EMRG
Responding to Climate Change:
Difficulties and Opportunities
Katya Petropavlova
(adapted from Mark Jaccard’s public talk presentations)
School of Resource and Environmental Management
Simon Fraser University
July 4, 2012
Ene r gy and M at e r ials Re se ar c h Gr oup
Sim on Fr ase r U nive rsit y
EMRG
Outline
1. The climate change threat and our motives for action
2. The details – emissions, concentrations, temperature,
and impacts
3. Political promises and their implications for energy &
emissions
4. Reasons for the failure to act on climate change
5. Opportunities and strategies for effective climate action
2
EMRG
Outline
1. The climate change threat and our motives for action
2. The details – emissions, concentrations, temperature,
and impacts
3. Political promises and their implications for energy &
emissions
4. Reasons for the failure to act on climate change
5. Opportunities and strategies for effective climate action
3
emrg
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energy and materials research group
Today
Tipping point?
Mar/2012
4
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Motives for action
1. Self-interest – catastrophic impacts on us and our offspring
2. Responsibility for the biosphere – mass extinctions due to
climate change
3. Responsibility for other humans – rich countries developed
by burning fossil fuels but initial impacts are in poor countries
5
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Responsibility by country in
cumulative carbon emissions
Patz JA, Gibbs HK, Foley JA, Rogers JV, Smith KR, 2007, Climate change
and global health: Quantifying a growing ethical crisis,
EcoHealth 4(4): 397–405, 2007.
Feb/2012
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Feb/2012
Climate-related mortality per
million people by 2000
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Prescription vs. prediction
Values are “prescriptions” for how humans ought to act
Need to recognize human tendencies to:
• Hold beliefs that favor one’s interests (self-interest
bias)
• Overlook inconvenient logical connections (cognitive
dissonance)
• Think uncritically (susceptibility to misinformation)
• Have institutions incapable of long-term collective
pursuits
Need to exercise in “prediction,” not wishful thinking
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EMRG
Outline
1. The climate change threat and our motives for action
2. The details – emissions, concentrations, temperature,
and impacts
3. Political promises and their implications for energy &
emissions
4. Reasons for the failure to act on climate change
5. Opportunities and strategies for effective climate action
9
Details: emissions, concentrations,
temperatures, impacts to 2100 +
EMRG
Source of confusion
CO2 e = CO2 + methane + nitrous oxide + others
Level
CO2 (ppm)
CO2 e (ppm)
Likely tempΔ
Pre-1750
280
?
0C
2010 level
390
460
2.2 C (1.2 in 2010)
critical level
350
450
2C
Stern target
current
path
450
≈650-770
550
≈750-850
->
4 –36C?
C
Realistically?
550
650
-> 3 C + ?
350.org
Sources: IPCC, Energy Modeling
Forum, Anderson & Bows, 2009
Scientists contemplate 4C
beyond 2100
www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees
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Past sea level vs. temperature:
long-term response lags
Long-term effect
Source: Archer
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Uncertainty of exact temperature
change,
but not of temperature change
Source: Ronald Prinn, MIT
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EMRG
Outline
1. The climate change threat and our motives for action
2. The details – emissions, concentrations, temperature,
and impacts
3. Political promises and their implications for energy &
emissions
4. Reasons for the failure to act on climate change
5. Opportunities and strategies for effective climate action
13
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Political promises & implications
Promises:
• 2°C increase (max 450 CO2e) – Copenhagen, 2009
• 80% GHG reductions by 2050 - most rich countries (65%
in Canada)
Implications:
• 550 CO2e (with only 50% chance of not exceeding 2°C
limit)  global emissions must fall 60% by 2050 (Stern)
• Emissions of poor countries must also fall by 20% relative
to 2010 levels
• But inertia in the global energy system
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CO2–free energy share to
stabilize at 550 CO2e by 2100
EMRG
Only possible if all energy
investment is CO2-free
from today
15% in 2010
Source: Nakicenovic
60% reduction from
growing system requires
80% CO2-free globally
50% in 2030
80% in 2050
CO2-free energy share = biomass + other
renewables + nuclear + fossil fuels with CCS
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CO2-free share by sector to
stabilize at 550 ppm CO2e by 2100
Electricity generation - 90% CO2-free by 2050
(renewables, fossil fuels with carbon capture and
storage, nuclear)
Buildings - 85% CO2-free by 2050
(heat pumps, passive solar, biofuels, photovoltaics,
solar hot water)
Vehicles - 80% CO2-free by 2050
(electric, biofuel, hydrogen)
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Truth-testing our politicians:
the case of Canada
• Canada does not pursue the CO2-free technology at the
rate to meet its goals
