Category: Methane

Putting the genie back

dchone August 25, 2017

As I have posted in recent weeks, my complete book on climate change is now out, under the title ‘Putting the Genie Back: Solving the Climate and Energy Dilemma‘. The publisher, Emerald Publishing Limited, has just made the first chapter available on-line so that you can try before you buy.

Their advertising for the chapter included a quote from President Barack Obama, which gives a hint as to where the title came from, but isn’t the whole story. In May 2014 the President had invited several meteorologists to the White House for exclusive interviews on the climate change report that the administration released earlier in the week. The president summed up the importance of the situation with one simple phrase: “it’s hard to put a genie back in the bottle.” The quote was part of a longer piece which was referring to the climate itself and the possibility of reaching a tipping point. He had said;

“I want to make sure that my children and my grandchildren are able to enjoy a beautiful day like today; that they’re not living in a more dangerous world. […] This is one of those things that is very difficule to recover from. Once we hit a certain tipping point, we don’t know exactly how certain weather patterns could end up resulting in catastrophe. It’s hard to put a genie back in the bottle.”

By that time my first e-book, which the current book also incorporates, was in the late stages of writing and I had already pencilled in the genie metaphor, although with other suggestions coming from friends and family, I wasn’t entirely sure. My use was never in relation to the climate itself, but to the use of fossil fuels. That particular genie has ushered in astounding progress for society, but it is also a genie that is hard to challenge. Nevertheless, we can, with carbon capture and storage representing a method of returning the carbon to the subsurface, effectively putting the genie back.

Even though my intended meaning wasn’t the same as the President, when he also used the phrase in relation to climate change it seemed like the decision was made.

Enjoy the pre-read and I hope you buy the book. My proceeds are going to the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) in Washington D.C.

Applying Pigouvian charges

dchone August 17, 2017

A recent article in the Guardian argues that fossil fuels receive about $5 trillion per year globally of unseen benefits, representing some 6.5% of global GDP. The journalist concludes that this must point to a dim future for this energy source. The discussion stems from a paper that has been recently published in the journal, World Development, but is originally a piece of work by two analysts who work for the IMF that surfaced prior to COP21 in 2015. The same authors are involved with the current article.

The new version of the paper classifies these benefits into two types,

‘‘pre-tax subsidies”— these arise when consumer prices paid by fuel users are below the opportunity costs of fuel supply (e.g., many oil producers in the Middle East and North Africa traditionally set domestic prices below international prices). This is the definition that leaders had in mind at the 2009 G20 Pittsburg meeting when they called for a phase out of energy subsidies (IEA, OPEC, OECD, & World Bank, 2010).
‘‘post-tax subsidies”— these arise when consumer prices are below the cost of supply when a ‘‘Pigouvian” charge ⁽¹⁾ is included to reflect environmental damages. Economic efficiency requires that the prices of goods and services reflect not only supply costs but also (i) (most importantly) environmental costs like global warming and deaths from air pollution and (ii) taxes applied to consumer goods in general.

A visit to the IEA website on energy subsidies shows that the value of pre-tax consumer price subsidy worldwide totaled $493 billion in 2013, falling to $322 billion by 2015 as oil prices fell globally. This is equivalent to ~$25 per tonne of oil equivalent, or $3.50 per barrel. By comparison, these amounted to $390 billion in 2009 (in 2014 dollars), the year the G20 and APEC commitments were made. The value of these estimates has fluctuated from year-to-year in line with reform efforts, the consumption level of the fuels in question, international prices for fossil fuels, exchange rates and general price inflation. IEA decomposition analysis reveals that, while movements in world prices typically have the greatest impact from year-to-year, policy interventions have played an important role as well. These subsidized prices are primarily focused on oil and electricity and in many cases, are a mechanism for distribution of benefits to very low income segments of the national population. For example, India subsidized oil, electricity and natural gas in 2015 for its consumers for an amount of nearly $20 billion, but is not a recognized oil producer.

