Scenario to Cap World Emissions by 2020 Is Fading Fast, Warns IEA Economist
From his perch as chief economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol is virtually shouting his global warming predictions from the Paris rooftops.
"As we stand now," Birol said on Friday, "we're only a few meters away from saying goodbye to the 2-degree target."
In speeches in London and Abu Dhabi last week, and in an interview with ClimateWire, Birol said he's trying to reach the energy markets. Oil prices are heavy on the minds of the world's largest oil consumers. The U.S. economy is picking up, and China is lapping up as much oil as it can, as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries considers, once again, the prospect of $100 crude and faces pressure to boost production. Crude prices in Africa and Asia topped $100 a barrel Friday.
As economies churn, the push to limit emissions is faltering. "The later we move, the more difficult it will be, especially in the United States," Birol said. "There is a lot of infrastructure being built, lots of power plants. The later we move, the more expensive it will be."
Birol is the latest high-level figure in international energy and climate circles to warn that pledges to cut emissions made under the Copenhagen Accord don't go nearly deep enough to stem rising temperatures. As an economist, Birol is looking at the unflagging demand for fossil fuels that produce the carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and tepid investment levels in zero-emissions energy projects.
National policies don't keep up with rhetoric
"When I look at the next 10 years," he said, "even if I take into consideration the pledges made after the Copenhagen meeting, the best case is that this could put us on a trajectory in line with 3.5 degrees Celsius."
To hit that 2-degree target and remain there, he said "decarbonization" needs to increase by 400 percent, "and mainly in the countries where climate change is not high on the agenda."
"Almost all the energy infrastructure that we'll be using in 2020 is either in place now, or in the final investment stage," he said.
National policies have not kept pace, but it's also about energy economics, pure and simple. Utilities, which usually either are closely regulated or subsidize electricity, are geared toward buying the cheapest sources of electricity.
Birol pointed to natural gas as an example. The U.S. boom in unconventional natural gas development has dampened investment in renewable energy, he said, because gas has remained a cheap source of electricity. With big oil and gas producers hoping to duplicate that boom in Europe, China and other parts of Asia, gas could remain cheap enough, and for a long enough time, to put the kibosh on any surge in wind and solar power projects.
Yet, from Birol's vantage point, there's no time left to delay the rollout of zero-emissions technology to replace coal-burning plants. Wind and solar need the power contracts to build out systems, drive down costs and compete effectively with coal and gas as nations replace aging power plants.
"The push for renewable energies is not as strong as one needs to see for 2-degree target," he said. "If natural gas is cheap and available, this would be a problem for the competitiveness of renewable energy."
'Decarbonization' weakened by lack of resolve
So much of the problem is in the scale of decarbonization since U.N. member countries signed on to the Copenhagen Accord after December 2009 talks. The electric car industry is gearing up to make major inroads, as all the major car companies jump on the bandwagon. Still, he said, if you put together all the electric vehicle sales estimates in all of the countries establishing electric vehicle markets, it accounts for about 8 percent of car sales through 2020 and 2 percent of the global fleet.
