Each year, the International Energy Agency puts out a lengthy report called the World Energy Outlook. New Zealand is a member of the IEA, and we pay membership fees to them in exchange for policy advice and so on (although we don’t seem to listen to it). The 2013 World Energy Outlook came out this week, and doesn’t seem to have gotten a whiff of coverage in the Herald, so I guess it’s up to me.
Incidentally, when the 2012 edition came out, the soundbite that made headlines around the world was that the US was going to “become the world’s largest oil producer by around 2020, temporarily overtaking Saudi Arabia, as new exploration technologies help find more resources” – see this Herald article for example. The media tended to gloss over the most important message of the report, which is that greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, and we actually need to reduce them to have a reasonable chance of avoiding major global warming – but current trends are not taking us in the right direction. Thanks to Dr Sea Rotmann for making this point. As for the suggestion that the US will dramatically increase its oil production, I’ve heard murmurings that the US government was leaning on the IEA quite heavily to make this prediction, and reality may fall short somewhat. We’ll have to wait and see.
I do have to give “mad propz” to Brian Fallow at the Herald for writing some great analysis on the 2012 report earlier this year. He notes:
We already have… more [fossil fuels] than we can possibly ever burn if we are to have a fighting chance of keeping global warming to 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. And that is the goal the world’s Governments, including ours, signed up to in Cancun in 2010.
[The] 2012 World Energy Outlook, released six months ago, says: “No more than a third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2°C goal, unless carbon capture and storage technology is widely deployed.”
…Carbon capture and storage being a method of “storing” emissions from coal plants, which has not yet been shown to be commercially viable, and may not ever be.
Anyway, on to 2013. Maybe the IEA are setting themselves up for the kind of media coverage they got last year; their press release this week only devotes one paragraph to climate change, stating that “Energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions are projected to rise by 20% to 2035, leaving the world on track for a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6 °C, far above the internationally-agreed 2 °C climate target.”
The report itself, though, makes the point much more strongly:
- Under the IEA’s “New Policies Scenario” – which is a bit more optimistic than ‘business as usual’, and assumes that governments do initiate carbon taxes, trading schemes etc where they have said they will do so – the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will keep rising, “from 444 parts per million (ppm) in 2010 to over 700 ppm by 2100”.
- Global agreements call for the long term concentration to stabilise at 450 ppm. Note, though, that the current 444 ppm is a bit overstated, and comes down to 403 ppm when cooling aerosols are excluded (IEA, p79). Clearly, the path we’re on does not achieve the goal signed up to by the world’s governments.
- “This would correspond to an increase in the long-term global average temperature of 3.6°C, compared with pre-industrial levels (an increase of 2.8°C from today, adding to the 0.8°C that has already occurred)”.
- “As the source of two-thirds of global greenhouse-gas emissions, the energy sector will be pivotal in determining whether or not climate change goals are achieved”. And that’s the kicker. Note that the energy sector includes oil, gas, coal, and other energy sources – so transport emissions are included here.
Here’s what happens to (energy) greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years, based on the “New Policies Scenario”:
The world can still meet its targets, with greenhouse gas concentrations stabilising at 450 parts per million in the future, but each year of delay makes that goal harder to reach, and more expensive. This is something the IEA says every year, and maybe it’s the “stuck record” factor that means these reports don’t get the coverage they should. But just because we’re haven’t been thinking about it as much since the GFC, doesn’t mean that the processes driving climate change have gone away.
I’ll just make one more point and leave the rest for another day (it’s an 800 page report, and a bit too much info for just one blog post). A lot of the changes that need to be made can be made for no economic cost; they pay for themselves. The IEA has listed four of the big changes, which “if implemented promptly, cut 80% of the
excess emissions in 2020 relative to the 2°C target”, and make it much easier to achieve the overall target. The four policies are:
1. Adopting specific energy efficiency measures (49% of the emissions savings).
2. Limitng the constructon and use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants (21%).
3. Minimising methane (CH4) emissions from upstream oil and gas production (18%).
4. Accelerating the (partial) phase-out of subsidies to fossil-fuel consumption (12%).
Some of these aren’t that relevant to New Zealand – but number 1 certainly is. The IEA notes that the efficiency measures they advocate include “new or higher energy performance standards in many fields: in buildings, for lighting, new appliances and new heating and cooling equipment; in industry, for motor systems; and, in transport, for road vehicles”. In light of these recommendations, the shift towards greener building in New Zealand is a positive trend. We don’t have any regulations on road vehicles in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but maybe it’s time we did. I’ll look at this more in the future.