However, the focus of the Guardian article is the lack of charges for externalities in relation to fossil fuel use. By applying a series of Pigouvian charges to fossil fuels, covering issues such as carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution, they argue that fuels are under-priced by some $5 trillion per annum. The additions made also cover issues related to fossil fuel use, but not directly caused by them. An example is road traffic congestion and safety which the article specifically mentions. These would also be externalities in a transport system powered by electricity. In total, these missing post-tax charges for coal amount to $2.5 trillion, oil is $1.5 trillion and natural gas about $400 billion. Pre-tax price subsidies for coal hardly exist, amounting to just over $1 billion per annum globally per the IEA.

Applying this methodology to fossil fuels also opens the debate for other goods and services. For example, many governments offer direct help to farmers and subsidise food prices. The production of rice and beef contributes some 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to the atmosphere in the form of methane, which alone amounts to an externailty of $250 billion per annum or roughly $1.30 per kilo in the case of beef (vs. a US average ground beef price of $7 per kilo).

A robust and comprehensive application of Pigouvian pricing across the economy incorporating all externalities would likely touch every single product or service in use today, excluding any energy penalty related to fossil fuels. Environmental damage and health issues remain widespread in the world, despite great efforts to address them at every level of society. Many are simply a function of the vast scale on which manufacturing operates, which in turn results in some environmental degradation. In March 2014, the Guardian reported on the social and environmental costs associated with the production of rare earth metals, which have become critical in the manufacture of a multitude of electronic products today, including renewable energy systems. The article raised questions on cancer rates, which in turn links human mortality costs with these products.

In the case of fossil fuels, the simplest and most effective way of confronting this issue is to introduce a carbon price, ideally at a level that reflects the social costs of use. The World Development article uses a figure of around $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide. While this wouldn’t address every aspect of fossil fuel use, it would nevertheless go a long way towards addressing the concerns of the authors.

(1) This refers to the work of Arthur Cecil Pigou, a University of Cambridge economist who published The Economics of Welfare in 1920. In this book, Pigou introduced the concept of externality and the idea that external problems could be corrected by the imposition of a charge. By ‘externality,’ Pigou meant an indirect economic impact of an activity that happened outside the immediate system where the activity was underway. The externality concept remains central to modern welfare economics and is at the heart of environmental economics. In the case of climate change, the externality is the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the future social and economic impact caused by the consequent increase in the surface temperature of the planet. Externalities can be both positive and negative, but in the case of carbon dioxide emissions, it is considered negative. Pigou argued that the activities associated with a negative externality should be penalized to the extent of the impact, such that their real economic value can be assessed. This penalty is widely known as a Pigouvian Tax. Alcohol taxes are Pigouvian; so are taxes on cigarettes.

Four demands for Paris

dchone June 22, 2015

The call was very clear, here were “four demands” for Paris COP21 being presented to a group in London. But the surprise was the presenter; not a climate focussed NGO or an activist campaigning for change, but Fatih Birol, Chief Economist for the International Energy Agency. He was in an optimistic mood, despite the previous two weeks of ADP negotiations in Bonn that saw almost nothing happen. He opened the presentation by saying “This time it will work” (i.e. Paris, vs. Copenhagen and all the other false starts).

On June 15th Mr Birol launched the World Energy Outlook Special Report: Energy and Climate Change. The IEA usually launch a special supplement to their annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) and this one was the second to focus on the climate challenge and the policy changes required for the world to be on a 2°C emissions pathway. It was also something of a shot over the bow for the Paris COP21 process which had just completed another two weeks of negotiations in Bonn, but with little to show for the effort. Mr Birol is a master of such presentations and this one was memorable. He focussed almost entirely on the short term, although the publication itself looks forward to 2030 for the most part. With regards to the energy system, short term usually means 5 years or so, but in this case short term really meant December but with the resulting actions being very relevant for the period 2016-2020.

Mr Birol outlined four key pillars (as they are referred to in the publication) for COP21, but restated them as “demands”. They are;

Emissions must peak by 2020. The IEA believes that this can be achieved with a near term focus on five measures;
1. Energy Efficiency.
2. High efficiency coal, both in new building and removing some existing facilities. IEA proposed a ban on building sub-critical coal.
3. An even bigger push on renewable energy, with an increase in investment from $270 billion in 2014 to $400 billion in 2030.
4. Oil and gas industry to reduce upstream methane emissions.
5. Phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies to end-users by 2030.
Implement a five year review process for NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) so that they can be rapidly adjusted to changing circumstances. I discussed the risk of a slow review process when MIT released a report on the possible COP21 outcome.
Turn the global 2°C goal into clear emission reduction targets, both longer term and consistent shorter term goals.
Track the transition – i.e. track the delivery of NDCs and transparently show how the global emissions pathway is developing as a result.

