Why delay matters

phill Parsons The plan and the reality — what it means for delaying action to move beyond zero carbon emissions

The reality for power generators on the mainland is that the water needed to operate the Snowy hydro and coal fired power stations is in short supply. The reality in Tasmania is that despite rain dam levels remain at below 20%.

For both hydro systems, refill of depleted storages depends on good snowfall and that has become less likely with further dangerous climate change. It has been some years since the hydro system had reserves in storage to meet the needs of low rainfall precipitation years. Snowfall in the temperate zone has shown a decreasing trend in periodicity and volume. Snow dependent hydro systems are loosing their dependability.

Snowy hydro is important in meeting peak load and coal for supplying base load. The interrelationship between water and power supply is one that exposes the so called advanced economy to the dangers climate change is presenting now and that are predicted to become worse, to wit reduced precipitation in SE Australia.

Another coal fired power station could be built for $7B, adding to the infrastructure cost of climate change whilst not reducing the dangers it presents.

No mention of recycling the water used in coal fired power stations, a process that is already in place in some newer power stations in drier climates such as the Redhawk Power Plant in Arizona that discharges no water to the environment.

Input water is treated effluent from Palo Verde.

In some systems water is pumped up into storage from a capture dam and reused on demand. This is probably only viable as a practice with extraordinarily cheap low carbon energy and where the water does not have other downstream uses such as for irrigation [the Snowy] or environmental flow [Tasmania].

Important in changing the forms of energy Australians use is some form of cost being attributed to carbon emissions.

If that attribution system is going to be carbon trading, where a cap is set [and should reduce over an announced time period to a known point] and an initial price allocated then that should, provided the cap is low enough to make the price paid for offsetting emissions by investing in alternative power generation worthwhile, make those investments occur and thus promote a change to sustainable energy sources.

Of course there are slips between cup and lip in this and the major one to watch out for is where the cost of emitting carbon is too low and so is just passed on to the consumer rather than stimulating the investment in alternative power sources. That will be one measure of whether a carbon trading program is a scam or a real attempt at driving change.

Other mechanisms can also stimulate alternative energy production. Tunisia’s national solar water heating program could be replicated here through a loans scheme. The capital lies in not having to build those $7B new power stations and the freed up generating capacity as each state would use the sun to meet domestic and some industrial demand.

SA has already commenced such a program going beyond the easy being green shower head and light globe initiative of NSW where the coal industry unions constrain the Labor party from taking a large low carbon actions to produce stationary energy,.

Further loans or a buy back scheme to encourage solar cell [photovoltaic] generation is another measure immediately available.

Instead the Sydney Morning Herald [Editorial 19MAY07] takes the scare approach about householders loosing the air conditioner. When its hot the sun also shines, and therefore house cooled by generating its own electricity from solar cells on the roof can more easily withstand the higher night temperatures following such a day and, if necessary, can use some coal generated, or better still wind generated, energy at night, an almost perfect synergy.

All that is needed is a buy back scheme for any surplus power and there will be a shortage of solar cell manufacturing and installation capacity overnight. In England opinion polls and applications to schemes supplying alternative energy systems show people want action, and where they feel they can afford it, are taking it themselves.

But enough, the technology is there but the price signal and the loan assistance programs are due to a failure to understand the immediacy of the threat of further dangerous climate change.

I note Plantagenet’s comment. Cassandra Wilkinson [Australian 11-12MAY07] believes more free market will solve the climate change problem once the juggernaught of capital gets a price signal. She also wishes to spread fear that there is some inexorable link between minor socialist parties and the Greens instead of actually addressing the problem.

As I advised readers, and Sumby posts an example on the Global Warming reports; http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php/weblog/comments/global-warming1/

the rate of growth of carbon is on an upward curve due to the failure of natural systems to absorb and sink carbon. Natural systems will reverse under the pressures of changing temperature and rainfall patterns releasing both carbon and methane and ocean acidification will close down that major carbon sink, if we continue on this unsustainable path.

The recently released predictive work of the IPCC has not factored this current knowledge about the Southern Ocean from the work of the British Antarctic Survey into its deliberations.

Deniers from the Fourth Estate, like Ackerman and Ford [The Advocate] will doubtless fail to understand this as they fail to understand all the other evidence, building their lala land explanations for the dangers that their readers will find coming closer as time passes, robbing them of all credibility.

The trouble with denying the evidence is that the activities we may or may not undertake in an attempt to avoid danger may pass the point where, whether we finally decide to take them, can influence the outcome and unavoidable catastrophic climate destabilization will result, making living through a tornado, a hurricane or a drought seem like a picnic.

Of course, that is if anyone is able to live in the areas so affected, the area between 40dS and 40d N [Melbourne, San Francisco and Beijing if you wish to consider the impact in terms of our hemisphere].

One failure in selecting what the scenario that is used to guide mitigation and adaptation strategies is that the current consensus view of the IPCC is failing to take into account the feedbacks that current research is warning us of. We will have to wait until 2012 for another report and that will be then a year out of date.

