We can probably agree that techno-industrial societies are utterly dependent on abundant cheap energy just to maintain themselves \u2014 and even more energy to grow. The simple\u00a0fact<\/a>\u00a0is that 84 per cent of the world\u2019s primary energy today is derived from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n It should be no surprise, then, that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the\u00a0greatest<\/a>\u00a0metabolic waste by weight produced by industrial economies. Climate change is a waste management problem!<\/p>\n Cheap fossil energy enabled the world to urbanize, and this process is continuing. The UN expects the urban population to rise to 6.7 billion \u2014 68 per cent of humanity \u2014 by 2050. There\u00a0will be<\/a>\u00a043 mega-cities with more than 10 million inhabitants each as early as 2030, mostly in China and other Asian countries.<\/p>\n Building out these and hundreds more large cities will require much of the remaining allowable carbon budget. Moreover, the current and future inhabitants of every modern city depend absolutely on the fossil-fuelled productivity of distant hinterlands and on fossil-fuelled transportation for their daily supplies of all essential resources, including water and food.<\/p>\n Fact:<\/strong> Urban civilization cannot exist without prodigious quantities of dependable energy.<\/p>\n All of which generates a genuine emergency. By 2018, the combustion of fossil fuel alone was\u00a0pumping<\/a>\u00a037.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Add to this the net carbon emissions from land clearing (soil oxidation) and more vigorous forest fires, and we can see why atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached an all-time high of 415 parts per billion in early 2019. This is 48 per cent above pre-industrial levels and concentrations are\u00a0rising<\/a>\u00a0exponentially.<\/p>\n And, of course, everyone with an active brain cell is aware that CO2 is the main human-related driver of global warming and associated climate change.<\/p>\n Cue the techno-optimists\u2019 chorus: \u201cNot to worry, all we have to do is transition to green renewable energy!\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, there is plenty of superficial support for the notion that green tech is our saviour. We are told repeatedly that the costs of providing renewable energy have fallen so low that it will soon be practically free. Australian professors Andrew Blakers and Matthew Stocks\u00a0say<\/a>\u00a0\u201cSolar photovoltaic and wind power are rapidly getting cheaper and more abundant \u2014 so much so that they are on track to entirely supplant fossil fuels worldwide within two decades.\u201d Luckily, the transition won\u2019t even take up much space: UC Berkeley professor Mehran Moalem\u00a0argues<\/a>\u00a0that \u201can area of the Earth 335 kilometres by 335 kilometres with solar panels… will provide more than 17.4 TW power…. That means 1.2 per cent of the Sahara desert is sufficient to cover all of the energy needs of the world in solar energy.\u201d (Someone should remind Prof. Moalem that, even if such an engineering feat were possible, a single sandstorm would bury the world\u2019s entire energy supply.)<\/p>\n The first problem with such claims is that despite rapid growth in wind and solar generation, the green energy transition is\u00a0not really<\/a>\u00a0happening. The chart below shows that in most recent years (except 2009, following the 2008 global financial crisis), the uptick in global demand for electrical energy exceeded the total output of the world\u2019s entire 30-year accumulation of solar power installations. Between 2017 and 2018, the demand increase\u00a0outpaced<\/a>\u00a0total solar supply by 60 per cent; two years\u2019 demand increase absorbs the entire output of solar and wind power combined.<\/p>\n The annual increase in demand for electricity exceeds the entire output of photovoltaic electricity installations.\u00a0Graph courtesy of Pedro Prieto, with permission.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n As long as the growth in demand\u00a0exceeds<\/a>\u00a0additions to supply from renewables, the latter cannot displace fossil fuels even in electricity generation \u2014 and remember, electricity is still less than 20 per cent of total energy consumption, with the rest being supplied mostly by fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Nor is any green transition likely to be cheap. The cost of land is\u00a0substantial<\/a>\u00a0and, while the price of solar panels and wind turbines have declined dramatically, this is independent of the high costs\u00a0associated<\/a>\u00a0with transmission, grid stabilization and systems maintenance. Consistently reliable wind and solar electricity\u00a0requires<\/a>\u00a0integrating these sources into the grid using battery or pumped hydro storage, back-up generation sources (e.g., gas turbines, cruise-ship scale internal combustion engines, etc.) and meeting other challenges that\u00a0make<\/a>\u00a0it more expensive.