Interestingly Mr. Birol didn’t mention carbon pricing once, at least not until a question came up asking why he hadn’t mentioned carbon pricing – “Is carbon pricing no longer an important goal, you didn’t mention it?” asked a curious member of those assembled at the Foreign Office. He said yes it was, but given his focus was on Paris and that he saw little chance of a global approach on carbon pricing being agreed in that time-span, he didn’t mention it! I think this represents a major oversight on the part of the IEA although there is at least some discussion on carbon pricing in the publication. While it is true that a globally harmonised approach to carbon pricing won’t be in place in the near term, I would argue that an essential 5th pillar (or 5th demand) for Paris is recognition of the importance of carbon pricing and creation of the necessary space for linking of heterogeneous systems to take place. This looks like the fastest route towards a globally relevant price.

Mr. Birol didn’t mention CCS either, which is perhaps more understandable given the 5 year focus of much of the publication. However, Chapter 4 within the publication deals extensively with CCS and the IEA highlights the importance of CCS in their 450 ppm scenario through the chart below.

Finally, there was some discussion around the climate statement made by the G7 the week before and their commitment out to 2100. Looking at the statement released by the G7, they said;

“. . . . .we emphasize that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century. Accordingly, as a common vision for a global goal of greenhouse gas emissions reductions we support sharing with all parties to the UNFCCC the upper end of the latest IPCC recommendation of 40 to 70 % reductions by 2050 compared to 2010 recognizing that this challenge can only be met by a global response.”

My reading of this is that the G7 are recognizing the need to be at or nearing global net zero emissions by 2100. However, this isn’t how the statement has been reported, with several commentators, media outlets and even one of the presenters alongside Fatih Birol interpreting this as an agreement to be fossil fuel free by 2100. These are two very different outcomes for the energy system; the first one potentially feasible and the second being rather unlikely. Both the Shell Oceans and Mountains New Lens Scenarios illustrate how a net zero emissions world can potentially evolve, with extensive use of CCS making room for continued use of fossil fuels in various applications. The core driver here will be the economics of the energy system and the competitiveness of fossil fuels and alternatives across the full spectrum of needs. It is already clear that alternative energy sources such as solar PV will be very competitive and could well account for a significant proportion of global electricity provision. Equally, there are areas where fossil fuels will be very difficult to displace; I gave one such example in a case study I posted recently on aviation. Energy demand in certain sectors may well be met by fossil fuels for all of this century, either with direct use of CCS to deal with the emissions or, as illustrated in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report, offset by bio-energy and CCS (BECCS) elsewhere. Unfortunately the nuances of this issue didn’t make it into the IEA presentation.

That’s it from me for a couple of weeks or so. I am heading north on the National Geographic Explorer to see the Arctic wilderness of Svalbard and Greenland.

Baselines, metrics and business as usual

dchone April 10, 2015

The submission of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC started in earnest to meet the March 31st agreed date, although many more are still to come. Mexico was the only non-Annex I country (under the Convention) to submit by this date, although the Gabon submission appeared the following day.

A feature of the Mexico submission is the reference to Business as Usual (BAU) as a metric against which to measure progress. Although Mexico is clear on its commendable absolute long term objective, i.e. “. . . . consistent with Mexico´s pathway to reduce 50% of emissions by the year 2050, with respect to the year 2000”, its shorter term progress will be guided by reference to a “Business As Usual scenario of emission projections based on economic growth in the absence of climate change policies, starting from 2013”. The reference to Business As Usual is a factor that we will likely see in many of the upcoming INDC submissions. BAU was also a feature of many Copenhagen pledges, but in several instances the BAU pathway was hard to discern, which made the pledge difficult to understand and rather opaque in terms of actual numbers and therefore effort. This time around numbers will have to be very clear and part of the scrutiny and review process that negotiators are working towards will need to address the credibility and transparency of the BAU reference. In the case of Mexico, the BAU is well documented.

