Energy and climate: a turning point looms
WORLD Bank president Jim Yong Kim told the Climate Action Summit in Washington in early May: ". . . if (Asia) implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished".
Dr Kim's concerns about current plans by China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam to build three-quarters of the world's new coal power plants by 2020 were widely reported. His frank departure from prepared remarks coincidentally follows research indicating that the world is on the brink of mean global warming beyond 2 degrees Celsius.
In April, Lindee Wong and her colleagues at Ecofys energy consultancy found that new high-efficiency low-emissions coal power plants - even with costly capture and storage technology to pump greenhouse-gas emissions deep underground - would push global warming beyond 2 Celsius.
The findings are cold comfort. In February, an Oxford University research team led by Alexander Pfeiffer concluded that for an even chance of staying below 2 Celsius, power plants built after 2017 must be zero-carbon. In other words, any coal or gas power plant built after 2017 must capture and store carbon emissions - an immature process not yet ready for thousands of planned fossil-fuel power plants.
If new power plants do not emit greenhouse gases, global warming may stay below 2 Celsius. Locally, however, in many places warming will nevertheless exceed 2 Celsius. Expect more of the soaring temperatures and drought experienced across much of South and Southeast Asia during 2016 . Beyond 2 Celsius, even more disruption is expected for food, water and security.
How the world responds to that risk has great implications for policy, planning and investment in energy, the primary source of industrial greenhouse-gas emissions. The question of fossil fuels, specifically coal, and the 2 Celsius goal poses the first litmus test for the values, ambitions and commitments of last December's Paris climate conference.
A global moratorium on new greenhouse gas-emitting fossil-fuel power plants from 2017 might do the trick. Concurrently, grants and cheap international loans will be essential to help countries cancelling fossil-fuel power plants rapidly develop energy efficiency, solar and wind power.
Technically, that's a challenge but doable for two reasons. One, China and India prove solar and wind power can be built quickly at scale. Two, the potential for industrial mobilisation similar to what was seen during World War Two. Carbon capture and nuclear power could play a bigger role if costs fall.
Politically, a moratorium looks like a tall order. But when the stakes are high, states can move swiftly. The global bailout of banks in 2008 is one example. Another is the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer - agreed just two years after discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985.
Remarkably, the effort to hasten decarbonisation of energy could quickly pay for itself. Co-benefits for health, prosperity and security may exceed the costs of scrapping fossil fuels, reckons the Global Commission for Economy and Climate. In 2014, fossil fuels caused harm costing nearly 50 times more than subsidies for renewable energy, calculated International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysts. That year, direct subsidies for fossil fuels were almost five times those for renewable energy, estimates the International Energy Agency (IEA).
On the other hand, if a moratorium remains out of reach, our prospects depend on how well we adapt to a warmer world - an endeavour clouded by uncertainty. The interdependencies and feedbacks between climate and food-providing ecosystems, societies and security are simply too complex and dynamic. Adaptation becomes harder as it becomes warmer.
Long-held design assumptions must be revisited to ensure electricity infrastructure performs as we need under an increasingly harsh climate. Engineering must pay greater attention to social stress, rising seas, and, most critically, competition for water. Adapting conventional approaches generally raises costs affecting risk and returns for investors committing to decades-long projects like electricity infrastructure.
Second-guessing global policy over the next few years and trying to figure out the best way to adapt new infrastructure may in any case be something of a fool's errand. Instead, planners and investors could fundamentally rethink electricity for the risks and returns of the 21st century. It is a golden opportunity in Asia where so much electricity infrastructure is yet to be built.
Energy efficiency, batteries, solar modules and wind turbines are less vulnerable to climate change impacts and policy than conventional alternatives. Costs for renewable-energy technologies are falling fast too, making for attractive investments, if policy is right, whether or not a moratorium comes to pass.