<\/p>\n Also problematic is the fact that wind\/solar energy is not really renewable. In practice, the life expectancy of a wind turbine may be less than 15 years. Solar panels may last a few years longer but with declining efficiency, so both turbines and panels have to be replaced regularly at great financial, energy and environmental cost. Consider that building a typical wind turbine requires 817 energy-intensive tonnes of steel, 2,270 tonnes of concrete and 41 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic. Solar power also requires large quantities of cement, steel and glass as well as various rare earth metals.<\/p>\n World demand for rare-earth elements \u2014 and Earth-destroying mining and refining \u2014 would\u00a0rise<\/a>\u00a0300 per cent to 1,000 per cent by 2050 just to meet the Paris goals. Ironically, the mining, transportation, refining and manufacturing of material inputs to the green energy solution would be powered mainly by fossil fuels (and we\u2019d still have to replace all the machinery and equipment currently running on oil and gas with their electricity-powered equivalents, also using fossil fuel). In short, even if the energy transition were occurring as advertised, it would not necessarily be reflected in declining CO2 emissions.<\/p>\n If we\u00a0divide<\/a>\u00a02018 into energy segments, oil, coal and natural gas powered the globe for 309 out of 365 days, hydro and nuclear energy gave us 41 days, and non-hydro renewables (solar panels, wind turbines, biomass) a mere 15 days. If the race is towards a decarbonized finish line by 2050, we\u2019re still pretty much stalled at the gate.<\/p>\n Fact:<\/strong> Despite the hype about the green energy revolution and enhanced efficiency, the global community in 2019 remains addicted to fossil energy and no real cure is on the horizon.<\/p>\n As I say, please do tell me I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n Question 2: Human nature and our methods of governance are proving incapable of saving the world. We need to \u2018get real\u2019 about climate science. Am I wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n Remember the self-congratulatory hubbub following \u201csuccessful\u201d negotiation of the Paris climate accord in 2015? Was all that ebullient optimism justified?<\/p>\n Consider that in the past 50 years, there have been 33 climate conferences and a half dozen such major international agreements \u2014 Kyoto, Copenhagen and Paris the most recent \u2014 but none has produced even a dimple in the curve of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations.<\/p>\n And things are not about to change dramatically. The 2019 Energy Information Administration\u00a0International Energy Outlook<\/em>\u00a0reference case projects global energy consumption to increase 45 per cent by 2050. On the plus side, renewables are projected to grow by more than 150 per cent, but, consistent with the trend I rudely pointed out yesterday, the overall increase in demand for energy is\u00a0expected<\/a>\u00a0to be greater than the total contribution from all renewable sources combined.<\/p>\n Fact:<\/strong> Without a massive rapid course correction, CO2 emissions will continue to climb. This threatens humanity with ecological and social catastrophe as much of Earth becomes uninhabitable.<\/p>\n Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas increases have already boosted global temperature by approximately 1 Celsius degree, mostly since 1980. Climate scientists tell us that the world is currently on track to experience 3 to 5 Celsius degrees warming. Five-degree warming would be catastrophic, likely fatal to civilized existence. Even a \u201cmodest\u201d 3 degrees implies disaster \u2014 enough to inundate coastlines, empty megacities, destroy economies and destabilize geopolitics.<\/p>\n Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change therefore\u00a0committed<\/a>\u00a0in 2015 to hold the rise in global average temperatures to \u201cwell below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.\u201d<\/p>\n But don\u2019t relax just yet. Those commitments made in Paris \u2014 the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs \u2014 comprise only a third of the reductions needed to limit warming to 2 degrees. Even if fully met, they put us on track for a potentially catastrophic 3+ Celsius degrees mean global warming.