Any of our readers who are students may like to go and have a look at the report for themselves – it’s not too hard to read, and there’s an executive summary so you don’t have to read the whole thing! If you’re at the University of Auckland, you can access it through the OECD iLibrary here.
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What are “world leading” vehicle efficiency standards and how does NZ compare to them?
With a NZ average private vehicle fleet age of over 11 years (and rising) the current world leading efficiency standards elsewhere (whether world leading or not), means that those standards will take a long time to actually improve anything here.
And recently released analysis of the much maligned “cash for clunkers” scheme the US ran during the GFC aimed at improving US vehicle fleet overall efficiency – shows just how much of a disaster it was for that purpose (but it did keep a few car makers in business selling the same old gas guzzlers and make many of their dealers a lot richer along the way).
The best way to improve NZ’s vehicle efficiency standards, is for NZ Inc to own less vehicles (both in total and per-capita) and to make the best use of the ones we have, whatever efficiency they have.
The most efficient car thats best for this planet is the car you never need to buy/own/drive.because you have plentiful transport alternatives that mean you don’t need your own car for most of the time.
Thats our only realistic option.
+1
Banking on incremental shifts in vehicle efficiency while doubling down on auto-dependency is the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.
Given that neither the current administration’s minister of finance nor its minister of transport believe in anthropogenic climate change, it’s unlikely that New Zealand would even contemplate, let alone adopt policies implementing the four recommended IEA changes. To the contrary, the current administration has: gutted the previous government’s ETS, dumped previously mooted vehicle efficiency standards for imported motor vehicles; removed restrictions on the construction of thermal power stations, encouraged the exploration for new reserves of oil and gas and the growth of methane-producing agriculture; and predicated ‘economic growth’ on the construction of fossil-fuel based infrastructure, etc. If we took government policy to its logical conclusion I guess the current administration could quite happily ignore the advice it receives from IEA and cancel its membership, in the interest of economic efficiency, of course.
Maybe the current lot are waiting on technology to solve our energy issues, rather than proactive policy…but will it?
http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/edinburgh-global/academies/changing-world/2013-lectures/sustainable-technology
We reached 400ppm in the Northern summer last year. It was a major milestone which got scant attention. Given we are increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide by about 2ppm at present (and that rate is increasing), we’re likely to reach 450ppm within 20 years. After that, we’d need to stop all emissions, everywhere.
And yet the only serious policy arguments in Auckland Transport and the NZTA are about how many lanes our new motorways should have.
I recently saw the rather fascinating and beautiful film about climate science ‘Thin Ice’. I’d encourage anyone who loves documentaries or intelligent storytelling to take a look: http://thiniceclimate.org/
So relevant to NZ:
In NZ our biggest subsidy to FF use is the mis allocation of transport and land-use incentivising investment to sprawl and auto-dependency. Particularly the aggressive attempt to keep private car use up called, pompously, The RoNS. This is the single biggest economic intervention being made by this government and will, eventually, be seen to be what it is: an enormous disaster.
This gamble on idea that we are still in the middle of the 20th Century is committing us to unsustainable debt levels and building entirely the wrong country for our times. Joyce will overtake Muldoon as the most tragically wrongheaded politician this country has ever seen. I hope he lives to see the mess, and has the intelligence to understand it.
The aggression with which they are spending the one time resource they inherited in the NLTF and now both flicking assets and committing future generations to paying for this calamitous programme is wreckless and also shows that they do understand it can’t go on.
It is an attempt to build an unsustainable world; the hubris is monumental and psychopathic.
At least Muldoon’s intention was a kind of energy independence.
Exactly, intention good, timing poor. Or at least overtaken by events. The idea that the little filip offered by fracked Shale in the US is even vaguely comparable to the huge resources of the North Sea, Cantarell in Mexico and the Northern Slope of Alaska that came on stream and force the price down radically just as NZ attempted to invest away from oil dependency is total nonsense.
