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.

Originally published on the Th!nk About It blogging competition (link)

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