% of indirect emissions which if reallocated to the above breakdown would increase the former’s contribution to 34%, and the latter to 16%, and reduce the energy supply sector’s contribution to 12% of the global total.
Among the report’s findings is a sustained decrease in the unit cost over the last decade of each of the following:
Among many other findings describing progress in the last decade include:
What the report is telling us is that reversing warming after a century of abusing the planet through unsustainable energy use growth, and our patterns of consumption and production, we have an obligation to the generations of humans that follow us, and to all life on the planet, to take action to create a sustainable future. And the bill to correct this century of abuse will be as much as $131 trillion, at least, according to IRENA as reported in WSJ. The IPCC doesn’t put a price tag on what we need to do but it does provide mitigation guidance that we need to heed and not a day too soon.
]]>The challenge for most poor nations is to have some electricity to keep machines operating and the lights on. Today, approximately 80% of the planet has access to electricity. For example, in 2010, only 66% of Indian and 50% of Nigerian households had electricity. Those with no access continue to shrink but not by much. And when you compare what Indian and Nigerian homes consume (see the graph below) versus American or Canadian homes it becomes clearer why the speaker could make the Western conceit comment.
It’s a big ask to tell countries with very little access to electricity to accept the same level of responsibility as electricity-rich nations striving to achieve the net-zero emissions target that the United Nations has set for the mid-century.
It was proposed that one solution could be for Global South countries to skip building the same kind of electrical-power infrastructure that richer nations already have. The example used was how African countries bypassed building landline telecommunications and went directly to mobile cellular networks and smartphones rather than stringing telephone poles and wires across their countries. Similarly, these countries could bypass the building of thermal power plants and national grids and instead rely on local power distribution models fueled by renewable sources backed by baseload modular small nuclear reactors and large-scale energy storage to overcome intermittency issues.
Nuclear was central to much of the Foreign Policy online discussion. A speaker from Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) used the example of the UAE’s new Barakah nuclear power plant to demonstrate how an oil-rich country could transition to a clean energy future with this type of zero-emission facility.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was used to explain how the European Union’s aggressive goal setting on emission reductions could be upset dramatically by external events. In many EU countries, the closing of coal-fired power plants as well as nuclear power facilities has left utilities almost exclusively reliant on Russian fossil fuel sources or having to restart decommissioned coal and nuclear plants. Coal is easier to get up and running. Nuclear not so much.
Throughout the online event which included people from the nuclear industry and consultants to energy companies, the focus on nuclear was largely on the technologies in current use in France, the United States, and China. There was a brief chat about smaller modular nuclear power when a question from viewers asked could a city set up its own distributed energy cluster of mixed solar, wind and some geothermal, with a modular reactor for baseload power. None of the panellists saw this in the near future.
I sent in several questions of which none were answered. I wanted to know what these experts were thinking about nuclear fusion (see previous postings on this subject on this site) and the timelines for its emergence. And I also asked about alternative fission reactor technologies that are suddenly being introduced.
On the subject of nuclear power, concern about the exposure of Ukraine’s plants to Russian military incursions was raised. The general consensus was that the risk of radiation contamination so far was minimal to non-existent. But an article in yesterday’s Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists disagrees. Jungmin Kang, a South Korean member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and Eva Lisowski, who is a participant in the MIT Nuclear Weapons Education Project, are the authors.
The attacks that occurred at Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhya damaged external buildings, not those containing the reactors themselves. But even attacks on outbuildings have consequences. Fires can spread and lead to damage to power backup systems which could impact the circulation of coolants within the reactors themselves. And if a reactor is shut down and left in non-operational mode, if cooling pumps have no power because backup generators are damaged, then even the spent fuel becomes a danger that could lead to a fire releasing radioactive contaminants.
Why the Russian military targeted two nuclear reactor facilities in Ukraine shows reckless ignorance. Do Russian soldiers not have a memory of the consequences of Chernobyl? How could they enter an exclusion zone that has been off-limits to people since December 1986? Why would they track tanks and troop transports through contaminated soils covering the 2,600 square kilometres around the reactor site?
