World Energy Outlook

Bracing For Disappointment As Durban Climate Talks Begin

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The annual circus round of global climate talks starts on Monday in South Africa. I wish I was feeling more optimistic about the possibility of elected politicians to come to an agreement that would preserve an admittedly changed, but still relatively stable climate, for future generations. As the IEA reminded us recently, we have five years left. If nothing changes by 2017, if we don’t revolutionize energy systems, if  countries can’t agree on a global climate deal, global warming will breach the 2 degrees Celsius barrier and we will be locked into runaway climate change.

As I type this, I’m bracing myself to listen to our federal “Environment” Minister Peter Kent on CBC radio’s The House. Sure enough, he starts by bashing the Kyoto Accord, and then goes on to cover Canada’s inaction on climate change with the fig leaf of wanting “all the world’s emitters” to be part of an agreement. The Kyoto Accord, as Evan Solomon points out, was a binding agreement, unlike Copenhagen. In response, Mr. Kent feels that Canada is “well on its way” to meeting its (unacceptably low) 2020 targets. Then he pulls out that old chestnut, that Canada represents only 2% of the world’s emissions (yes, Minister Kent, but we emit much more per capita than any other country except Australia). He doesn’t have a plan to reveal on how Canada will meet the rest of the (unacceptably low) 2020 targets, but says they will be revealed “over time”.  The federal environment watchdog has pointed out that the federal government’s approach is disjointed, but Mr. Kent defends the Harper government’s piecemeal, half-hearted approach. In conclusion, Mr. Kent’s ideal outcome for the Durban conference is for a “modest” but non-binding agreement that includes “all emitters”.  Not surprising that this environment minister, who doesn’t understand what ozone is yet has slashed funding for this crucial environmental monitoring, also doesn’t have a clue about the urgency of the climate crisis (although you’d think he’d at least read the International Energy Agency’s reports, coming as it does from a petroleum industry watchdog, as opposed to anything that scientists or environmentalists produce which Kent’s ideological bent would disallow).

I fear what we will see in Durban is many politicians but few leaders, even as we teeter closer to the precipice of global climate catastrophe.

Durban COP17 Resources:

Allianz Knowledge, an insurance and financial giant, has excellent resources for understanding climate change in general, and the U.N. climate talks in general: Knowledge.Allianz.com

Are Durban Climate Talks Worth the Bother?

Politicians Need To Listen To the People, Not the Polluters

The House: November 26, 2011

Hamilton: Fiscal Challenges? Maybe It’s Time To Reconsider a Carbon Tax

International Energy Agency: Rising Fossil Energy Use Will Lead To Irreversible & Potentially Catastrophic Climate Change

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The International Energy Agency released the 2011 World Energy Outlook yesterday.  What is almost as interesting as the report itself is the coverage of it in the MSM.

Here’s a summary of the report by the IEA itself in this video featuring Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency. At 2:49 of this summary Mr. Birol says

“Climate change: a crucial topic for the WEO. Then we look at the infrastructure of the energy sector, and we look at current investments. We see the risk of our energy sector being locked in and we have very little room to maneuver. We try to define it.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8NWnA64A_4]

Locked in to a dirty energy future indeed, thanks to the intransigence and greed of the fossil fuel industry. And yet, here is what the coverage of the WEO in the Vancouver Sun looked like yesterday. Entitled “Much-criticized oilsands key to global energy growth, international agency says”,  Peter O’Neil writes:

Alberta’s oilsands provide one of the world’s few areas of energy production growth outside the volatile Middle East and North Africa, though environmental concerns could hinder its expansion, the International Energy Agency said in a report Wednesday.

Quite the spin job, about a report that clearly states “the world is at risk of being locked into an ‘insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system’ that will lead to average temperature increases of 3.5 C“. The oil sands are part of that insecure and inefficient system.  Even the Calgary Herald, in the heart of oil country, was more honest with its headline for the same article by O’Neil, “Environmental concerns may hinder oilsands: IEA“.

Here’s what Think Progress’s Joe Romm had to say about the report:

IEA’s Bombshell Warning: We’re Headed Toward 11°F Global Warming and “Delaying Action Is a False Economy”:

The International Energy Agency has issued yet another clarion call for urgent action on climate.  Their 2011 World Energy Outlook [WEO] release should end once and for all any notion that delay is the rational course for the nation and the world.

The UK Guardian‘s headline captures the urgency:

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change

We must start aggressively deploying clean energy now through myriad policies, including a price on carbon.  That has been the conclusion of most authoritative studies, of course,  including the recent one by California’s independent state science and technology advisory panel (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, Research and Develop, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“).

Yes, that graphic from the International Energy Agency says that Without further action, by 2017, all CO2 emissions will be “locked-in” by the existing infrastructure. As Romm says, the time has come to “deploy, deploy, deploy”, the same way economies were changed overnight in the face of World War II.  Who will lead?  Romm says we need a Churchill; perhaps he’s right. But maybe, for this global challenge, it’s the 99% that will provide the momentum for this change. Perhaps we don’t need one Churchill – we need thousands, or millions of Churchills, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther Kings, Ghandis, Wangari Maathais, etc.
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