Carbon Training International

The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Nobuo Tanaka, opens the Agency’s latest report “How the energy sector can deliver on a climate agreement in Copenhagen” with some stark words “if the world continues on the basis of today’s energy policies, the climate change impacts will be severe. Energy, which accounts for two-thirds of today’s greenhouse-gas emissions, is at the heart of the problem and so it must form the core of the solution.”ⁱ

This report is a subset of the Agency’s World Energy Outlook published to support the negotiating sessions of the UNFCCC held last week in Bangkok.

The report outlines a 450 Scenario, which requires CO2 emissions related to energy generation to reduce to a trajectory which, when taking into account non-energy related emissions, stabilises concentration of all greenhouse gases at 450ppm.

Stabilising greenhouse gases at a concentration of 450ppm is the level at which average global temperature rise will be restricted to 2°C.

On Friday 24 September the UNEP released its “Climate Change Science Compendium 2009” presenting evidence that “The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC)”ⁱ released in 2007.

On Monday 28 September, the UK Met Office reported that if “greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unchecked, it is likely that global warming will exceed four degrees by the end of the century”.ⁱⁱ

Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, outlined the new research findings at “4 degrees and beyond” a conference convened at Oxford University to consider the consequences of climate change and concomitant implications for people, eco-systems and earth-systems.

Some of the climate related impacts reported by UNEP include:

The ABC has reported Lord Nicolas Stern as stating “Chinese President Hu Jintao has broken the deadlock between developed and developing countries”. (1)

Yang Ailun, a specialist on climate change with Greenpeace China, told the BBC while there are few details available, it is the gesture that counts. "It's the first time the Chinese Government publicly said China will have a carbon intensity target up to 2020," he said. "So it's a mid-term carbon intensity target and this is the sort of target that clearly shows that China wants to move away from their 'business as usual' development past."

Whilst the announcement is of great importance from a political perspective signaling for the first time China’s willingness to commit to a CO2 reduction strategy, it is only a reduction in carbon intensity per unit of GDP, not an absolute reduction in total carbon emissions.

The significance of this can be explained by the following example:

Assume that in 2010 China has GDP of 100 units which grows at 6% p.a. to 2020.

Carbon intensity (units of carbon per unit of GDP) in 2010 is 10%, reducing to 7.5% in 2020.

GDP will grow to 179 units over the period whilst carbon emissions will grow from 10 to 13.4 units (7.5% of 179).

Whilst the carbon intensity over the 10 years has reduced, absolute emissions have increased by 34% because economic activity has increased by a total of 79% over the period.

The significance of targeting improvements in a nations carbon intensity levels is the potential to decouple economic growth goals from increased levels of energy consumption from fossil fuel sources.

President Hu also announced China would undertake a number of other significant measures including the planting of huge areas of forests, an increase in the use of nuclear power and an effective renewable energy target of 15% by 2020. These initiatives are some of the means by which China will be able to achieve an improvement in its carbon intensity.

Lord Nicholas Stern also told the BBC all indications are that the Chinese are working on some bold targets which will be unveiled down the track.

"We don't yet know what numbers they're going to put on that, but the discussions that many of us have been having over the last month in China suggest that they really will be ambitious," he said.

(1) http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/23/2694608.htm

The vote in the Senate yesterday to defeat the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme should not be seen by business as a reason for continued inaction on carbon management.

Every recent opinion poll on the topic demonstrates that the Australian public supports the adoption of legislation to mitigate the damaging effects that industrial activity is having on the environment and the risks of climate change. The pricing of carbon is regarded as an essential and necessary first step to change business practices that will reduce emissions and drive the adoption of new technologies. 

Similarly, investment groups are increasingly scrutinising companies in relation to exposure to carbon liabilities and conducting financial assessments that factor a carbon price into both revenue and cost streams and across asset values.