But even when the numbers are published, a BAU reference can make pledges and actions taken appear far more ambitious than may be the case. This is particularly so when energy efficiency is claimed as a major contributor to supposed reductions in emissions. Based on an existing relationship between energy and GDP and assuming a given near-term growth in economic output, it is easy to project what BAU emissions might be in 2020 or 2030 and then argue that a focus on energy efficiency can reduce this, effectively claiming an emissions reduction. This reasoning would appear to show that the country in question is making a large contribution to the global effort and that energy efficiency is an important contributing factor to change, yet in reality the original projection represents a situation that may never have occurred. Business-as-usual also requires improvements in energy efficiency to drive growth, which means that the assumed growth may not have occurred, had the efficiency improvements not helped deliver it. If energy efficiency really is a route to lower emissions, then it needs to pass one clear test, i.e. which known fossil fuel resource will be left in the ground (or a proposed extraction project shelved) because of this? Only then are cumulative emissions potentially impacted.

The Mexico INDC also highlighted a propensity to mix together actions on long lived greenhouse gases such as CO2 and short lived pollutants such as black carbon (very short lived) and methane (short to medium life). Mexico is reasonably transparent here as well, although its highest level number aggregates the two, i.e. “Mexico is committed to reduce unconditionally 25% of its Greenhouse Gases and Short Lived Climate Pollutants emissions (below BAU) for the year 2030”. The problem is that although carbon dioxide and black carbon (which is the major focus in Mexico) both contribute to warming of the climate system, they behave very differently in the atmosphere and mitigation leads to different outcomes which are not interchangeable.

Black carbon remains in the atmosphere for only days or weeks, which means it strongly impacts the rate of warming today but has little impact on the global goal to limit overall warming of the climate system to 2°C, unless of course there is still an unacceptable level of black carbon in the atmosphere at a time in the future when warming is approaching its peak. By contrast, carbon dioxide remains for hundreds to thousands of years and largely sets the thermostat of the future climate. Solving the black carbon problem today would deliver tangible near term benefits on a number of fronts, but unless carbon dioxide mitigation also takes place the long term outcome will hardly shift.

Mexico has set the bar quite high with its clear and well-structured contribution, but the metrics and baseline used highlight issues that the UNFCCC may need to deal with over the coming months as it begins to assess the merit of all the national contributions.

10 reasons why 2°C will be tough to achieve

dchone August 12, 2014

A recent story in The Guardian expressed some optimism that “humans will rise to the challenge of climate change”. Ten reasons were given to be hopeful, but not one of them mentioned the climate basics such as a carbon price or carbon capture and storage. Rather, the offerings were largely tangential to the reality of rising CO2 emissions, with the hope that because European homes are using less energy and solar prices are dropping, then ipso facto, atmospheric CO2 levels would somehow stabilize (i.e. annual CO2 emissions falling to zero). Without wanting to be pessimistic, but rather realistic, it may not be the case that emissions just fall and here are ten reasons why not. For those who visit this blog more regularly, sorry for the repetition, but hopefully this is a useful summary anyway.

1. There is still no carbon price

Although discussions about carbon pricing are widespread and there are large systems in place in the EU and California, pervasive robust pricing will take decades to implement if the current pace is maintained. Yet carbon pricing is pivotal to resolving the issue, as discussed here. The recent Carbon Pricing Statement from the World Bank also makes this point and calls on governments, amongst others, to work towards the goal of a global approach.

2. Legacy infrastructure almost gets us there

The legacy energy system that currently powers the world is built and will more than likely continue to run, with some parts for decades. This includes everything from domestic appliances to cars to huge chemical plants, coal mines and power stations. I have added up what I think is the minimum realistic impact of this legacy and it takes us to something over 800 billion tonnes carbon emitted to the atmosphere, from the current level of about 580 billion tonnes since 1750. Remember that 2°C is roughly equivalent to one trillion tonnes of carbon.