<\/p>\n Systems dynamics confounds the issue. There is a decades-long lag between GHG cause and warming effect because of ocean thermal inertia \u2014 the seas absorb 90 per cent of accumulating heat but warm slowly, keeping atmospheric temperatures down. Even if held constant, present GHG concentrations\u00a0commit<\/a>\u00a0the world to an additional 0.3 to 0.8 degrees Celsius warming this century, enough to overshoot the 1.5 degree limit.<\/p>\n The rise of C02 in the atmosphere has continued unabated for 60 years, regardless of policies by countries and the UN said to address climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n There are more reasons to be concerned. Recent analyses\u00a0suggest<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cbiogeophysical feedback processes\u201d tied to such processes as permafrost melting, methane hydrate releases and the destruction of tropical and boreal forests may accelerate a cascade of feedbacks pushing the planet irreversibly onto a \u201cHothouse Earth\u201d pathway.<\/p>\n To meet the Paris challenge of keeping the mean global temperature increase to less than 2 Celsius degrees means cutting CO2 emissions to almost half of 2010 levels and doing so by 2030. It also means completely decarbonizing the economy by 2050.<\/p>\n This, in turn, implies whole-sale transformations of social and physical communities and dramatic changes in material life-styles.<\/p>\n However, the current pace of shift away from fossil fuels and lower energy consumption is not remotely adequate. In fact, global energy use and carbon emissions are rising<\/a>\u00a0exponentially at the same rate they were four decades ago.<\/p>\n Which presents a conundrum: Reducing fossil fuel use on a vastly sped-up schedule, in the absence of adequate substitutes and a comprehensive wind-down plan, would soon produce some combination of inadequate energy supplies, broken supply lines, reduced production, declining incomes, rising inequality, widespread unemployment, food and other resource shortages, at least local famines, civil unrest, abandoned cities, mass migrations, collapsed economies and geopolitical chaos.<\/p>\n What politician is likely to let this scenario unfold? Would the public tolerate it?<\/p>\n As economists have long recognized, humans are spatial, temporal and social discounters \u2014 we naturally favour the here and now, and close relatives and friends, over distant places, merely possible futures and total strangers. Under what circumstances would hundreds of millions of people in scores of countries with disparate political philosophies and political ideologies \u2014 people who currently enjoy the \u201cgood life\u201d \u2014 be induced simultaneously to risk wrecking their comfortable lives to stave off a climate or eco-crisis that many are not convinced is happening and, even if it is, it is perceived likely mainly to affect other people somewhere else?<\/p>\n And keep in mind, the world is committed to accommodating several additional billions who have yet to join the energy-addicted consumer party but are pounding on the door to be let in.<\/p>\n It gets worse. Neoliberal economics is ecologically blind. Even Nobel laureate economists\u00a0argue<\/a>\u00a0that we must maintain allegiance to growth and the illusion of \u201crescue-by-technology\u201d so the next generation has the wealth and techno-mechanics to mitigate the consequences of climate change. Consistent with this illusory reasoning, many national and corporate leaders\u00a0interpret<\/a>\u00a0the threat of climate chaos as an investment opportunity.<\/p>\n Politically acceptable approaches to reducing carbon emissions discussed at climate talks include technical and organizational capacity-building, wind turbines, various solar technologies, \u201csmart city\u201d infrastructure, electric vehicles, urban rapid transit, yet-to-be-developed carbon capture and storage and other \u201cclimate-safe technologies\u201d \u2014 i.e., anything that would require major investment\u00a0and create so-called green jobs\u00a0(read \u201cfurther economic growth and\u00a0profit-making potential\u201d).<\/p>\n Not on the table are ecological tax reform (beyond investment incentives and carbon taxes), structural changes to the economy that would lower consumer demand and reduce\u00a0energy and material throughput, policies for income\/wealth redistribution, major lifestyle changes or strategies to reduce human populations.<\/p>\n Perversely then, policy for climate disaster-avoidance seems designed to serve the capitalist growth economy and make the latter appear as the solution rather than cause of the problem. \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d as University of Vienna public policy professor Clive Spash\u00a0points out<\/a>, \u201cmany environmental non-governmental organisations have\u00a0bought<\/a>\u00a0into this illogical reasoning.