The only way to avoid the catastrophes that result in the current business as usual path is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below zero in the near term, using the best of the existing technologies, as we move forward to meet this goal within a decade or 2 at the outside.

This is well outside most reduction targets although the recommended range includes a 90% reduction in emissions. Perhaps achievable with a long lead time, certainly not if the conversion of the economy is being conducted in a world under going natural services failures where rain dependent agriculture is left without and every time we move to make the means of solving the problem such as a solar cell we are pumping out more greenhouse gas.

Yes, Australia will have to close its coal industry, as will the rest of the world, only to reopen, if ever, with zero emission coal fired power stations, something that may be possible to transit to in a decade, but appears unlikely given the coal industries position of denial and incapacity to co-operate.

Liquid fossil fuels have to also go, Australia may not be able to move to biofuels from crops before nt drought determines the future productivity of farming, electric cars run on the current coal are out although solar or wind is suitable.

Coal and oil may remain sources of materials such as plastics and detergents but burning them and emitting the carbon contained therin must cease.

The approach to change will have start with an admission that we have been at war with the systems that sustain us and we have to reconstruct the economy, our lives and our environment to survive.

Impacts will be massive, but unlike the impact of catastrophic climate destabilization, it should be possible to plan a way through such changes.

Otherwise what is the point of our supposed ingenuity and our accumulated treasure if it is to be fritted away in worship of a vested interest that is unable to save itself and threatens all life.

Rapid action on climate change mitigation is an important response to the prospective risks of induced climate change. The possibilities for climate change mitigation through the adoption of low carbon technologies are now well known, technologically proven and economically costed.

Without such an approach temperature will continue to rise and impacts such as the melt Greenlands’s Ice Cap will continue. It is melting now and whilst temperatures remain above the normative range the whole will decline to nothing. The time frame of that melt being important in determining when sea level rises to 6m.

It was only a few months ago that the results of other research by the British Antartic Survey shows that the Antarctic is also melting and the contribution from that source at current rates will almost double the Greenland Ice Cap’s contribution. Indeed it must be serious, they haven’t taken this messenger out and shot them.

The results of the research into the changes in the Southern Ocean’s climate are a further explanation for the sudden rise in GHG remaining in the atmosphere rather than sunk by natural systems. Have a look at this carbon cycle to see how natural systems act currently. There are others but they largely accord

http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag97.htm

You can then see what scales of impact result in a continuing and further failure of natural systems to sequester carbon. The Oceans current take up about 1.9Gigatons of a CO2 whilst we emit 5.4Gt. Land takes up about 0.2Gt.

If you can find a model giving a warming value of about 20 you will see it is well outside what food production can tolerate between the 40d latitudes given the type of weather a super heated world [~+16.7dC] would have.[Such a change would also see all ice gaps melt and sea level rise by about 80m along with the associated tectonic changes caused by a redistribution of the weights on the earth’s plates].

It is the feedbacks that result from us overloading the natural systems of sequestration that will determine the time frame for ice cap melt, for the release of stored carbon from forests and soils and for the ocean to die, releasing more carbon if we continue to burn fossil fuels when we should have dismissed all the fossil fools.

One of the problems for government and business is maintaining our confidence that something can be done. However, evidence is accumulating that the relative inaction in some areas and slow paced action in others is insufficient. Maintaining confidence within a nation will be difficult if climate change appears to exceed the measures meant to stop it crossing to catastrophe.

Indeed it is a concern for this tocsin sounder as research shows that people can loose confidence in their ability to change the outcome through their own actions and lead to a malaise of inaction by those who can choose the energy conserving light globe, the solar water heater or taking public transport right now.

Howard is considering a carbon trading scheme and is slated to make an announcement in June and perhaps another in September.

Shanahan in the Australian [19MAY07] flags Howard is working on a deal for the AP6 [Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate] where it is reported that bilateral agreements will see carbon trading between the member countries in a deal about climate change.

Of course the main danger to the planet and thus itself, the USA under the current regime has a different view. And so Howard may find himself caught out of step as another friend of Bush, the retiring Tony Blair, has.

From today’s Independent [19May]

“Harlan Watson, President Bush’s chief climate negotiator, rejected any caps on US emissions or participation in carbon trading. “That’s not our agenda,” he said.

Leading scientists and policy makers have been meeting in Germany over the past two weeks to lay the foundations for a new international agreement – a “son of Kyoto”, the landmark protocol [hopefully]designed to reduce harmful emissions of greenhouse gases.

…the US delegation to Bonn was scotching any prospect of the emissions caps and carbon trading that are needed to realise the rhetoric. “We don’t believe targets and timetables are important, or a global cap and trade system,” he said. “It’s important not to jeopardise economic growth.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity a senior climate negotiator, party to the talks, said that the US was even stalling progress on negotiations on a successor to Kyoto which had been due to get under way at a summit in Bali later this year.

“We were not expecting a big change of stance but we need them to stop obstructing all progress across the board,” said the source.

But once again Mr Watson, described off-the-record by international colleagues as a “climate change dinosaur”, said it would be “premature” to open talks on amending the rules of how Kyoto works, a vital step to extending the pact which expires in 2012.