This is clearly proved by the fact that it has demonstrably failed to meaningfully add to net global supply; simply made up for declines elsewhere and therefore equally failed to return crude prices to 20century levels.
Anyway the Bakken and Eagle Ford will move into decline in the next couple of years, and the Permian is topping out right now, so the boosters in the US oil and gas industry and friends will have to find something else to claim as the cavalry….
And in the case of Bakken, the ongoing water requirements to keep the wells producing are actually much much higher than has been assumed:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/11/131111-north-dakota-wells-maintenance-water/
Comment: “The need for large amounts of maintenance water seems to be a unique problem in the Bakken play. Both energy industry and environmental groups contacted by National Geographic News said they had not even heard of the practice before”.
Problem: the fresh water used for fracking in Bakken can’t be recycled easily (or at all) for use e.g. for further fracking as its now too salty and will contaminate the wells if used.
So fresh water is needed to keep the wells working, and the old water has to be “dumped” into underground salt water aquifers and hope it stays put.
Not only does fracking threaten contamination of local ground water supplies with petro-chemicals, it seems it now also threatens the same water supplies with a double whammy of over-drawing the aquifers through unanticipated on-going water demands for the life of the well and also dumped “formerly-clean-but-now-salty” water that can’t be used for anything else.
And this is Bakken, the current “Golden Boy” of shale – how long before the others all show the same types of problems?
Here is the NYT repeating the IEA’s very conservative numbers, while these are at the more optimistic end of the range but still it’s not bullish enough on oil to support our government cheerful ignoring of the imported fuel bill. Also too gloomy on renewables in my view:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/business/energy-environment/shales-effect-on-oil-supply-is-not-expected-to-last.html?_r=0
The quick fix for New Zealand is to stop all the cheap Jap imported cars. Prior to the changes in import restrictions in the mid 80’s cars in NZ were quite expensive and it was quite normal for Kiwi families to have only one car. Since the change these Jap imports are so cheap that it is not unusual for Mum, Dad and teh 2.5 kids to have a car each.
Now I can imagine the lefties being up in arms about any law change that made car ownership less affordable but ignoring the social problem of widening the fiscal gap, it would be a quick fix. Also getting rid of the Jap imports would make the NZ fleet more energy/emmisions efficient.
Aside from what NZ can do its all bad news Im afraid. There are simply too many Asian people that are getting to car affordable status and what right do we in the west have to tell them they cant destroy the planet? Its like the Amazon rain forrest. The children of Kiwi farmers are telling Brazilians not to cut down trees…anyone spot the double standards? The world demands energy, Fracking and traditional fossil fuels are here to stay.
Green taxes are becoming harder to levy. In the UK the Government is about to remove some green tax from the gas sector so that heating becomes more affordable. There is a growing group of people that are more concerned with not freezing this winter than about Polar bears and melting ice caps. It might be selfish but its understandable.
Pretty much every green initiative on energy has been a total waste of time and effort. Some, like first generation bio has caused more problems than it has solved. People in third world countries are starving because farmers ripped out grain and planted rape seed. Most of the worlds Bio plants lay empty as the price of FAME is too expensive as feedstock, those plants that are still running only stay open because of subsidies.
One way to reduce carbon is to build more nuclear plants… Hands up who wants to live near one of those?
In the future we will learn to carbon capture more effectively and there is some very interesting technology being developed by the oil industry in solar and hydrogen. If it doesnt work there is always the upside that global warming pretty much crews Australia before us 😀
I actually agree regarding the japanese cars, excise tax should be placed on cars to represent the cost of driving.
In terms of emissions there is a lot that we can do as a country, and that is applicable to other countries, such as minimum fuel efficiencies for all new cars, and a VED like in the UK moving towards electrification of vehicles. Also, looking to move to lower energy lifestyles by investing in Cycleways and (preferably) electrified PT.
I think cars are heading towards pretty impressive fuel efficiency already and there is nothing wrong with the European model of taxing cars based on CO2. The road tax bill for my car is pretty eye watering compared to a mini but Id rather pay extra than not have the choice to drive a fast car. The new technology you will see in F1 next year is also pretty special and will have spin off effects on road cars.
The problem is that on a global scale we are always going to be chasing our tail to try and clean up the West quicker than demand for fossil fuels grows in the East. As I said above, we have no right to scream conservation to the Chinese and Indians after 100 years of doing what we wanted.
