Extract from ABC News
Analysis
To the casual observer, this year's UN climate talks in the United Arab Emirates could be interpreted as a stonking, resounding success.
Right from the start of the conference on November 30, a blizzard of announcements and initiatives have given the distinct impression that the world was getting on with the job of saving the planet.
It's all been impressive and just a little bit overwhelming — a bit like the size and scale of the COP28 venue in Dubai.
But underlying all of it was something far more difficult, and far more contentious.
What should be done about the world's heavy and ongoing dependence on fossil fuels?
It's all in a word
While it might seem like a relatively straightforward question, it's proving to be almost tortuously difficult for many of the politicians and negotiators attending events in Dubai.
Many developing countries, and those without oil and gas, are pushing hard at COP for a complete phase-out of fossil fuels, arguing they are the source of the global warming problem and cannot be part of the solution.
Other countries, led by the world's biggest and most powerful oil exporter Saudi Arabia, are pushing equally hard against such a demand.
And in the middle sit many of the world's major economies, some of which are big fossil fuel exporters and all of which are major consumers of the stuff.
US climate envoy John Kerry seemed to hedge his bets, saying the US supports "the phase-out of all unabated fossil fuels".
But therein lies the caveat.
'Unabated' refers to the burning of fossil fuels where greenhouse gas emissions are released directly into the atmosphere whereas 'abated' means the capture and permanent storage of some proportion of the gases.
There is, however, no agreed definition of what 'abated' means.
The global economy is brown
For all the advances in the scale and capability of the renewable energy industry – and it has been extraordinary – there's a simple equation that remains as true today as it was decades ago.
About 80 per cent of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels.
Whether it's the coal that's burnt to generate electricity, the oil that powers our cars, or the gas that's used in so many heavy industrial processes, the world economy has a distinctive brownish hue.
The reason for the staying power of fossil fuels is partly their availability — they've been readily available and, besides, much human endeavour has gone into exploiting and using them.
They have also been (in financial, not environmental terms) relatively cheap, enabling industry and people to get energy affordably.
For some, though not all, applications, fossil fuels are hard to substitute.
To that end, think about what are known as "hard-to-abate" industries such as steel and cement making and aluminium smelting.
Lastly, the fossil fuel industry is a multi-trillion-dollar concern and, as such, the tentacles of its influence spread so far and wide and are so powerful that dislodging it is not easily done.
For these reasons, and others besides, the appetite for investing in new capacity from many oil and gas producers and the investors who bankroll remains strong.
You only have to look at the plans of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) — owned by COP28 host the UAE — to see that.
ADNOC has committed to spending $US150 billion ($A227 billion) to expand its operations during the next five years, with only a tiny fraction going towards reducing emissions.
Temperatures, emissions are rising
Bear in mind, the "North Star" of the UN climate talks is limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
The background for this, of course, is rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Many critics and sceptics of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are quick to point out that temperatures fluctuate and it's a mistake to read too much into short-term trends.
Of course, temperatures and the weather do fluctuate — wildly so.
And it's equally true that extreme weather such as fires, floods and cyclones have been happening since time immemorial.
For all this, to say that 2023 has been an abnormally hot year would be a gross understatement.
This year is the hottest year on record around the globe.
Between January and the start of October, the average temperature around the world was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels on almost 90 days.
In November, the daily global average temperature surpassed 2C above pre-industrial levels for the first time, according to the European Union earth observation agency Copernicus.
Across the globe, carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and gas have hit a new high this year, research from the Center for International Climate Research (Cicero) shows.
What's more, Cicero found emissions were set to rise faster in 2023 than the 10-year average — this, despite efforts to limit global warming.
Renewable energy surge
For many, the dominance and durability of the fossil fuel industry is a source of despair — a sign that no matter what humanity does the challenge of climate change will prove too difficult to overcome.
There are others, though, who are taking a much more optimistic view about the state of play, even if the signs aren't so obvious yet.
Exhibit A for these optimists is the inexorable march of the global renewable energy industry.
Of the world's total energy supply, just 20 per cent doesn't come from fossil fuels.
And of that, just a small fraction again comes from truly renewable sources such as wind and solar power.
Nevertheless, both these industries are relatively young and their contributions are coming off virtually non-existent levels just a decade or two ago.
Crucially, investment in them is surging to eye-watering levels.
According to the International Energy Agency, more than $US1 billion a day is being spent on solar deployment globally.
Rystad Energy, a major energy forecaster from Norway, recently predicted the "inflection point" at which once dominant spending on oil and gas would be surpassed by investment in clean tech.
Most conspicuously, Rystad said the amount of money that was pouring into the solar industry was truly vast.
It noted that within a matter of years, an astounding 1,200 gigawatts of solar manufacturing capacity was currently under construction.
That's an amount of energy almost 20 times' greater than the capacity of Australia's biggest power system.
Once that manufacturing capacity is up and running, the amount of solar energy being added to grids around the world every year will gallop ahead, Rystad suggested.
Australia caught in a bind
In an interview with ABC's AM program this week, before he jetted off to Dubai, Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen inadvertently highlighted the thorniness at the core of the climate talks.
Asked repeatedly whether Australia would support a hardline on phasing out fossil fuels, Mr Bowen would not be drawn.
Instead, he said Australia wanted to see a "step-up in global action on mitigating emissions".
Marc Allen, the founder of advisory firm Unravel Carbon, said Mr Bowen – and Australia by extension – were caught in a classic bind.
Mr Allen said Australia stood to gain much from the shift towards clean energy because of its vast renewable resources and rich-world advantages.
But he said the country was also one of the world's biggest fossil fuel producers and exporters and collected vast sums of money courtesy of its gas and coal industries.
"One thing I found interesting the other day when I heard people bagging the UAE as a massive fossil fuel exporter and is hosting COP … Australia sits well above that," Mr Allen said on the sidelines of COP28.
"And we are also talking about hosting COP.
"So, will the same arguments come out then?
"It puts us in a hard position at the end of the day."
Ultimately, the negotiations at COP are all about the wording of the final text from the conference.
And it is in this text that the answer to this question — to phase out or to not phase out fossil fuels — will be answered.
It was only a couple of years ago, in Glasgow at COP26, that a historic agreement was reached to start phasing out coal power.
Whether such an agreement will be extended to oil and gas is the million-dollar question this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment