President Trump Threatens To Undermine Key Measure Of Climate Policy Success

The Conversation - David Hodgkinson

The social cost of carbon estimates the damage caused by a tonne of carbon dioxide. Coal image from www.shutterstock.com

One of the key measures President Barack Obama used to develop climate policy could be under threat under President Donald Trump. The “social cost of carbon”, a dollar measure of how much damage is inflicted by a tonne of carbon dioxide, underpins many US and other energy-related regulations (and in the UK too, for example).
The latest estimates from William Nordhaus, one of the best-known economists dealing with climate change issues (together with Nicholas Stern), put the social cost of carbon in 2015 at a baseline of US$31.20. This rises over time as the impacts of climate change worsen.
Conversely, the social cost of carbon is also the “government’s best estimate of how much society gains over the long haul” by reducing CO₂ emissions.
Nordhaus uses an economic model known as the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy (or DICE) model, which he developed in the 1990s. I understand it’s one of the leading models for examining the effects of climate change on the economy. Other researchers have adapted and modified DICE to examine issues associated with the economics of climate change.
Social costs of carbon estimates have been – and remain – helpful for assessing the climate impacts of carbon dioxide emission changes, but perhaps not for the incoming Trump administration in the US.

‘More bad news than good news’
First, though, let’s consider the update to Nordhaus’ DICE model. He finds that the results strengthen earlier ones, which indicate “the high likelihood of rapid warming and major damages if policies continue along the unrestrained path” – his view of current policy settings. He revises upwards his estimate of the social cost of carbon by about 50% on the last modelling.
Further, Nordhaus argues that the 2°C “safe” limit set under the Paris Agreement seems to be “infeasible” even with reasonably accessible technologies. This is because of the inertia of the climate system, rapid projected economic growth in the near term, and revisions to the model.
His view is that a 2.5°C limit is “technically feasible” but that “extreme virtually universal global policy measures” would be required. By implication, such measures could refer to geo-engineering and, in particular, removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.
Nordhaus also notes:

Of the six largest countries or regions, only the EU has implemented national climate policies, and the policies of the EU today are very modest. Moreover, from the perspective of political economy in different countries as of December 2016, the prospects of strong policy measures appear to be dimming rather than brightening.

As a result of the DICE modelling, Nordhaus states that there is more bad news than good news and that the need for effective climate change policies is “more and not less pressing”.
His results relate to a world without climate policies, which, as he says, “is reasonably accurate for virtually the entire globe today. The results show rapidly rising accumulation of CO₂, temperatures changes, and damages.”

An end to the use of the social cost of carbon?
As well as the definition earlier of that cost, it could also be described as a government’s best estimate “of how much society gains over the long haul by cutting each tonne” of CO₂ emissions.
While the Obama administration relied on the DICE model (and others) in arriving at a social cost of carbon – such cost is already important in the formation of 79 federal regulations – it appears that the incoming Trump administration might modify or end this use.
It has been argued – by Harvard’s Cass Sunstein and the University of Chicago’s Michael Greenstone – that such action would defy law, science and economics. It is probably unlikely that use of the social cost of carbon would be done away with completely (lowering the operative number might be more likely), although Greenstone and Sunstein do contemplate it.
Sunstein and Greenstone conclude that, without it, federal regulations would have no quantifiable benefits. And that would have implications for emission reductions and assessing progress on dealing with climate change.
And Nordhaus concludes:

The future is highly uncertain for virtually all variables, particularly economic variables such as future emissions, damages, and the social cost of carbon.

That’s definitely the case for climate change policy and action in the US following the election of Donald Trump. For President Trump’s supporters, it appears that “turning back the clock is the most important thing the president-elect can do to help businesses succeed”.
And the president may well do that. He has argued for an increase in coal use and suggested that, under his administration, the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement.

Links

• A 2014 calendar for climate change policy-making
• Managing climate risk in Trump’s America
• The economic cost of climate change: time for new math
• Politics aside, a simple carbon tax makes more sense than a convoluted emissions trading scheme

Sea Level Rise

National Geographic

Ocean levels are getting higher. Why is this happening, and what can we do to stem the tide?