• Canadian government promotes tar sands expansion
Question: Is government’s action consistent with 2050
promises of 65% reduction (or even just 50% reduction)
and global promise of 2°C?
Answer: No (Energy Modeling Forum, Stanford, EMF 22)
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• Modeled Canada’s tar sands under global 40% CO2e
reduction policy
• Emissions are higher 550 CO2e
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World oil prices:
40% CO2e reduction by 2050
World oil prices rise under
business-as-usual
World oil prices stay at
today’s levels with global
climate policy
Source: Chan et al, MIT 2010
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Hand-picked advisory body
confirms MIT – models Harper 65%
Emissions must fall
today to reach targets
Source: National Roundtable on
Environment & Economy, 2009
Canadian government
targets
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Conclusions from independent and
government advisory studies
• World is not on the path to stabilize by 2100 at 450
CO2e or 550 CO2e
• Canada is not on a path to reduce emissions by 65%
(or even 50%) by 2050 (tar sands + pipelines =
government not acting truthfully)
• Canada / world are locking on to path to ≈800 CO2e by
2100 (+ 4-6 °C increase)
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EMRG
Outline
1. The climate change threat and our motives for action
2. The details – emissions, concentrations, temperature,
and impacts
3. Political promises and their implications for energy &
emissions
4. Reasons for the failure to act on climate change
5. Opportunities and strategies for effective climate action
22
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Understanding the failure to act
Past “successes” with acid emissions, smog creating
emissions, ozone-depleting emissions, lead emissions
Yet climate policy failure now approaching three
decades
Question: Do climate-altering emissions present a more
difficult problem?
Answer: Yes
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Specific challenges of
climate issue
1. Global public good - individual initiatives of little value; need
compliance enforcement mechanism
2. High starting costs – total transformation costs small, but high
initial costs and risks to begin shift to CO2-free sources
3. Invisible benefits / uncertainty about “specific” impacts - but
major outcome is virtually certain
4. Delayed effects – must act now to prevent future impacts, but
human decision-making often myopic
5. Who pays - perceptions of equity aligned with self-interest
(polluter pays vs. equal payment per capita or GDP vs.
historical responsibility)
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Self-serving bias and efforts to
discredit climate science & policy
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
1. Anti-science bias – easy to convince people to disbelieve
science when it conflicts with their self-interest
2. Greenwashing campaigns – alternative images of fossil
fuels, i.e. “clean coal,” “ethical oil,” “transitional natural gas”
3. Anti-establishment bias – IPCC is portrayed as a
conspiracy-like establishment
4. Anti-government bias – climate policy is portrayed as
excessive regulation, higher taxes, and “social engineering”
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EMRG
Outline
1. The climate change threat and our motives for action
2. The details – emissions, concentrations, temperature,
and impacts
3. Political promises and their implications for energy &
emissions
4. Reasons for the failure to act on climate change
5. Opportunities and strategies for effective climate action
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Strategy 1: being realistic about
humans and self-delusion
If we don’t take these biases into account, we will
FAIL to motivate effective individual and political
action on climate change
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Strategy 2: communicating science
and risk
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Strategy 3: confronting the
“what about the Chinese” argument
Question for high school students: “Figure out how the
international community achieves collective action on a public
good when:”
•
•
•
Some countries are much richer than others
The rich countries have much higher cumulative
emissions
The rich countries can use subsidies and trade threats to
get global compliance
Each year different students, but always the same answer:
•
Rich countries go first with cutting their emissions thus
lowering the costs of CO2-free technologies and fuels
•
To ensure universal compliance with global effort, they
can provide subsidies and apply trade measures
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Strategy 4: confronting the “our
emissions are small” argument
Canada is responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions
In World War II, Canada was responsible for less than 2% of the
Allied effort that defeated Germany and Japan
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Strategy 5: confronting the “we need
the economic growth & jobs” argument
Question for elementary school students: “What happens
when your job creation strategy destroys the planet?”
“Low carbon growth will be
more energy-secure, cleaner,
