The European Commission has recently published a communication on EU energy policy that makes interesting reading. The document discusses where the EU fits in the global energy market, the security of energy supply and related issues such as climate change and energy safety.
The overall objective of the EU’s energy policy is to ensure safe, secure, affordable and sustainable energy supplies. The global demand for energy is, however, changing rapidly with demand from China and India making a significant impact. Globally it is estimated that demand will increase by one third between 2008 and 2035, while the EU demand will remain static, and the demand in both China and India is expected to double. Energy demand in the Middle East is expected to increase by 70% in the same period.
Growth of this magnitude is bound to put pressure on the security of energy supplies to the EU. At the moment the EU imports about half of all its energy needs from third countries and is the world’s largest energy importer when compared to other regions as the table below shows. At present trends the EU will import 70% of its entire energy needs by 2030.
Top energy importing countries and regions, 2008
Country
Exports (ktoe)
Imports (ktoe)
Net Imports (ktoe)
EU27
-482,554
1,495,097
1,012,543
USA
-167,141
798,737
631,596
Japan
-20,204
435,899
415,695
China
-67,930
278,355
210,425
India
-40,070
197,958
157,888
Source: International Energy Agency
Europe is lucky in so far as it is close to major energy sources for some fuels. Approximately 85% of natural gas and 50% of crude oil imports into the EU come from nearby Russia, Norway and Algeria. About 60% of all coal used is produced in the EU and 27% comes from Russia. The remainder, however, comes from as far away as South Africa, Australia, Colombia and America. Practically all of the natural uranium used in the EU is imported.
The EU’s heavy reliance on imported energy, combined with the overall growth in global energy demand, is bound to lead to price fluctuations and disruptions to energy supply. To minimize the risks, the communication discusses the need to invest in energy production and in the infrastructure required to move energy around – both within the EU and between the EU and the sources of supply. This includes the development of a Southern energy corridor between the EU and the Caspian/Middle East Basin as well as upgrading the Eastern corridor which links the EU to Russia through Belarus and Ukraine. Developing, and linking to, solar power in North Africa is also discussed.
According to the International Energy Agency, last year has seen the highest level of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and the predicted increase in carbon intensive energy in future years will lead to accelerated climate change. Some countries are improving energy efficiency but globally there is little change. The communication states that there is an urgent need for global action on resource efficiency and low carbon energy solutions with demand for renewable energy predicted to triple in the next decade.
Ireland is well positioned to capitalize on this growing threat to the EU’s energy needs. We have the potential to satisfy all of our own energy needs from renewable sources and to export renewable energy to the EU. Our wind potential, combined with pumped storage, can guarantee this form of renewable energy regardless of wind conditions. We can reduce or eliminate the six billion euro bill that we pay each year for imported fuel and can gain additional revenue from the sale of our energy to other countries.
Thanks to the kind readers of this blog who enquired about the absence of new blog posts over the past few months. The author has been diverted on other fronts over the summer months but is determined to get back to regular communications from now on.
This website (www.greenquest.ie) has undergone significant changes since the early part of 2011. The most significant change is the ending of the monthly quiz with prizes. This is due to the drop in sponsorship brought about by the general economic downturn. The website has always operated on a pro-bono, not-for-profit basis and all sponsorship was given out as prizes, apart from the money paid to the web host. There is just sufficient funding this year to keep the site open so the quiz and prizes were dropped and the environmental theme pages and an occasional blog were maintained.
The economic downturn has, to some extent, pushed environmental issues off the current affairs agenda. This is understandable as people worry about job losses, dole queues, emigration, negative equity and mortgage repayments. Politicians and economic commentators worry about a double dip recession and talk about the need to return to economic growth.
Global growth in a world of finite resources is difficult to sustain indefinitely, especially in a world where population figures are predicted to pass the 7 billion mark by the end of this year. Climate change and peak oil can only exacerbate the problem. At present millions are starving in Somalia, and Texas is experiencing one of the worst droughts since records began.
The economic collapse in Ireland should be used as a springboard for development that is truly sustainable. Long term sustainable development is built on three pillars; economic, social and environmental. Ireland has strong social cohesion and a magnificent environment. By leveraging these two pillars we can develop the economy along sustainable lines that will not go through cycles of boom and bust but will be steady and sustained. Exploiting our renewable energy potential, especially wind and pumped storage, should be a priority.