Families in Kiribati, especially those new to the island nation, are often forced to live in marginal areas, where flooding from high tides is increasing. Photograph by Kennedy Warne

Core samples, tide gauge readings, and, most recently, satellite measurements tell us that over the past century, the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). However, the annual rate of rise over the past 20 years has been 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years. Over the past century, the burning of fossil fuels and other human and natural activities has released enormous amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. These emissions have caused the Earth's surface temperature to rise, and the oceans absorb about 80 percent of this additional heat. The rise in sea levels is linked to three primary factors, all induced by this ongoing global climate change:

• Thermal Expansion:
  When water heats up, it expands. About half of the past century's rise in sea level is attributable to warmer oceans simply occupying more space.
• Melting Glaciers and Polar Ice Caps:
  Large ice formations, like glaciers and the polar ice caps, naturally melt back a bit each summer. In the winter, snows, primarily from evaporated seawater, are generally sufficient to balance out the melting. Recently, though, persistently higher temperatures caused by global warming have led to greater-than-average summer melting as well as diminished snowfall due to later winters and earlier springs. This imbalance results in a significant net gain in the ratio of runoff to ocean evaporation, causing sea levels to rise.
• Ice Loss from Greenland and West Antarctica:
  As with the glaciers and ice caps, increased heat is causing the massive ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica to melt at an accelerated pace. Scientists also believe meltwater from above and seawater from below is seeping beneath Greenland's and West Antarctica's ice sheets, effectively lubricating ice streams and causing them to move more quickly into the sea. Higher sea temperatures are causing the massive ice shelves that extend out from Antarctica to melt from below, weaken, and break off.

Superstorm Sandy narrowed New Jersey's beaches by more than 30 feet on average. At Seaside Heights it swept away the pier under the roller coaster. Photograph by Stephen Wilkes

Consequences
When sea levels rise rapidly, as they have been doing, even a small increase can have devastating effects on coastal habitats. As seawater reaches farther inland, it can cause destructive erosion, wetland flooding, aquifer and agricultural soil contamination, and lost habitat for fish, birds, and plants.
When large storms hit land, higher sea levels mean bigger, more powerful storm surges that can strip away everything in their path. In addition, hundreds of millions of people live in areas that will become increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Higher sea levels would force them to abandon their homes and relocate. Low-lying islands could be submerged completely.

Meltwater gushes from an ice cap on the island of Nordaustlandet, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic Creative

How High Will It Go?
Most predictions say the warming of the planet will continue and is likely to accelerate. Oceans will likely continue to rise as well, but predicting the degree to which they will rise is an inexact science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we can expect the oceans to rise between 11 and 38 inches (28 to 98 centimeters) by 2100, enough to swamp many of the cities along the U.S. East Coast. More dire estimates, including a complete meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, place sea level rise to 23 feet (7 meters), enough to submerge London.

Montana A deluge falls from the core of a thunderstorm near Glasgow in July 2010. "I felt like if you could stand in the middle and look up, you'd see straight into the heavens," says photographer Sean Heavey. Panorama composed of four images; Sean R. Heavey, Barcroft Media/Landov

Links

• Rising Seas
• Air Pollution
• The Big Thaw
• Weather Gone Wild
• Oceans Will Rise Much More Than Predicted, NASA Says

Climate Change To Shift Global Pattern Of Mild Weather

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

New research shows the global average of mild weather days will drop, with dramatic declines for some, increases for others

As scientists work to predict how climate change may affect hurricanes, droughts, floods, blizzards and other severe weather, there’s one area that’s been overlooked: mild weather. But no more.

NOAA and Princeton University scientists have produced the first global analysis of how climate change may affect the frequency and location of mild weather – days that are perfect for an outdoor wedding, baseball, fishing, boating, hiking or a picnic. Scientists defined “mild” weather as temperatures between 64 and 86 degrees F, with less than a half inch of rain and dew points below 68 degrees F, indicative of low humidity.

Knowing the general pattern for mild weather over the next decades is also economically valuable to a wide range of businesses and industries. Travel, tourism, construction, transportation, agriculture, and outdoor recreation all benefit from factoring weather patterns into their plans.

Tropics to lose milder days
The new research, published in the journal Climatic Change, projects that globally the number of mild days will decrease by 10, or 13 percent, by the end of the century because of climate warming from the buildup of human-caused greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The current global average of 74 mild days a year will drop by four days by 2035 and 10 days by 2081 to 2100. But this global average decrease masks more dramatic decreases in store for some areas and increases in mild days in other regions.

“Extreme weather is difficult to relate to because it may happen only once in your lifetime,” said first author Karin van der Wiel, a Princeton postdoctoral researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) located on the university’s Forrestal Campus. “We took a different approach here and studied a positive meteorological concept, weather that occurs regularly, and that’s easier to relate to.”  

Scientists predict the largest decreases in mild weather will happen in tropical regions because of rising heat and humidity. The hardest-hit areas are expected to be in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where some regions could see 15 to 50 fewer days of mild weather a year by the end of the century. These are also areas where NOAA and partner research shows economic damages due to climate change. The loss of mild weather days, especially during summer, when they can serve to break up extended heatwaves, also could significantly affect public health.

Parts of U.S., Canada, northern Europe to gain milder days
People living in the mid-latitudes, which include much of the United States, as well as many mountainous areas around the world, will gain mild weather days on average, the new study found. The biggest winners will include communities along the border with Canada in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest, as well as many parts of Canada.

