Betting everything on one colour

In my last post I provided a short review of the IPCC 5^th AR, WGIII on Mitigation, with the emphasis on one table which showed how much more expensive mitigation will be over this century without carbon capture and storage. Unfortunately, this pearl from the IPCC didn’t get much coverage. Looking another layer down into the WGIII Technical Report, Chapter 6, the CCS case is very clear;

As noted above, the lack of availability of CCS is most frequently associated with the most significant cost increase (Edenhofer et al., 2010; Tavoni et al., 2012; Krey et al., 2014; Kriegler et al., 2014a; Riahi et al., 2014), particularly for concentration goals approaching 450 ppm CO2eq, which are characterized by often substantial overshoot. One fundamental reason for this is that the combination of biomass with CCS can serve as a CDR technology in the form of BECCS (Azar et al., 2006; van Vliet et al., 2009; Krey and Riahi, 2009; Edmonds et al., 2013; Kriegler et al., 2013a; van Vuuren et al., 2013) (see Sections 6.3.2    and 6.9  ). In addition to the ability to produce negative emissions when coupled with bioenergy, CCS is a versatile technology that can be combined with electricity, synthetic fuel, and hydrogen production from several feedstocks and in energy‐intensive industries such as cement and steel. The CCS can also act as bridge technology that is compatible with existing fossil‐fuel dominated supply structures (see Sections 7.5.5, 7.9, and 6.9   for a discussion of challenges and risks of CCS and CDR). Bioenergy shares some of these characteristics with CCS. It is also an essential ingredient for BECCS, and it can be applied in various sectors of the energy system, including for the provision of liquid low‐carbon fuels for transportation (see Chapter 11, Bioenergy Annex for a discussion of related challenges and risks). In contrast, those options that are largely confined to the electricity sector (e.g., wind, solar, and nuclear energy) and heat generation tend to show a lower value, both because they cannot be used to generate negative emissions and because there are a number of low‐carbon electricity supply options available that can generally substitute each other (Krey et al., 2014).

Importantly, this isn’t just about the cost of mitigation, but about the feasibility of meeting the global 2°C goal. As such, you would expect that CCS should figure at the top of the agenda at a climate conference, but this is rarely the case – in fact, in my experience it is only the case when the conference is actually about CCS.

On May 4-5^th, the global climate fraternity will meet in Abu Dhabi for the Abu Dhabi Ascent, the first and only preparatory conference for the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit on September 23^rd in New York. The objectives of the meeting are as follows;

The objective of the Abu Dhabi Ascent is to provide an opportunity for all Governments to be fully informed about the Climate Summit, including how they can bring bold announcements and actions to the Summit, as requested by the Secretary-General. The Ascent will be the only meeting before the Summit in which Governments, the private sector and civil society will come together to explore international and multi-stakeholder efforts that have high potential for catalysing ambitious action on the ground. The Secretary-General set two objectives for the Summit: to catalyse ambitious action on the ground to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience, and to mobilize political momentum for an ambitious, global, legal agreement in 2015.

That certainly sounds like a conference where CCS would get some air time, but no, the agenda only includes the following;

• Energy Efficiency
• Renewable Energy
• Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs)
• Transportation
• Cities
• Agriculture
• Forests
• Climate Finance
• Adaptation, Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
• Economic Drivers

Top of the list is my “old favourite”, energy efficiency, a great way to spur economies and stimulate economic growth, but almost certainly a red herring in the drive to contain cumulative emissions over the course of this century. My real favourite, carbon pricing, is there but well hidden under the obscure heading of “Economic Drivers”. As noted, CCS isn’t there at all.

We might imagine a world of clean, efficient renewable energy and we will need that, but it isn’t obtainable today and possibly not even by the end of this century. It will take time to evolve as the current energy system has evolved over the last 200 years. But the CO2 issue presents us with a pressing problem today that somehow needs a solution. The concern is that in the casino we live in, we seem to be betting all our chips on one colour, green, which might be a gamble too far. The even money bet on CCS and alternatives (renewables, nuclear) is what is needed.

The learning from IPCC WGIII and their scenario analysis seems to be lost on those who are leading the challenging process to bring nations together to solve the climate issue. There is something almost comical about this situation – perhaps an echo from Dr. Strangelove would be “You can’t talk about CCS here, this is a climate conference!”.