The need remains to raise environmental awareness, particularly in these tough economic times. This website was established to make a small contribution to that need with the tag line 'Engage, Inform and Inspire' . While we can no longer engage people through the offer of monthly prizes we hope that the many hundreds who log on each week will continue to do so.
The United Nations has designated 5 June as World Environment Day (WED) with a special emphasis on forests. The theme is ‘Forests: Nature at your service’ to highlight the environmental, economic and social roles played by the world’s forests. India is the host nation for WED 2011 and there are many events planned to raise awareness of the damage done through deforestation and of the need to manage forests in a sustainable way.
About 30% of the land on earth is covered by forests. Across the world humans are cutting down forests at an estimated rate of 13 million hectares per year - that’s over 32 million acres of trees disappearing each year. The impact of this rate of deforestation is not just habitat loss. Trees act as carbon sinks and absorb the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere. There is more carbon stored in forests than in the entire atmosphere and when trees are cut down to make way for farmland that stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The United Nations stated, in their latest assessment report, that reducing or preventing deforestation would have the largest and most immediate impact on climate change in the short term.
Forests are also the most diverse ecosystems on land, because they hold the vast majority of the world's terrestrial species and rain forests are among the oldest ecosystems on Earth. Only a fraction of known species has been examined for potential medicinal, agricultural or industrial value and many are lost to extinction before they can be investigated.
Here in Ireland the Environmental Protection Agency has organized a competition on Twitter to mark WED 2011. The public are asked to follow the EPA on Twitter and, using the hashtag #WEDIreland, send a tweet advising on a positive action they can take on World Environment Day to help protect the environment. The competition is open until noon on Wednesday next 8 June and the prize for the best entry is a hotel break in one of Ireland’s Green Hotels to the value of 250 euro.
Tropical rainforests are the lungs of the planet and play a vital role in regulating levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Deforestation is a major cause of increasing levels of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and various efforts have been made, with little success, to curtail the activities of loggers and ranchers who slash and burn vast areas of tropical forest each year.
Now Guyana, a South American country on the Atlantic coast north of Brazil, has entered into an agreement with Norway to keep its tropical forests intact in return for a cash payment. Each year Norway will make a payment to Guyana provided the tropical forests are not destroyed and Guyana will use the money on a range of sustainable projects. In 2011 some $40million is being transferred and the money is being used to install solar panels on houses of indigenous people, to link remote communities to the internet and for other sustainable projects in the area of health, education and business. The total amount of money to be transferred will be calculated on the basis of how successful Guyana is in preventing deforestation but will run into hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 5 years.
This initiative could provide a template for other countries in the developed world to recognize the priceless services that rain forests provide to the entire world. It can also assist poor countries such as Guyana to make it more profitable to keep the forests intact rather than to cut them down.
Meanwhile, back in Ireland, the Environmental Protection Agency has published its forecast for greenhouse gas emissions up to 2020. The emissions projections are calculated on the basis of the best available economic forecast. Because of the economic slowdown Ireland will be able to meet its commitments under the United Nations Kyoto Protocol for the 5-year period from 2008 to 2012. However it will not be able to meet commitments made under the EU Commission’s Energy and Climate Package which commit member states to legally binding emission limits up to 2020. Even using the best scenario the annual limits will be breached by 2016 and could amount to 8.8 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020. If the economy recovers faster than predicted then the breach could be even higher than that.
The figures show that we should not rely on an economic recession to meet our climate change obligations. Instead, we should use this time to develop and implement a new energy strategy that is not dependent on imported fossil fuel. Fortunately we have the natural resources of wind, wave and tide to free us completely from the stranglehold of the fossil fuel industry. Using a combination of wind power and pumped water storage we can eliminate our fossil fuel bill of over six billion euro each year. If our new Government has the foresight and courage of its predecessors, who built the hydro –electric station at Ardnacrusha in the 1920s as the country took its first steps into independence, then we, like Guyana, could become an example for the world.
A week long effort by the United Nations to reach a new agreement on Climate Change ended on 8 April in Bangkok with little signs of progress. The existing agreement, known as the Kyoto Protocol, ends in December 2012 and it is now accepted that time has run out to have a new agreement in place by that deadline. The Kyoto Protocol is the only international set of accounting rules that protect the environmental integrity of mitigation efforts of countries around the world. Hopes were high that a new agreement would be reached at the UN Climate meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 but that meeting ended in failure and subsequent efforts in Cancun and Bangkok have made little progress.