\u201d (Note that many NGOs are dependent on the corporate sector for financial support.)<\/p>\n And this is why the international community \u2014 despite the Paris accord, Greta Thunberg, climate strikes and mass public protests \u2014 seems determined to stay its growth-driven fossil-fuelled course.<\/p>\n In these circumstances, the world can anticipate more and longer heat waves\/droughts, desertification, tropical deforestation, melting permafrost, methane releases, regional water shortages, failing agriculture, regional famines, rising sea levels, the flooding (and eventual loss) of many coastal communities, abandonment of over-heated cities, civil unrest, mass migrations, collapsed economies and possible geopolitical chaos.<\/p>\n Where does Canada fit into all this?<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s Mid-Century Long-Term Low-Greenhouse Gas Development Strategy<\/em>\u00a0explores<\/a>\u00a0six model approaches supposedly being explored by the federal government to meet Canada\u2019s Paris agreement emissions reductions commitments (net emissions falling 80 per cent from 2005 levels by 2050).<\/p>\n Energy analyst Dave Hughes estimates that, on average, these schemes would require construction of 37,000 two-megawatt wind turbines, 100 Site-C-sized hydroelectric dams and 59 one-gigawatt nuclear reactors. Average cost all in? More than $1.5 trillion.<\/p>\n No such plan is likely ever to be implemented. Instead, Ottawa has bought a pipeline. In fact, both the federal and B.C. governments are firmly on the go-with-carbon team.<\/p>\n Eleven steps<\/strong><\/p>\n So, where\u00a0might<\/em>\u00a0we go from here? A rational world with a good grasp of reality would have begun articulating a long-term wind-down strategy 20 or 30 years ago. The needed global emergency plan would certainly have\u00a0included<\/a>\u00a0most of the 11 realistic responses to the climate crisis listed below \u2014 which, even if implemented today would at least slow the coming unravelling. And no, the currently proposed\u00a0Green New Deal<\/a>\u00a0won\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n Here, then, is what an\u00a0effective<\/em>\u00a0\u201cGreen New Deal\u201d might look like:<\/p>\n 1. Formal recognition of the end of material growth and the need to\u00a0reduce<\/em>\u00a0the human ecological footprint;<\/p>\n 2. Acknowledgement that, as long as we remain in overshoot \u2014 exploiting essential ecosystems faster than they can regenerate \u2014 sustainable production\/consumption means less production\/consumption;<\/p>\n 3. Recognition of the theoretical and practical difficulties\/impossibility of an all-green quantitatively equivalent energy transition;<\/p>\n 4. Assistance to communities, families and individuals to facilitate the adoption of sustainable lifestyles (even North Americans lived happily on half the energy per capita in the 1960s that we use today);<\/p>\n 5. Identification and implementation of strategies (e.g., taxes, fines) to encourage\/force individuals and corporations to eliminate unnecessary fossil fuel use and reduce energy waste (half or more of energy \u201cconsumed\u201d is\u00a0wasted<\/a>\u00a0through inefficiencies and carelessness);<\/p>\n 6. Programs to retrain the workforce for constructive employment in the new survival economy;<\/p>\n 7. Policies to restructure the global and national economies to remain within the remaining \u201callowable\u201d carbon budget while developing\/improving sustainable energy alternatives;<\/p>\n 8. Processes to allocate the remaining carbon budget (through rationing, quotas, etc.) fairly to essential uses only, such as food production, space\/water heating, inter-urban transportation;<\/p>\n 9. Plans to reduce the need for interregional transportation and increase regional resilience by re-localizing essential economic activity (de-globalization);<\/p>\n 10. Recognition that equitable sustainability requires fiscal mechanisms for income\/wealth redistribution;<\/p>\n 11. A global population strategy to enable a smooth descent to the two to three billion that could live comfortably indefinitely within the biophysical means of nature.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat? A\u00a0deliberate<\/em>\u00a0contraction? That\u2019s not going to happen!\u201d I hear you say. And you are probably correct. It should by now be clear that\u00a0H. sapiens<\/em>\u00a0is not primarily a rational species.<\/p>\n![\"582px](\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Analysis\/2019\/11\/10\/EnergyDemandChart.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"582px](\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Analysis\/2019\/11\/11\/AtmosphericCO2Graph.png\")
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