Lethal Heating: 04/07/21

07/04/2021

New Report Hails The Decade Of Renewables As 2020 Hits Capacity Record

RenewEconomy - Ketan Joshi

A new report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has shown that global renewable energy capacity additions in 2020 have surpassed a range of prior estimate and all records from previous years.

The majority of the year was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with supply chains, businesses and shipping all heavily disrupted, making the records even more remarkable.

IRENA found that global additions of renewables added up to 260 gigawatts, exceeding 2019’s value by nearly 50%. More than 80% of all new electrical capacity added in 2020 was renewable, and of that renewable energy 91% was wind and solar.

IRENA attributes this to a “net decommissioning” of fossil fuel power in Europe, North America and Eurasia (including the Russian Federation and Turkey). In Asia, the Middle East and Africa, there is a net expansion of fossil fuels. The expansion of fossil fuels continues, but is slowing, according to their data.

The data also highlight that China and the US were the two dominant players globally for these markets, with China adding a stunning 72 gigawatts of wind power and 49 gigawatts of solar power in 2020.

The US installed 29 gigawatts of renewables, “nearly 80% more than 2019, including 15 GW of solar and around 14 GW of wind”.

However, most other countries “continued to increase renewable capacity at a similar rate to previous years”, the report adds.

The new additions put the renewable share of total generation capacity in the world from 24.6% in 2019 to 36.6% in 2020.

“An energy transition requires that the use of renewables expands by more than the growth in energy demand, so that less non-renewable energy needs to be used”, write the authors of the report.

“Many countries still have not reached this point, despite dramatic increases in their use of renewables for generating electricity”.

Of the various regions reported upon, the highest increase in capacity was Oceania (18.5%), almost all of which occurred in Australia.

However, the region is a small share of global totals and Australia remains heavily dependent on world-leading quantities of coal-fired power, as reported in another recent analysis of 2020 electricity data.

Another Australian government report suggested that Australia’s growth could be heading for a downturn.

“Despite the difficult period, as we predicted, 2020 marks the start of the decade of renewables,” said IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera.

“Costs are falling, clean tech markets are growing and never before have the benefits of the energy transition been so clear.

"This trend is unstoppable, but as the review of our World Energy Transition Outlook highlights, there is a huge amount to be done.

"Our 1.5 degree outlook shows significant planned energy investments must be redirected to support the transition if we are to achieve 2050 goals. In this critical decade of action, the international community must look to this trend as a source of inspiration to go further”.

A recent preview of the 2021 IRENA “World Energy Transition Outlook” report, to be released in full later this year, found that “proven technologies for a net-zero energy system already largely exist today”, and that “in anticipation of the coming energy transition, financial markets and investors are already directing capital away from fossil fuels and towards other energy technologies including renewables”.

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(AU) Alan Kohler: The Climate Spin Can’t Go On Forever. Net Zero Must Be Our Aim

New Daily - Alan Kohler

Australia must tackle climate change head on and strengthen its emissions trading scheme, writes Alan Kohler. Photo: TND

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Alan Kohler writes for The New Daily twice a week. He is editor in chief of Eureka Report and finance presenter on ABC News

The Morrison government faces a big choice when it comes time to commit fully to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Most other countries have already made that commitment, and just about every other Australian organisation and state government has done it as well, but Scott Morrison’s current wording is that he wants to achieve net-zero emissions “preferably” by 2050.

That means the government doesn’t have to announce any actual policies to achieve that, just talk about advances in technology and say it would be nice if they were to cut net emissions to zero by 2050.

Maybe they can keep that sophistry going for a while, but as the pandemic passes the pressure will resume.

When Mr Morrison is forced to lose the word “preferably” from his climate change incantation, a choice will have to be made between public and private spending. That is, between the American and European methods.

Biden’s spending big

Having got his $US1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion) economic stimulus through Congress, US President Joe Biden is now working on a $US2.3 trillion ($3 trillion) infrastructure spending plan, some of which is to go on emissions reduction and renewable energy.

By contrast, Europe runs the first and still biggest emissions trading scheme, started in 2005.

Neither of them, it should be noted, is doing anywhere near enough yet to reach net zero by 2050, but at least they’ve made a start.

The great irony is that the headquarters of capitalism – the United States – is doing it with the socialism of government spending, while Europe is using the market.

The Australian government is using a bit of both, with the emphasis on “a bit”.

There’s the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro storage scheme, which will cost up to $4.5 billion, the $1.3 billion Modern Manufacturing Initiative and the Low Emissions Technology Statement that talked about building a hydrogen industry without mentioning a dollar figure for government investment.

Mr Biden’s $US2.3 trillion ($3 trillion) “American Jobs Plan” now before Congress only contains about $US300 billion ($394 billion) in direct spending on emissions reduction, with the rest to be spent on things like a national broadband network, new water pipes, affordable housing, roads and bridges.

But since America’s GDP is 10 times Australia’s, that’s equivalent to $30 billion here.

Even if you count emissions reduction infrastructure spending by all Australian governments you only get to $7.4 billion (according to WWF Australia).

Joe Biden’s $3 trillion ‘American Jobs Plan’ contains about $394 billion in direct spending on emissions reduction. Photo: Getty

Australian system achieving little

Australia’s emissions trading scheme is likewise a pale shadow of Europe’s.

The government’s Clean Energy Regulator issues “Australian Carbon Credit Units” (ACCUs) to anyone who gets a project approved by the Emissions Reduction Fund.