There is now a broad consensus that markets – in the form of a globally regulated trade in carbon – are the way to achieve the reductions in emissions. However, the US delegation has this week insisted that further technical work is needed before talks can begin on a son-of-Kyoto agreement, a move that could delay any progress for a further year.

Such a delay could be disastrous for efforts to halt deforestation, which was highlighted this week in The Independent as one of the main causes of global warming. The world’s forests, which are being destroyed to feed our markets with cheap timber, palm oil, soya and beef, contain twice as much CO2 as that already in the atmosphere but were not included in the Kyoto agreement. The Bonn meetings had been intended to make the first step to creating incentives to halt that destruction.

Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists, said: “This is a climate change cop-out. America must stop using technical objections to obstruct the process and concentrate on visionary means of reaching our goal. Each year that agreement is not reached raises the stakes on global warming and is a tragedy for the world’s rainforests with a further 8 billion tonnes of CO2 and biodiversity going up in smoke.””

Judgment has to be reserved on any scheme for carbon trading the Howard proposes, regional or national although from the above it looks as though the $200M proposal to save tropical rainforest as carbon sinks has at least suffered a delay at the hand of a major player at the AP6.

We can be assured that climate change will remain high on the national political agenda and that the election will not be before the September meeting of AP6

Surely I don’t have to argue it, the inheritor of the robes of Ming will want to strut at least one more time, even if the skirt trails, and if there is a major payback in statesmanship then the wait will be well worth it.

If Dennis Shanahan, the Australian’s political reporter, is right about Howard’s proposed

regional carbon trading agreement at the AP6 it must be one of the most prescient guesses of the year. He is predicting a change in the US stance on global warming at a time when Howard faces the biggest test of his leadership. If correct this can only be from inside knowledge on a done deal.

The primary issue now is not ‘how much do low carbon technologies cost?’, but ‘how is the massive investment of the next decade to be directed towards low carbon technologies?’

This is what will drive a change by business and their political representatives, a bucket of money as that pig meat investor, Keating, once described it in relation to state Premiers.

Such investment will be necessary in buildings, transport, industrial processes and energy systems and new thinking will be needed to ensure such investment flows in ways that will stimulate innovation and reduce costs, while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A delay of just 5 years matters. A delay of global action by 10 years nearly doubles the required reduction rates around 2025. The impacts associated with overshooting 450ppm CO2 eq, on current rates of GHG growth where we will be by 2016, will be felt by those living in the 2040’s.

Decisions impacting that far into the future must be governed by comprehensive, effective and timely action, not the whims of an undirected free market, and thus government has a really important role in seeing the opportunity is not squandered in a feeding frenzy going nowhere.

phill Parsons asks something of the national media, especially the public broadcaster.

So with climate change high on that agenda and with its impacts evidenced as so potentially devastating why is it that the national media, private and public, continue the fiction that there are only 2 horses running in the political race.

Is it that they believe democracy cannot manage more choice’s or is it that they believe their readers , listeners and viewers would be confused and so they are acting in the national interest.

I can understand between elections that newsworthiness determines coverage.

However in an election period coverage of all the alternatives for a national government should be based on more than the old paradigm prevailing since before Federation.

The paradigm of the early colonial period has not been maintained or Labor, being neither Whig or Tory, would have no voice.

Therefore, if this is to be a modern democracy, parties seeking national leadership by standing a full range of candidates, and with other measures of popularity such as some representation at other levels of government and a degree of opinion poll support, should get equal coverage.

Whilst I can understand a media business owner having choice in who they support and how they cover certain parties I fail to see how the public broadcaster, the ABC, can continue the fiction of a two party state, and claim to represent the principles of a modern liberal democracy, when they limit the field of coverage after the polls are called.

Are we, the voters, too simple or simply untrustworthy with the affairs of state.

PS; The day following Turnbull denied a deal would be done at the September AP6. If they are to continue true to form they will announce the commencement of negotiations to develop a regional carbon trading scheme as an attempt to derail a second round to the Kyoto agreement.

Some Figures for experts on denial to dispute

Current level of greenhouse gases in CO2 equivalents 432ppmv [Tyndall Climate Change Center].

Average rate of growth 2001 – 2005 2.2ppmv.

Year pass agreed danger point [450ppm IPCC] about 2016 on current trends. After this some 15 to 40% of all species go extinct disturbing long established equilibriums in natural systems, effect unknown.

Year range temperature reaches 2dC above pre industrial global average 2046-2056.

This global average increase will have regional differences. For example at 0.8dC warming for all Britain, Central England was 1.5dC average warmer, almost double. [University of East Anglia]

On current trends time that the 550ppmv CO2 eq [3dC assured] level is reached 2066 on the current business as usual path, forcing temperatures to reach catastrophic levels by about 2100.

Proviso; that further failures in natural carbon sinks do not exacerbate the trend such as the modeled release of soil carbon that follows the changes in the modeled climate in the Amazon predicted for 2030 [Hadley Center, UK Met Office]