Meanwhile recent calculations by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) show that wind energy is achieving over a quarter of the emissions reductions required under the current Kyoto agreement. The association’s Regulatory Affairs Officer, Rémi Gruet said “An international agreement remains absolutely vital but it’s clear that while there’s an impasse in the negotiations, many countries around the globe are getting on with avoiding CO2 emissions by installing wind energy and other renewable energy sources.”
EWEA calculations show that at the end of 2010, wind energy across the world avoided 255 Mt of CO2, equivalent to 26% of the emissions reductions commitment of industrialised countries under the Kyoto Protocol and by 2020, wind power should avoid some 69% of the pledges made in Cancun.
Last year in Ireland the annual average wind energy penetration was 11% of total electricity consumed in the country and the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) estimates that Ireland could presently generate 25% of its electricity from the wind with no increase in electricity prices. If this was done, IWEA estimates that there would be wind turbines scattered across only 1/2 of one percent of the country, assuming no offshore development. There would be thousands of new jobs created in manufacturing and research, and we would be able to avoid EU pollution penalties. The new Government Ministers in Environment and in Energy should make this a priority.
The destruction of the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan by the resent tsunami has prompted reconsideration across the world of the role of nuclear power in the global fight against climate change.
The need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels had led to a revival in interest in nuclear power over recent years. The nuclear industry had been in decline since the Chernobyl accident in 1986 but, because of the increased emphasis on global climate change, many countries had decided to build new nuclear facilities or to extend the life of existing plants. In Germany the government had reversed an earlier decision to close their nuclear facilities entirely and the UK had selected a number of sites for new or replacement facilities.
In light of what has happened in Japan, Germany has now decided to close some reactors immediately and to hold a review of the remaining facilities before making a final decision on their future. Similar reviews are taking place in the USA and even China, with a strong nuclear industry, are pausing to consider if this is the correct way to proceed.
Closer to home, in the UK, the Minister with responsibility for energy and climate change has also ordered a review of the Government’s plan to replace their ageing nuclear facilities and there is evidence that UK investment banks are losing the appetite for such investment. The last UK Government had decided to use nuclear power to help them achieve the reduction in carbon emissions that were required under EU and UN agreements on global climate change. Without nuclear power there is little chance of meeting the 34% reduction targets set in the 2008 Climate Change Act.
This situation presents an opportunity for Ireland. We have the natural resources to generate significant renewable energy that can be exported via the interconnector to Britian. Using a combination of wind energy and large hydro storage reservoirs, as planned by the Spirit of Ireland initiative (see www.spiritofireland.org), this country can quickly fill the gap generated by the delay or cancellation of the UK’s nuclear plants. In the process we can generate thousands of jobs and reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuel – a commodity that is costing more and more each day.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations has established the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice. The Foundation is a centre for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle to secure global justice for victims of climate change who are usually forgotten – the poor, the disempowered and the marginalised across the world. The Foundation will be based at Trinity College, Dublin.
It is a platform for solidarity, partnership and shared engagement for all who care about global justice, whether as individuals and communities suffering injustice or as advocates for fairness in resource-rich societies. The Foundation provides a space for facilitating action on climate justice to empower the poorest people and countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable and people-centred development.
Mary Robinson delivered the 11th lecture in the EPA’s series of lectures on Climate Change on Tuesday 23 November 2010 to a packed Mansion House. In the course of the lecture she said:
"In hard times it can be difficult to attend to the long term. When recession and debt pose urgent constraints, ten-year targets and fifty-year plans may appear a luxury.
Climate change can appear far away, in both time and space. And yet, of course, it is not far away, it is not merely a ‘long-term’ problem. Climate change is what we are doing right here and right now."
"What is crystal clear is that, from now on, the wellbeing of those in richer and poorer countries is intimately related... it is not enough for me to realise that my carbon-saturated life here today has in part caused the climate refugee fleeing her flooded home in Bangladesh tomorrow. I must also recognise that if she is to be
denied access to carbon-fuelled economic growth, I must also, surely, be obliged to provide her some substitute form of wherewithal."
Climate justice links human rights and development to achieve a human-centered approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly.
Climate justice insists that all the peoples of the world (and not just the rich and powerful) have a right to development. A developmental approach to climate justice recognises this fact while also demanding that it should be made both possible and attractive for such development to occur in a sustainable way
The Environmental Protection Agency recently published a provisional report on the emission of greenhouse gases in Ireland in 2009. As expected, emissions were down on the 2008 figure and the decrease occurred across all sectors of the economy.
The key points in the report are
• Total emissions stood at 62.32 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
• The emissions for the industry and commercial sector fell by 20% from 2008.