One of the speakers at the Foreign Policy online event stated he was more concerned about the Russian bombing of a Ukrainian chemical plant that led to an ammonia leak. Hearing that I just shook my head. Why? Because to this day, the meltdown of Chernobyl’s Reactor 4 because of human operational errors, is not fully accounted for in terms of human long-term health effects. And final cleanup of the site in Ukraine wasn’t scheduled for completion until 2065.
Kang and Lisowski don’t pull any punches. They note that a war that envelops areas where nuclear power plants are operating can only have negative consequences. Missiles and artillery could lead to the breach of a building’s shell and damage to both primary and secondary cooling and safety systems. The cascade of consequences could be immeasurable and last decades if not centuries.
At the conclusion of the Foreign Policy online event, for all the opinions raised that I couldn’t agree with, the one conclusion I could concur with was that nuclear power will be essential in the mix for us to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. But I don’t believe it will be the legacy nuclear power plants helping us to meet the goal. Instead, a next-generation nuclear industry that is moving out of planning and off the drawing boards right now will provide us with a safe solution.
]]>For a city like Toronto where I live, the municipality collects, transports, processes, and disposes of more than 900,000 tons of waste annually. Not all goes into landfills, but what does end up being dumped and buried is transported more than three hours away to a site over 200 kilometres (124 miles) away. The site includes environmental enhancements that capture what leaches out in terms of liquids and gas. Upgraded stormwater drainage and monitoring of the state of underlying groundwater are in place, as are pipes for collecting and flaring produced gasses. In addition, the city has organic and solids recycling and recovery facilities. In 2020, the city claimed over 413,000 tons being diverted through its residential and commercial green and blue bin programs. What it didn’t report was the level of contamination within these diversion streams that ultimately lead to the diverted waste having to be carted to the landfill site. Nor does the city account for the carbon emissions contribution of trucking its waste 200 kilometres daily.
What if we were to change from the paradigm described above to one where the energy contained in the waste serves to generate electricity and heat while not contributing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Methane and carbon dioxide would be captured from the flue gas stream while the remains of the incineration process, mostly ash, would go through further recovery to harvest usable metals and materials for infrastructure builds such as roads. construction. This is the very definition of a circular solution that is environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible.
If we are prepared to integrate carbon capture and sequestration into thermal-power generation that uses coal, and natural gas, why aren’t we talking about doing this for waste?
Vancouver-based, EnviroLab is involving young people between ages 18 and 30 in a number of labs focused on urban sustainability challenges and seeking zero-emission solutions. The goal is to design waste out of the way we live our lives by applying circular economic principles and practices. The EnviroLab website talks about the linear nature of current economic models and asks its participants to “recognize the cyclical potential” of the stuff we create and use every day. Questions posed include:
A number of new programs arising from the lab included:
These are all important initiatives. But what appears to have never been discussed is the incineration of waste. The imagery of burning garbage just doesn’t fit with environmentally aware young people and activists in the green movement. And yet we have the technology to implement net-zero waste-to-energy solutions allowing us to address electricity and heating demands and the 100% reuse of residual solids.
We shouldn’t be ignoring waste-to-net-zero-energy. It should be part of the conversation. Why? Because it will eliminate legacy and future landfills, and it will turn waste into an energy resource we can manage responsibly. Waste-to-net-zero-energy is one more solution in our effort to mitigate global warming.
]]>How so? Ten days ago, on a Sunday, the State of South Australia used combined output from rooftop solar and small generating sources including bio-energy, and small wind and solar farms) to meet 100% of energy demands for the day. No power was drawn from utilities and the grid distribution system.
Being Sunday, there was less demand than what is needed on a normal weekday. Nevertheless, the production of power through distributed and local renewable sources portends a future where dependence on grid-distributed energy will become less and less. And what that means for Australia’s coal-fired and natural-gas-burning powerplants is, that in time they will become redundant.
This wasn’t the first time for South Australia with the state experiencing a number of successive Sundays of negative demand often lasting for long periods during the day. But the Sunday headlined in this posting recorded rooftop solar contributing 95.6% of total demand by early afternoon, setting a new record.
South Australia has seen wind and solar increasingly contribute to its total energy supply. In the last year, 62% of energy demand came from these two renewable sources. The state’s target is to achieve 100% reliance on renewables by 2030, although that timetable appears to be accelerating with the milestone being achieved as early as 2025.