In 2020, 158 projects were approved that cut emissions by 16 million tonnes, 8 per cent more than in 2019. The CER is predicting it will be 17 million tonnes in 2021.

That 16 million tonnes of abatement in 2020 was 3 per cent of Australia’s total emissions; Europe’s ETS apparently contributed to a 21 per cent reduction in 2020.

Another way to measure the difference is the carbon price: On the European market, it recently hit a record high of 43 euros, or $66 per tonne. The “spot price” in Australia is currently $16.55.

That’s because the caps in our cap-and-trade system are high, which means emitters don’t have to buy many ACCUs.

The way an ETS works is that the government puts a cap on how much carbon dioxide each company in the land can emit, and if they want to emit more, they have to buy (trade) credits from someone who is emitting less or has an approved emissions reduction project, like planting trees, and therefore gets credits issued to them.

The European Union has a low cap and then issues a lot of free allowances, as they’re called, (17.8 billion euros worth last year); Australia simply has a set of caps that are equal to what the companies are emitting now, so they don’t have to buy any ACCUs.

That’s because the Coalition doesn’t want anything that smells remotely like a carbon tax, having triumphantly repealed Labor’s ETS in 2013 after falsely describing it as a carbon tax.

But while repealing the Clean Energy Act, the Coalition only amended the Clean Energy Regulator Act. Not only was it retained, its funding was increased in last year’s budget.

Times have changed

Angus Taylor, who goes by the title of Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, now regularly emits press releases announcing the regulator’s marvellous achievements in reducing emissions.

But times have changed and Tony Abbott lost his seat to an independent promoting action on climate change.

Since then, the Coalition has been trying to appear to be doing something about climate change without being accused of actually doing anything serious – thus the word “preferably” inserted into its version of the net zero by 2050 commitment.

But the “preferably” can’t last, which means the loose caps in Australia’s ETS and/or the tiny spending on renewable infrastructure can’t last, either.

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Here’s All The Climate Science You Missed So Far This Year

Bloomberg Green - Eric Roston

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.

Flood in Australia. Photographer: Flavio Brancaleone/Getty Images

In early January the high atmosphere above the Arctic warmed abruptly, which happens about six times a decade. That warming gradually weakened the jet stream below, causing frigid air to spill down across North America. Texas froze, and tragedy ensued.

Some evidence points to a link between the quickly heating Arctic and cold spells to the south, but not everyone agrees, and it’s become a bit of a stalemate. Two things are certain: Winter is the fastest-warming season, and Texas missed warnings.

Scientists are much clearer about humanity’s role in more common extreme weather events. Some 40,000 people evacuated their homes in New South Wales in March after biblical rainfall.

Aspects of Australia’s climate make parsing the climate influence of any precipitation event more complicated, but new work affirms that more greenhouse gas means more heat, a wetter atmosphere, and more extreme rainfall.

It’s not only about more or less precipitation—the timing of the seasons is changing almost everywhere, with California’s rainy season now starting a month later than it did 60 years ago.

Global heating has also slowed down the Gulf Stream, the vast Atlantic circulation system that directly affects climate in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, to its lowest level in 1,000 years. This deceleration is a long-predicted and long-feared development, and scientists say a better understanding of it “is urgently needed.”

Keeping the temperature rise below 1.5°C seems like a better and better idea, even as it’s becoming harder and harder to achieve. With heat comes more humidity, a potent combination that can push a human body to its breaking point.

Halting climate change below 2°C would dramatically cut the risk to people in the tropics of conditions that push the body past “the survival limit.”

A quarter of the CO₂ pollution we emit every year washes into the ocean, and some falls to the floor as sediment, where it stays safely away from the atmosphere for millenniums. Except when industrial fishing trawlers run over 1.3% of the ocean floor every year, releasing as much as 20% of the atmospheric CO₂ that the oceans absorb annually.

The good news: The creation of protected marine areas would help keep down this carbon, while improving both fisheries and marine life, according to a new study. The authors included Jane Lubchenco, a university distinguished professor at Oregon State University, who’s since taken the White House’s highest-ranking climate-science adviser position.

Like marine sediment, soil is an amazing place to hide carbon from the atmosphere. It’s supposed to be a twofer: Plants suck down CO₂, and when they shed leaves or die, the stored carbon becomes a part of the soil.

That process is now called into question by research suggesting that as plants soak up soil nutrients, microbes wake up and feast—with their metabolism releasing stored CO₂ back into the atmosphere. The more plants grow, the less the soils hold on to. The discovery may require changes to important models.

There’s a downside to earlier springtime and later winter: more time for plants to kick out allergens. Allergy season is 20 days longer than it used to be in North America, with pollen concentrations growing by 21%.

Meanwhile across the pond, scientists trying to give Europeans better tools to prepare for allergies found that seasonal severity may rise an additional 60% in the decades ahead. And if that’s not too much to inhale, researchers in Colorado found that the energy required to grow cannabis indoors produces 1.3% of the state’s emissions.

Somehow there’s still good news—the adoption of renewables and electric vehicles, oil-industry introspection, even sweeter peaches (drought stress raises sugar production). With sustained effort, we might see the most important measures of planetary health improve.

Global CO₂ emissions from energy rose by 0.9% a year from 2010-18, less than a third of the annual growth in the previous decade.

The pandemic year knocked down annual CO₂ emissions by an historic 7%, but economic engines have restarted, and December 2020 emissions were already higher than the same month in 2019.

It adds up: Last year tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, and the hottest seven years in the last 141 have all occurred since 2014.

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