• Power generation emissions were down by 10.7%
• Transport emissions fell by 7.7%
• The cement sector had the largest drop at 38% reflecting the collapse in construction in Ireland.
• The agriculture sector continues to be the biggest emitter at 29.1% of the total.
• Power generation and transport account for 21% each of the total.
• Industry and commercial stands at 14.8%.
• Residential accounts for 12% and
• Waste emissions are 1.9% of the total.
This reduction brings the country closer to the level needed to meet our Kyoto target of 62.84 million tonnes per annum for each of the five years from 2008 to 2012 but meeting that target at the expense of the Irish economy is not the way to do it.
What is needed is a move away from an economy dependent on fossil fuel to one based on renewable and sustainable energy. Ireland should use this economic crisis to build a low carbon economy and exploit our natural advantage over other countries in the area of wind resources.
California and other states are now in the forefront of the response to global warming in the wake of the recent congressional retreat from federal climate legislation. California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, widely known as AB 32, imposes 80 percent carbon emission reductions by 2050 across all sectors of the economy. California obtains 30 percent of its power from beyond its borders, most of it from states in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest.
However, California Watch reports that, in response, the attorneys general of at least four states are preparing to sue California if the state’s landmark law limiting greenhouse gas emissions survives a challenge at the ballot box this November.
The attorneys general of Alabama, Nebraska, Texas and North Dakota have been devising a legal strategy to challenge the California act on the grounds that it interferes with the right to freely conduct interstate commerce.
Wayne Stenehjem, the attorney general of North Dakota, is quoted as saying "We are going to test the limits of how much you can constrain interstate commerce in the name of climate change and will be posing a direct challenge to the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution”.
Stenehjem’s fellow attorneys general are already at the forefront of using the courts to slow climate regulations. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sued the EPA in federal court earlier this year, hoping to overturn the agency’s "endangerment finding" that greenhouse gases pose a threat to the environment and public health – a finding which triggered the agency’s ability to regulate CO2 emissions.
Two Texas oil companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., are thus far the biggest contributors to the effort to block the California law governing greenhouse gases, channelling more than $4 million into the campaign.
The legal challenge highlights the difficulty of advancing the cause of the threat posed by global climate change in the USA. The Federal Government must take a lead in this area if any progress is to be achieved.
At the end of July the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA) published its State of the Climate Report for 2009. The report looked at 10 key indicators of climate change and the results all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.
Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world.
1.Climate models predicted that air temperature over land would increase – the temperature continues to increase.
2.Models predicted that sea surface temperatures would increase – they are increasing.
3.Models also predicted that the air temperature over oceans would increase – it continues to increase.
4.Sea levels were predicted to rise – they continue to rise.
5.The heat stored in the oceans was predicted to increase – it is increasing.
6.Humidity levels were to increase – they are increasing
7.The temperature of the active weather layer around the earth (troposphere) was predicted to increase – it is increasing.
8.Ice cover in the arctic was predicted to decline – it is declining.
9.Glaciers were predicted to retreat – they are retreating
10.Spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere was predicted to reduce – it has reduced.
“For the first time, and in a single compelling comparison, the analysis brings together multiple observational records from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D.,Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The records come from many institutions worldwide. They use data collected from diverse sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming,”
The report emphasizes that human society has developed for thousands of years under one climatic state, and now a new set of climatic conditions are taking shape. These conditions are consistently warmer, and some areas are likely to see more extreme events like severe drought, torrential rain and violent storms.
Meanwhile a heat wave in Russia has killed thousands of people there, reduced the grain harvest by over 25% and cut an estimated $15 billion off their GDP. Floods in Pakistan are endangering millions of people and have destroyed animals and crops across wide areas of the country – the death toll is unknown and aid agencies are finding it difficult to cope. The link is obvious despite the reticence of climate scientists to say that these individual events are due to global climate change.
You may wonder, in light of these extreme events, what the governments of the world are doing to address the problem. The answer is that they are doing very little. The UN negotiations in Bonn for a post-Kyoto climate deal moved backwards rather than forwards with many countries retreating to old entrenched positions and the American Senate abandoned plans for comprehensive climate change legislation.
Climate models predict that average global temperatures may rise by over 6 degrees above pre-industrial levels unless there is a major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. At these temperatures the very future of mankind on the planet is threatened. How many more catastrophes do we need before we begin to take this issue seriously?
The full NOAA report is available at http://www.climate.gov/#understandingClimate
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