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Source: ONE News -
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Dr Hansen wants coal left in the ground, to save the world, for
future generations. However, it is Dr Elder's job to dig it up, to
grow the cake: most of the world, he says, which is poor, has a
right to a share of our wealth (and we can get richer, too).
I thought I heard Elder crying out for help, in a way, because,
until someone tells him not to, he has no choice but to try to dig
up any and all coal he can find. If he doesn't, Solid Energy's
competitors will.
Coal-fired emissions are 43 per cent of global emissions. If we
don't tackle coal, in short, as the
Institute of Policy Studies and friends spent
Tuesday doing, the emissions cuts project is extinct, along with a
whole lot else.
Dr James Hansen, "grandfather" of climate science, who took the
science to the US congress 20 years or so ago, gave the keynote
speech.
The UN has an atmospheric CO2 target of 450 ppm, for a 'safe' level
of 2 degrees C global warming - with a 50% probability of staying
beneath that level: a throw of the dice. Countries' emissions cut
pledges (like our '50 by 50') are inadequate, and will overshoot;
but that, according to Hansen, isn't the real bad news.
In his view, the science demands a goal of 345 ppm atmospheric CO2,
this century, to stabilise the climate. The current level is 390
ppm. His view on a 'safe' level of warming is more in the region of
1 degree C.
His mission these days is doggedly explaining why, over and over
again: laying out, piece by piece, the evidence for human-induced
climate change, and all the other bits of the puzzle, that point to
'350 by 50'.
If fossil emissions stopped today (or actually, in January, last
January), atmospheric levels would peak, then begin to drop, and
the target would be achieved in around 2050. If they ceased after
2050 - roughly, the UN goal - atmospheric CO2 would peak at over
500 ppm, and drop back eventually to the 450 ppm target. That sees
global temperatures rising to unsafe, unprecedented (for humans)
levels, and persisting there for more than a century.
Hansen therefore argues that it is not just about getting to the
target, but when, without exceeding tipping points, like ice loss
at the Poles, and release of frozen methane from the tundra. Both
paleoclimatology, and contemporary ice melt measures, already show
us in the red, if you like - pushing the danger zone.
He says it is not too late. It can be done, he thinks, if we act
fast, with emissions cuts starting now, and reforestation, but not
if we continue burning fossil fuel.
He calculates our remaining carbon budget would be spent, by
burning all conventional oil and gas reserves. We must, he insists,
leave coal, or as much coal as possible, and unconventional oil
(eg, lignite, tar sands) in the ground.
The International Energy Agency backs him up, saying that the limit
on coal is not scarcity, it's how to reconcile its use with the
growing global momentum to stabilise (and reduce, as per Hansen)
atmospheric greenhouse gases.
According to economist Geoff Bertram, the entire debate hinges on
whether carbon capture and storage, to sequester emissions from
coal, "is a complete fairy story". It does all hinge on that, and
about half of Tuesday was about it, but I am parking it, because Dr
Elder gave such an informative talk, and Bertram's "hard
constraints" were more fun. CCS would need regulation, too, so the
basic point I'm about to make is the same.
Elder was reminded how, six years ago, he assured us CCS technology
was just around the corner. Well, he said, it was. Still is; about
where it's been for thirty years, as others remarked. It's a tricky
corner, he said.
Geoff Bertram laid out some "economists' ground rules" for picking
projects. They included full social cost-benefit analysis; and
fully costing environmental and other externalities, like strategic
risks. He talked about the "risk of hitting global energy policy
coming the other way", having sunk billions of dollars in stranded
assets, for lignite conversion.
By contrast,
see posts here and
here on Solid Energy's Southland lignite
approach.
Examples of economic costs being ignored might be those of floods,
droughts and storms, or delaying adaptation (as per Lord Stern, et
al). An example of a strategic cost was supplied later in the day,
by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright: "The
Chinese look at us, and say well, you're quite rich. If you won't
stop burning coal, why in the world should we?"
If you really want to harness the power of capitalism, Bertram
said, to revolutionise the economy, as we must, that depends on
"hard constraints", like Roosevelt's war-time prohibition on
auto-manufacture. Hard constraints force capitalists to innovate,
and find new market solutions. That is the beauty of the market,
and the whole reason it exists - for individuals to think
creatively, in their different ways.
The market will work best, in short, if for some things we make a
policy decision to just say "no".
Elder, however, wanted all of the options on the table, and a smart
public conversation about them, at the end of which people would
say "yes".
He wanted us to grasp the amount of wealth at stake; and, I'm sure,
he was happy that we'd heard about the tiny size of New Zealand's
coal resource (and pollution risk), in world terms. His motive was
twofold - humanitarian, as well as profit-driven; his starting
point developing countries' right to develop, using coal.
He said we're responsible not just to ourselves, but future
generations, and the developing world. I think he meant - this is
my summing up, not his words, but you didn't have to look very far
between the lines - the responsibility of us all, to get
rich.
He reiterated Solid Energy's definition of sustainable business
practice, and its undertaking to meet global environmental
"commitments". It was framed in the language of "commitments",
instead of "moral obligations", say, or simply "what the science
requires".
He referred at one point to the ETS, to describe his stance on
regulation. He himself wouldn't do the job that way; if a
government felt that an objective was sufficiently important, to
justify such a cumbersome scheme, it ought to simply
regulate.
Pressed on what his commitment to environmental responsibility
actually meant, he said it was naïve to expect that he could
or would bind future boards and shareholders, by promising to
permanently sequester all carbon. (As opposed to, presumably,
binding future
boards and shareholders by sinking billions into plant, which would
be a different thing entirely.)
Solid Energy has, according to Bertram, told the ETS review panel
in its submission that 'fugitive emissions' (such as venting
methane out of coal mines) should be exempt from the scheme,
because to include them would be a hazard to safe practice, using
Pike River as an example.
Jeanette Fitzsimons, from the floor, asked what might the venue be,
for that kind of intelligent, open public conversation, since she
very much wanted one too, and agreed it was exactly what was
required?
Partial accounts of the day's events - like this very blog, I
daresay - would not be helpful, Elder said, sternly. He had been
advised against attending the forum, but it was no part of his
brief to duck that kind of responsibility.
There were good reasons, he asserted, for Solid Energy's lawyers to
write to the Southland local authorities, asking for their
briquetting pilot plant resource consents to proceed non-notified
it was "no different, really, to you building a deck in your back
yard".
There were reasons, too, for withholding information from the PCE,
for her lignite report (though she worked it out by herself, in the
end). It was "immoral" for Dr Hansen to come down to New Zealand
and start telling us what to do. Other audience questions got a
gruff report, for being asked too slowly, or too long.
For a man who exhorted us to nuanced open-minded conversation, it
was shame then, that he went on to characterise his opponents as
follows, in big letters, on powerpoint: "no mining in national
parks", NIMBY, and BANANA.
Read more articles at pundit.co.nz