safer, quieter and more biodiverse. Low-carbon growth
is the future growth story.
High-carbon growth, on the
other hand, will destroy
itself.”
Economic growth has been
used often to justify harm
– Nicholas Stern
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Strategy 6: confronting the selfinterest bias of fossil fuel regions
EMRG
No use of
fossil fuels
extremely
difficult/
impossible?
fossil fuels
with CCS
burning
fossil fuels
difficult
CCS = carbon capture & storage
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Strategy 7: confronting the “we
don’t need climate policy” argument
Corporate social responsibility as solution – but businesses
compete on the basis of bottom-line and fossil fuels are cheap
Green consumerism as solution – but virtually all human
expenditures of income involve energy use at some stage
Energy efficiency is cheap as solution – but usually it is more
expensive and inconvenient than simply burning fossil fuels
Carbon neutrality as solution – “false sense of progress”
Peak oil and high energy prices as solution – but the earth’s
crust has a scary plentitude of fossil fuels and humans keep
innovating to find and extract more
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A scary plentitude of fossil fuels:
Global Energy Assessment
EMRG
Historical
production
through
2009
Production
2009
Reserves
Resources
Additional
occurrences
Conventional oil
Unconventional oil
[EJ]
6 647
607
[EJ]
166.7
23.1
[EJ]
4 900 – 7 610
3 750 – 5 600
[EJ]
4 170 – 6 150
11 280 – 14 800
[EJ]
n.a.
> 40 000
Conventional gas
Unconventional gas
3 467
158
112.7
12.0
5 000 – 7 100
20 100 – 67 100
7 200 – 8 900
40 200 – 121 900
n.a.
> 1 000 000
Coal
7 269
152.7
17 300 – 21 000
291 000 – 435 000
n.a.
Conventional uraniumb
Unconventional
uranium
1 333
25.6
2 339
7 420
n.a.
4 100
2 600 000
n.a.
1
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Strategy 8: confronting the “climate
policy can’t work” argument
Information and subsidies do not work – 20 years of
evidence
Emissions pricing (carbon tax and/or cap-and-trade) –
economically efficient but difficult politically
Regulations - successfully phased-out acid rain, smog,
lead, ozone-depleting emissions
Design regulations (and pricing) to be efficient – e.g., BC’s
carbon tax and BC’s zero-emission electricity policy
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Strategy 9: if government won’t act
(and perhaps is lying)
What is your moral duty as a citizen if independent evidence
shows your government is not telling the truth and that the
implications are disastrous?
• Public relations / social networking campaigns / boycotts – focus
on popular culture, Hollywood
• Legal action – 100 US coal plants delayed or postponed in past 5
years
• Non-violent civil actions (350.org, Greenpeace, VTACC)
“Hope is not the conviction that action will turn out well, but the
certainty that action makes sense, regardless how it turns out.”
Vaclav Havel
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Thanks for your attention!
Comments/ Questions?
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Extra slides
Mar/2012
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Climate change economics
Abatement Costs
GDP in 2050 is 75% greater instead
of 80%
Energy costs in 2050 perhaps 30%
higher than otherwise.
Energy costs in typical household
budget increase from 6% today to 8%
by 2050.
Do Nothing Costs
Character of impacts
Biodiversity loss with higher temp.
Extreme weather events (drought,
hurricane, heat wave)
Ocean acidification
Disease surprises
Greater floods and coastal instability
related to rising oceans
Timing, magnitude and GDP cost
Highly uncertain, but evidence we
underestimate risks of extreme
outcomes
In 2050 – 20% of GDP lost? 50%?
In 2100 – catastrophic?
Mar/2012
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Actions and policies for
greenhouse gas reduction
Actions by households and firms

Energy efficiency (if using fossil fuels)

Fuel switching (away from fossil fuels)

Emissions capture and storage

“The rest” (industrial processes, landfill management,
agriculture, forestry)
-------------------------------------------------------------------Policies by government to drive actions

Information

Subsidies

Regulations (command-and-control)

Regulations (market-oriented, e.g. cap and trade)

Emissions charges (carbon tax)
Mar/2012
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Canadian GHG Emissions (Mt CO2e)
Canada’s climate policy failure:
targets, policies, emissions
900
800
Green
National
Action
Program
Action
Plan
2000
Climate
Change Plan
for Canada
Project
Green
EcoENERGY
700 Plan
600
G7, Rio
(1988)(1992)
500
400
Kyoto
(1997)
World
Conference
on Changing
Atmosphere
(1988)
300
200
100
0
1990
Mar/2012
1995
2000
Jaccard-Simon Fraser University
2005
2010
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Energy consumption and new
devices (US data)
Steve Groves, SFU – 2009
45 energy
using devices
Electricity consumption per household (kWh)
4000
Imag ing
3000
Telephone
2000
15 energy
using devices
1000
0
Year
Mar/2012
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1/2012
Fossil fuels
Jaccard-Simon Fraser
University
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