But at a national level, Australia climate policies have been weak to non-existent. Today, the country is the world’s third-largest exporter of fossil fuels and one of the globe’s leading per capita emitters. And as a coal producer, the federal government and the energy lobby have produced little action to change this business and environmental model.
A similar reliance on a primary energy polluting resource is happening in Canada. Here, rather than coal which is rapidly being phased out, is a reliance on synthetic crude and offshore oil and gas as major contributors to the national economy. But whereas Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced at COP26 a net-zero carbon emissions target date of 2050 for the country, with no policy initiatives or proposed legislation to achieve that end result, Canada is going a different route.
Morrison noted that Australia will achieve its emission reductions through companies and consumer behaviour. Climate and Energy Program Director for The Australia Institute, Richard Merzian described the country’s national commitment as “do as little as possible.” This was further reinforced by statements from Angus Taylor, Australia’s Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions who at COP26 told NBC News that “under our plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, we will act in a practical, responsible way…and build on our track record of achievement — reducing emissions while growing our economy, maintaining affordable, reliable energy and ensuring our regions remain strong. That’s the Australian way.” Right now, without initiatives from Australia’s states like South Australia, and the individual efforts of Australian homeowners who are installing solar roofs in record numbers, it appears that Taylor’s “Australian way” is one of passing the responsibility elsewhere.
How Canada differs from Australia differ in its approach to net-zero was notable at COP26. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used the climate conference to formally commit to emission reductions exceeding 40% by 2030. He further announced a cap to be placed on emissions from oil and gas production.
Canada is one of a few countries that has implemented carbon pricing with the bulk of the money collected being returned to individual Canadians through tax rebates. The current carbon price is $40 per ton, rising to $55 in 2022 and $15 each year thereafter. In 2025 it means a ton of emitted carbon will cost producers $100, and by 2030, $175.
When you consider the parallel extreme weather disasters attributed to climate change that both countries have faced this year, you would think their policies would align. And where some of Canada’s provinces have resisted carbon pricing, in Australia, it is one of its states, South Australia, that is taking on the climate change fight. How extraordinary for these two countries to be walking very different paths in the fight to reverse global warming.
]]>In the last week, the IEA published its World Energy Outlook for 2021. This follows an earlier report called the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario published in May. In that document, the IEA charted a path to limit global atmospheric warming to no more than 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by 2050. But in this latest publication, the focus is on the emerging energy economy and how far we still have to go to achieve the net-zero 2050 goal. And the timing of the publication a few weeks before the global COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, is no coincidence.
The new publication gives those determining future policy a detailed look at how countries are making a clean energy transition so far. It notes the new global energy economy that is emerging is not happening at a pace to meet the objective of keeping mean temperatures globally within the 1.5 Celsius threshold. It further states that fossil fuel demand continues to climb and because of this, the 1.5 Celsius rise will happen as early as 2030 with global mean atmospheric rise reaching 2.6 Celsius (4.7 Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial levels by the end of this century.
Here are some of the highlights of this new IEA document.
As monumental as the requirement that lies ahead is, the IEA sees a shift towards net-zero already starting. Renewable energy sources are increasing at a faster rate in the last two decades than ever before, while electric vehicle sales keep setting new annual records. While energy demand continues to rise 20% per decade, so are investments in energy which are anticipated to be six times higher for renewable and clean energy sources than for oil and gas by 2030.
The key for the nations of the world to bend the climate change curve downward will be to accelerate these changes even faster. Based on current trends, clean energy annual investments will triple from current levels to approach $4 trillion USD annually by 2030. IEA forecasts predict over 3 billion electric vehicles will be on the road by then and that three Terawatt-hours of electricity will be delivered from battery storage deployment alone.
The dark side of the report states the likely consequences of not rapidly accelerating the change to meet the net-zero 2050 target. That alternate world will experience mean global temperature trajectories exceeding 3.5 Celsius (6.3 Fahrenheit) by 2100, an 80 to 130% increase in “ecological droughts,” the risk of ice sheet collapse, disruptions to ocean circulation currents, and irreversible changes to permafrost, and boreal and tropical rainforests.