EV’s for most countries are powered by fossil fuel power gen or the ever unpopular nuclear plants. It may sound green to plug into the mains but its not at all green if the electricity came from Fuel oil, Diesel, or even Natgas. I am not saying it is not a nice ideal or that we shouldn’t try and become more green, but its much harder than it looks.
I think that we need a real game change to sort everything out and we will probably get one. This could be anything from someone actually working out cold Fission (unlikely) to a global plague that drastically reduces the worlds population (not as unlikely as it may sound) and all variables in between.
More could be done though and you are right SB, encouraging cycling and moving PT to EV or Hydrogen are good places to start.
Indeed, and even though we are unlikely to achieve a reduction as you mention, we are perfectly capable of reducing the increase that will occur.
The EV suggestion was more for New Zealand, though if carbon capture becomes feasible I see no reason to not use EVs and generate energy from coal.
My bet for the event is a large and protracted war in the middle east spiking fuel prices and thus forcing a reduced dependency.
We need a plague to reduce population? Not funny.
It wasn’t a joke, a plague is a possibility.
Im not a buyer of a large and protracted war in the Middle East. The scenarios are Iran nukes Israel in which case Israel nukes Tehran. Zero sum game as both sides kill each other and the oil fields are mostly intact. Holiday makers in Dubai may want to hope for an Westerly wind that day 🙁
Iran might take a pop at Saudi in which case the US nukes Iran. Again the oil will mostly be intact as the bombs will go into Tehrain and Ryadd.
A conventional war is unlikely unless you are talking a US invasion of Iran. That would be a repeat of Iraq with some disruption to oil supply as Iran is likely to destroy its own oil assets. This would result in higher il prices and every other oil producer increasing production. Who wouldnt pump the max if crude was $200/bbl?
The most serious war scenario would be the Russians back Syria against a US invasion. That could escalate but WW3 is bullish oil as conflicts require large quantities of fuel. But does Russia or the US really want to go toe to toe?
The middle east conflict I was thinking of was more of an internal war, with funding from outsides, maybe a Syria and Iran, against Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, resulting in severe disturbance in Lebannon, a civil war in Egypt and Libya (Libya already is in a civil war, Egypt has been close for 2 years, and there are a lot of weapons in this area).
This would take Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari, Libyan, and Iranian oil out or drastically deplete output pretty damned quick, and that which did come out would be seriously dangerous.
I wasn’t arguing the likelihood -I agree with you on that (maybe “pandemic” a better word than “plague”). My point was that you wrote “I think that we need a real game change to sort everything out …” – that was the non-funny bit.
“Now that the land grab of U.S. shale oil and natural gas acreage has ended, the oil and gas industry faces a new question – how it will fund the commercialization of unconventional resources. Estimates of the amount of capital needed range from $2 trillion to $5 trillion, but the market capital of shale participants is less than $1 trillion”….
Some of this money will be speculative hot money sucked out of the global economy, but it may all end in tears, when the middle classes can no longer afford to buy it. On the bright side, fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse emissions will decline!
http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/129682/Massive_Spending_Ahead_As_Industry_Develops_US_Shale/?all=HG2
Transport fuel is cheap. I don’t know too many people, especially Americans who would walk 20 kms for a couple of dollars.
Investing in Energy is always a winner. Petrol is the easiest thing to sell…Every time the little needle points to ‘E’ people go buy it.
The real sad news Paul is the OECD countries could cut CO2 in half and we would still be in trouble. All the dirty emissions these days are in Asia and are you going to try and tell China and India they are not allowed to Industrialize or enjoy the benefits of being able to swap a cycle for a car? It is just not going to happen.
Phil, I agree with you in part but in part only… as we’re both well aware, oil/ petrol prices have increased dramatically over the last decade. On the other hand, as a cost per joule of energy delivered, these fuels are still pretty cheap compared to some other sources.
As for your comment “Every time the little needle points to ‘E’ people go buy it.”, well yes people still buy petrol and much of that spending is viewed as a necessity. But petrol consumption is quite a bit down in New Zealand, and has been going that way since circa 2003-4 when higher prices started to bite – despite population growth and so on.
Most of the OECD has seen similar trends. And, as you mention, that’s kind of negated by growth in the developing countries.