3. Efficiency drives growth and energy use, not the reverse

The proposition that energy efficiency reduces emissions seems to ignore the cumulative nature of carbon emissions and is apparently based on the notion that energy efficiency is somehow separate to growth and economic activity. What is wrong with this is that the counterfactual, i.e. that the economy would have used more energy but grown by the same amount, probably doesn’t exist. Rather, had efficiency measures not been taken then growth would have been lower and energy consumption would have been less as a result. Because efficiency drives economic growth, you have to account for Jevons Paradox (rebound). After all, economies have been getting more efficient since the start of the industrial revolution and emissions have only risen. Why would we now think that being even more efficient would somehow throw this engine into reverse?

4. We still need a global industrial system

In a modern city such as London, surrounded by towns and idyllic countryside with hardly a factory in sight, it’s easy to forget that an industrial behemoth lurks around the corner producing everything we buy, eat, use and trade. This behemoth runs on fossil fuels, both for the energy it needs and the feedstock it requires.

5. Solar optimism

There’s little doubt that solar PV is here to stay, will be very big and will probably be cheap, even with the necessary storage or backup priced in. But it’s going to take a while, perhaps most of this century for that to happen. During that time a great deal of energy will be needed for the global economy and it will come from fossil fuels. We will need to deal with the emissions from this.

6. Developing countries need coal to industrialize

I talked about this in a very recent post – developing countries are likely to employ coal to industrialize, which then locks the economy into this fuel. One way to avoid this is to see much wider use of instruments such as the Clean Development Mechanism, but at prices that make some sense. This then comes back to point 1 above.

7. We focus on what we can do, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do

Methane emissions are currently attracting a great deal of attention. But cutting methane today and not making similar reductions in CO2 as well means we could still end up at the same level of peak warming later this century. It’s important to cut methane emissions, but not as a proxy for acting on CO2.

8. It’s about cumulative carbon, not emissions in 2050

Much of the misconception about how to solve the climate issue stems from a lack of knowledge about the issue itself. CO2 emissions are talked about on a local basis as we might talk about city air pollution or sulphur emissions from a power plant. These are flow problems in that the issue is solved by reducing the local flow of the pollutant. By contrast, the release of carbon to the atmosphere is a stock problem and the eventual stock in the atmosphere is linked more to the economics of resource extraction rather than it is to local actions in cities and homes. Thinking about the problem from the stock perspective changes the nature of the solution and the approach. One technology in particular becomes pivotal to the issue, carbon capture and storage (CCS).

9. Don’t mention CCS, we’re talking about climate change

Following on from the point above, it’s proving difficult for CCS to gain traction and acceptance. This is not helped by the UN process itself, where CCS doesn’t get much air time. One example was the Abu Dhabi Ascent, a pre-meeting for the upcoming UN Climate Summit. CCS wasn’t even on the agenda.

10. We just aren’t trying hard enough

A new report out from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change argues that the expected global agreement on climate change coming from the Paris COP21 in 2015 is unlikely to deliver anything close to a 2°C solution. At best, they see the “contributions” process that is now underway as usefully bending the global trajectory.

The analysis shows that an agreement likely achievable at COP-21 will succeed in a useful bending the curve of global emissions. The likely agreement will not, however, produce global emissions within the window of paths to 2050 that are consistent with frequently proposed climate goals, raising questions about follow-up steps in the development of a climate regime.

Perhaps of even greater concern is the potential that the UNFCCC process has for creating lock-in to a less than adequate policy regime. They note:

Nevertheless, if an agreement is reached in 2015, going into effect by 2020, the earliest review of performance along the way might not be before 2025. In this case, an effort to formulate the next agreement under the Climate Convention, or a tightening of COP-21 agreements, would not start until 2025 or after, with new targets set for a decade or more after that. If this expectation is correct, then global emissions as far out as 2045 or 2050 will be heavily influenced by achievements in the negotiations over the next 18 months.