Glasgow, here we come. It’s time for the politicians there to do the right thing, and do no further harm to the planet.
]]>The communiqué states:
“There is a global imperative to pursue efforts to limit the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that the avoided climate impacts are greater at 1.5 than 2 Celsius, as stated in the IPCC’s [International Panel on Climate Change] 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Celsius. This will require meaningful action by all countries, in particular the major emitting economies, pursuant to continuous improvement in climate and environmental action to align with a pathway that keeps 1.5 Celsius within reach. We, G7 members, will lead by example and each commit to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as soon as possible and by 2050 at the latest.”
The specific pledge about coal reads as follows:
“Recognizing that coal power generation is the single biggest cause of global temperature increases, we commit now to rapidly scale-up technologies and policies that further accelerate the transition away from unabated coal capacity and to an overwhelmingly decarbonized power system in the 2030s.” Additional wording acknowledged “the risk of stranded assets associated with high carbon investments.” The G7 also finally pledged to tackle fossil fuel subsidies which the International Monetary Fund in 2017 estimated to be valued by the energy companies at $5.2 trillion US, a value equal to 6.5% of the global economy. The G7 pledged to stop what it called “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” by 2025.
The meeting of the G7 ministers was timely, following a few days after the International Energy Agency report that unequivocally called for an immediate end to all new oil, gas and coal natural resource development stating that without a full-stop the planet will be unable to meet the Paris 1.5 Celsius target.
The G7 ministers called on global financial institutions to align themselves with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement in their use of capital, particularly within the Developing World.
The ministers collectively agreed to mobilize $100 billion US annually in climate change finance through to 2025 to help Developing World countries achieve “meaningful mitigation actions.”
Businesses and investors were urged “to join the Race to Zero” by aligning their portfolios with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and setting and achieving their own net-zero targets for 2050 at the latest.
The G7 talked about the potential of “carbon markets and carbon pricing” to help reduce emissions, drive innovation and breakthrough technologies to achieve the net zero goal.
In a section of the communiqué entitled “Unleashing the full potential of the Paris Agreement” the G7 ministers describe their steadfast commitment, putting in place the “Paris Rulebook” which includes a common set of metrics and enhanced transparency, as well cooperative decision making.
I doubt any of this progress could have been made just four months ago before Joe Biden became U.S. President. It appears having America back in the fight to stop anthropogenic global warming has given the G7 nations an energy boost, and not one derived from fossil fuels.
]]>In its most recent operations, Microsoft has attempted to become carbon neutral, but it has done this largely through the purchase of carbon offsets. But offsets don’t do anything to decrease the actual carbon output of the business. The strategy going forward, however, will be emission removal. This bold policy decision is one to applaud but for the company to achieve it will require a far more holistic approach to its business and the ecosystem that supports it.
Currently, the Microsoft ecosystem is responsible for 16 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually of which 1 million comes from transportation, 4 million from energy usage, and 12 million from all other activities throughout all other business operations including the supply chain.
So how does the company go about tackling the 16 million? In its announcement, Microsoft has laid out a series of policies and milestones. Here is a summary of what the company intends to do to get to be carbon negative and to draw down on its historic greenhouse gas contributions.
The company hopes to lead by example while creating the tools necessary to measure its carbon contributions. This week it launched the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator to not only help with its internal tracking of emissions but also to help customers address their carbon impacts. The company promises to produce additional tools and methodologies which it will share with its customers so that they can also develop a carbon-negative profile.
The company issued a call to action to every person and organization on the planet to achieve a net-zero carbon future while improving the living and working standards for all the people on Earth.
In its announcement, Microsoft called reducing carbon “the world’s next moonshot.” It would like the rest of the world to join this moonshot effort, the right commitment for the times, and an achievable goal.
Besides the Liberals, the New Democratic Party (NDP), Greens, and Bloc Quebecois, the latter a nationalist party in the Province of Quebec, all have stated a commitment to putting a price on carbon as a step in the right direction in addressing global warming and the frequency increase in extreme weather events. Only the Conservatives and the Peoples Party of Canada presented policies that experts described as being insufficient to drive down the country’s carbon emissions. In the case of the Conservatives, promises to repeal carbon pricing and tougher fuel standards appeared to put them on the wrong side of the climate issue even though they included platform planks providing credits and tax breaks to new technologies that could be used to fight global warming. The Peoples Party, on the other hand, decried climate change as a hoax. The won no seats in Parliament.
