Irreversible climate change in five years, says energy agency (The Hindu) 11 Nov 11

Fiona Harvey

The world is likely to build so many new fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever,” according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Anything built from now on that which produces carbon will continue to do so for decades to come, and this “lock-in” effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world's foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this infrastructure is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

“The door is closing,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA). “I am very worried — if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.” Every month now counts: if the world is to stay below 2°C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world's existing infrastructure is already producing 80 per cent of that “carbon budget”, according to a new analysis by the IEA, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.

If current trends continue, and we go on building high-carbon energy generation, then by 2015 at least 90 per cent of the available “carbon budget” will be swallowed up by our energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, there will be no room for manoeuvre at all — the whole of the “carbon budget” will be spoken for, according to the IEA's calculations.

Forthcoming talks in Durban

Birol's warning comes at a crucial moment in international negotiations on climate change, as governments gear up for the next fortnight of talks in Durban, South Africa, from late November. “If we do not have an international agreement, whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures to 2°C of warming] will be closed forever,” said Birol.

But governments around the world are preparing to postpone yet again a speedy conclusion to the negotiations. Originally, the aim was to agree a successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the only binding international agreement on emissions, after its current provisions expire in 2012. But after years of setbacks, an increasing number of countries — including the U.K., Japan and Russia — now favour postponing the talks for several years.

Both Russia and Japan have spoken in recent weeks of aiming for an agreement in 2018 or 2020, and the U.K. has supported this move. Greg Barker, the U.K.'s Climate Change Minister, told a meeting: “We need China, the U.S. especially, the rest of the Basic countries [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] to agree. If we can get this by 2015 we could have an agreement ready to click in by 2020.”

Birol said this would clearly be too late. Nor is this a problem of the developing world, as some commentators have sought to frame it. In the U.K., Europe and the U.S., there are multiple plans for new fossil-fuelled power stations that would contribute significantly to global emissions over the coming decades.

Emissions have risen

It was revealed in May that an IEA analysis found emissions had risen by a record amount in 2010 despite the worst recession for 80 years. Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuel, a rise of 1.6Gt on the previous year. At the time, Birol said that constraining global warming to moderate levels would be “only a nice utopia” unless drastic action was taken.

The November 9 research adds to that finding, by showing in detail how current choices on building new energy and industrial infrastructure are likely to commit the world to much higher emissions for the next few decades, blowing apart hopes of containing the problem to manageable levels. The IEA's data is regarded as the gold standard in emissions and energy, and it is widely regarded as one of the most conservative in outlook — making today's warning all the more stark.

The central problem is that most of the industrial infrastructure already in existence around the world — the fossil-fuelled power stations, the emissions-spewing factories, the inefficient transport and buildings — are already contributing to the current high level of emissions, and will continue to do so for decades to come. Carbon dioxide, once released into the atmosphere, stays there and continues to have a warming effect for about a century, and industrial infrastructure is built to have a useful life of several decades at least.

Yet, despite intensifying warnings from scientists over the past two decades, the new infrastructure even now being built is constructed along the same lines as the old, which means that there is a “lock-in” effect — high-carbon infrastructure built today or in the next five years will contribute as much to the stock of emissions in the atmosphere as previous generations.

This “lock-in” effect is the single most important factor increasing the danger of runaway climate change, according to the IEA in its annual World Energy Outlook, published on Wednesday.

Fukushima effect

Climate scientists estimate that global warming of 2°C above pre-industrial levels marks the limit of safety, beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible. Though such estimates are necessarily imprecise — warming of as little as 1.5°C could cause dangerous sea level rises and an increased risk of extreme weather — the limit of 2°C is now inscribed in international accords, including the partial agreement signed at Copenhagen in 2009, by which the biggest developed and developing countries for the first time agreed to curb their greenhouse gas output.

Another factor likely to increase emissions is the decision by some governments to abandon nuclear energy, following the Fukushima incident in Japan early this year. “The shift away from nuclear worsens the situation,” said Birol. If countries turn away from nuclear energy, the result could be an increase in emissions equivalent to the current emissions of Germany and France combined. Much more investment in renewable energy will be required to make up the gap, but how that would come about is unclear at present.

Birol also warned that China — the world's biggest emitter — would have to take on a much greater role in combating climate change.

In addition, by 2035 at the latest, China's cumulative emissions since 1900 are likely to exceed those of the EU, which will further weaken Beijing's argument that developed countries should take on more of the burden of emissions reduction as they carry more of the responsibility for past emissions.

In a recent interview, China's top climate change official, Xie Zhenhua, called on developing countries to take a greater part in the talks, while insisting that developed countries must sign up to a continuation of the Kyoto protocol — something only the European Union is willing to do. His words were greeted cautiously by other participants in the talks.

The IEA's World Energy Outlook, published annually, provides the touchstone for global energy trends. This year's outlook is unusually gloomy, following one of the deepest recessions on record for the developed world.

The IEA said: “There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is under way. Although the recovery in the world economy since 2009 has been uneven, and future economic prospects remain uncertain, global primary energy demand rebounded by a remarkable five per cent in 2010, pushing CO{-2} emissions to a new high. Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400bn.” Meanwhile, an “unacceptably high” number of people — about 1.3bn — still lack access to electricity. If people are to be lifted out of poverty, this must be solved — but providing people with renewable forms of energy generation is still expensive. (Fiona Harvey is the environment correspondent.) — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2011