The complicated world of methane

dchone July 19, 2014

As governments struggle to find practical routes forward with positive outcomes for CO2 mitigation, attention is turning to dealing with other greenhouse gases, particularly methane. A number of methane emission initiatives are now underway or being planned, for example those within the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

Methane seems like an obvious place to start. Anthropogenic emissions are about 250 million tonnes per annum. A tonne of methane emitted now has a short term (20 years) impact on atmospheric warming which is some 80 times greater than a tonne of CO2. This means that over the period of twenty years, the methane will add 80 times the amount of heat to the atmosphere as the carbon dioxide. But methane breaks down in the atmosphere quite quickly with a ‘half life’ of about seven years, so on a 100 year basis (with the methane effectively gone) the impact of a tonne of methane emitted now compared to a tonne of CO2 is much less. The factor falls to about 28, but even with a lower multiplier reducing methane still seems to be a worthwhile endeavour. While agricultural methane may require real lifestyle changes to bring down, e.g. less meat consumption, industrial methane emission management looks like something that can be done. Often mitigation may be a case of good housekeeping, such as monitoring and maintaining pipelines to minimize fugitive emissions.

While most articles about methane simply use the GWP (Global Warming Potential over 100 years) of 28 and present data and economics on that basis, a few dig deeper. Of note is the work of the Oxford-Martin School who present a number of policy papers on methane. In the more popular press, Burning Question author Duncan Clark has written about methane.

Both follow a similar line of reasoning. They note that methane and CO2, while both greenhouse gases, behave very differently with regards their impact on the actual goal of the UNFCCC, to limit eventual peak warming to 2°C or less. As noted, methane is a relatively short lived gas in the atmosphere, whereas CO2 is a long lived gas that accumulates in the atmosphere. This means there is another dimension to the issue, time. The point in time at which they are emitted relative to each other and the shape of any reduction pathway relative to the other is important. Duncan Clark describes this in the following way:

The difference between carbon dioxide and methane is a bit like the difference between burning coal and paper on a fire. Both generate plenty of heat but whereas the coal burns steadily for a long time and accumulates if you keep adding more, the paper gives an intense burst of warmth but one that quickly disappears once you stop adding it.

Their conclusions are similar. Peak warming is largely dictated by the cumulative amount of CO2 emitted over time. If a certain amount of methane is also emitted, the timing of that emission is what matters. Methane that is emitted today will immediately impact the rate of warming, but long before we reach peak warming (assuming CO2 emissions are eventually brought under control and warming actually peaks) the methane will have left the atmosphere and been converted to carbon dioxide, in which case it’s impact on peak warming is based only on the CO2 that remains from the methane. We may have accelerated warming in the short term but peak warming will remain largely unchanged. In this case, the warming potential of methane expressed in terms of its impact on peak temperature falls sharply and comes close to the stoichiometric conversion of methane to carbon dioxide, which is about 3, i.e. a tonne of methane when combusted or oxidised in the atmosphere gives rise to about three tonnes of carbon dioxide. Conversely, methane that is emitted much later, say when we are close to peak warming, will directly add to whatever level of temperature we happen to reach.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t bother about methane today? Unfortunately the answer is an ambiguous one. If we are confident that the world will quickly and decisively reduce CO2 emissions then of course we must also be reducing methane and other greenhouse gases as well. If we don’t, then we will still have a methane problem at the time peak CO2 induced warming occurs, in which case we will almost certainly overshoot our peak warming goal, i.e. 2°C, with the additional warming from the other greenhouse gases. But if we don’t address the CO2 issue, then addressing the methane issue now doesn’t offer a lot of benefit for later on. Instead, the benefit that we do get is less short term warming as we will have removed the intense burst of warming that the methane is providing.

Of course, since we don’t know how well or otherwise the task of CO2 mitigation will proceed (despite the fact that the track record is pretty poor), we feel obliged to act on methane now in case the CO2 mitigation picks up. At least we know that we will slow down the near term rate of warming by doing so.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that dealing with methane and atmospheric warming is just as complex as dealing with CO2. In the case of CO2, many are convinced that steps such as efficiency measures can curtail warming, when all they are probably doing is geographically or temporally shifting the same CO2 emissions such that the eventual accumulation in the atmosphere is unchanged. In the case of methane, treating it as if it were interchangeable with CO2 but with a convenient and high multiplier may make us feel that modest effort is delivering great benefit, when it may be the case that little benefit is being delivered at all.

In both cases it is the science that we have to look at to decide on the appropriate strategy, not expediency and certainly not sentiment.