The Liberal Party as the government is the same one that purchased an oil pipeline and its planned expansion while nixing another pipeline project and reserving judgment on any future investments in oil and gas capacity building. The pipeline purchase was a political act, certainly not an environmental one. It was seen as a way to ensure that Alberta’s oil-based economy would no longer be landlocked with only the United States as a customer. This situation had seriously depressed the province’s economy with it only capable of selling its fossil fuel products at deep discounts. At the same time, fracking in the United States had created an enormous surplus of domestic oil and gas further limiting demand for oil sands products. Only a pipeline outlet to the Pacific ensured Alberta producers access to world markets and world prices.
One would think that making the investment would have yielded a positive political outcome in the producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the Liberals won no seats in these two jurisdictions. To make matters worse, the provincial governments openly speculated about negotiating a new contract with the federation or separation. So much for respecting good intentions.
Now moving forward, the Liberal government, with support of the climate change action parties will move on an agenda to meet if not exceed the 30% reduction in greenhouse gases pledged by the country in 2015 at the Paris conference.
So what exactly is to be expected in the new political mandate?
In looking at the Liberal Party platform it makes the following commitments to Canadians and the world:
In an effort to justify the pipeline investment and approval of any other oil sands projects, the Liberal Party may get support from both opposition on the left and right with the following policies:
And although parts of Canada, largely those in the business of fossil fuel extraction, feel abandoned by a reelected government focused on climate change action, it is pretty clear that much of the world applaud the results. Germany’s ambassador to Canada noted that her country will work closely with Canada in the coming months on a climate change agenda. The European Union is promoting a “green deal” as a top priority, and see the outcome of Canada’s election as an opportunity to coordinate efforts to deal with the climate crisis.
It estimates the implementation of low-carbon policies would be worth nearly $24 trillion USD by 2050 and would reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cities by 90%.
The Climate Emergency, Urban Opportunity examines the role of national governments in achieving equitable and sustainable economic development in cities, which today are home to over 50% of the world’s population, producing 75% of GHGs and 80% of world gross domestic product (GDP).
Stated António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, “This report shows how the right investments can build sustainable and liveable cities and communities that will help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the objectives of the Paris Agreement. It is possible and realistic to realize net-zero urban emissions by 2050. But to get there, we will need the full engagement of city governments combined with national action and support.”
Net-zero GHG emissions by mid-century is key to avoiding the worst consequences of prolonged centuries of climate change. Low-carbon measures enacted by cities could reduce emissions globally by 50% in 2050, and with technologies and practices currently available to us, we could cut urban emissions by 90%.
To do this the nations of the world need to invest $1.8 trillion USD annually, equivalent to 2% of global GDP. This in turn would generate annual returns on investment worth $2.8 trillion USD by 2030, and $7.0 trillion USD by 2050 from cost savings alone. Many low-carbon measures would pay for themselves in under 5 years, things light more efficient lighting, widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), improved transportation logistics, and changes to solid waste management. And zero-carbon cities will provide national governments with distinct competitive advantages in attracting new investment and the best in global talent. In addition, zero-carbon cities will yield higher standards of living, cleaner air, less traffic congestion, and with better working conditions support 87 million jobs annually by 2030. Net-zero cities will be more compact, and connected, will help conserve land for agriculture and forests, and will protect biodiversity.
Stated Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles and C40 Cities Vice-Chair, “Mayors recognize the critical role that national governments can play to reverse the climate crisis, and are ready to partner with our federal leaders to advance our work to protect our most vulnerable residents, strengthen global health, and create a low-carbon, green economy that works for everyone.” Los Angeles as a member of C40 is committed along with nearly 10,000 other cities and local governments to set GHG reduction targets but they need the help of national, state, and provincial governments working together to achieve the targets stated above.
The report presents six key priorities for national government actions to take includng:
To read the key report findings click here. And for a full list of the report’s recommendation click here.