Other areas projected to gain as much as 10 to 15 days more annually of mild weather by the end of the 21st century include parts of England and northern Europe, and Patagonia in extreme southern South America. In some of these areas, mild weather will drop during increasingly hot and humid summers but become more plentiful in fall, winter and spring as winters warm and the shoulder seasons last longer.

This map shows the change in the annual number of mild days across the globe from the period of 1986-2005 to the period from 2081-2100. Areas of blue are expected to experience an increase in mild days while areas of brown are expected to see a decline in those days. (Van der Wiel/ NOAA/ Princeton)

“We believe improving the public understanding of how climate change will affect something as important as mild weather is an area ripe for more research and more focused studies,” said Sarah Kapnick, a physical scientist at NOAA’s GFDL and co-author. “Predicting changes in mild weather is not only important to business and industry, but can also contribute to research on the future of physical and mental health, leisure and urban planning.”

Scientists used high-resolution climate models to investigate the changing patterns of mild weather globally by examining the effect over time of increased warming from the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The work was made possible by decades of Earth system and model development at NOAA’s GFDL and by improvements made to NOAA’s research supercomputing capability, including access to two high performance supercomputers, Gaea and Theia, named after figures in Greek mythology.

Links

• Shifting patterns of mild weather in response to projected radiative forcing
• A top-down approach to projecting market impacts of climate change
• Research to measure cost of climate change, improve prediction of severe weather
• Playing hide and seek with El Niño
• El Niño/Southern Oscillation and greenhouse warming

World's First Custom-Built Floating City To Rise Off French Polynesian Waters

ABC News - Stephanie Boltje

A floating future - The Seasteading Institute describes its concept as permanent, innovative communities floating at sea. (The Seasteading Institute)

Key points The Seasteading Institute has been searching for a location for five years The French Polynesian pilot project will be built in sheltered waters Floating cities could be a solution to rising sea levels around the Pacific

The world's first floating city could be constructed off the waters of French Polynesia after the Government signed an agreement with a United States company in San Francisco at the weekend.
The Seasteading Institute has been researching the potential for what it describes as permanent, innovative communities floating at sea for the past five years.
After signing a memorandum of understanding with the French Polynesian Government, it is hopeful construction can start by 2019.
The institute's executive director, Randolph Hencken, told Pacific Beat finding a host nation was a significant milestone.
He said the next steps involved economic and environmental impact studies as well as legal investigations to figure out the special governing framework the institute believes is crucial to the ongoing success of its floating communities.

French Polynesia's ministerial representative Jean-Christophe Bouissou (R) signs off on the floating island project with Randolph Hencken from The Seasteading Institute. (Presidence de la Polynesie francaise.)

The Seasteading Institute was founded by Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman in 2008 to establish autonomous, mobile communities on seaborne platforms operating in international waters.
The French Polynesian prototype will not be in international waters but the institute still hopes its vision can be incorporated.
Mr Hencken said the detail of political autonomy needed to be negotiated and considered under the sovereignty of French Polynesia and France, of which French Polynesia is a territory.
"What we're interested in is societal choice and having a location where we can try things that haven't been tried before," Mr Hencken said.
"I don't think it will be that dramatically radical in the first renditions.

"But I imagine it has the opportunity to have different ways of voting for how things are run off the island instead of using the same systems that our great great-grandparents have given us that seem to have failed in so many first-world nations."

Mr Hencken said a former minister from the Government in Papeete approached his company last year and after a site inspection, the azure seas of the Pacific appealed for several reasons.
"We were looking for sheltered waters — we don't want to be out in the open ocean — it's technologically possible but economically outrageous to afford," he said.
"If we can be behind a reef break, then we can design floating platforms that are sufficient for those waters at an affordable cost."
Other attractions included fewer cyclones, a major airport in Tahiti and other aspects of modern life, like restaurants.
"We don't have to start from scratch as this is a pilot project," he said.
"They also have very stable institutions so we're able to work with a government that wants us there, that we have respect for and they have respect for us."
One of the challenges in the lead-up will be to prove the economic benefit to the Government.
"We are confident there will be both a direct and an indirect benefit for them economically," Mr Hencken said.
"They are a tourist-based economy and they're excited to bring us in because we are a technology-based idea.
"The first islands are going to be a pilot project and there will just be many dozens [of people] to get started with and then … we grow and are more successful, we will hopefully see hundreds and thousands of people living there.

"What excites me about the project is a location where people are going to create a community based on interests on floating islands rather than have a community because they happen to be born there and this is their ethnicity."

Beverley O'Connor speaks to The Seasteading Institute's Ashley Blake (The World)

The agreement with the French Polynesian Government is for the studies to be completed this year and incorporated into draft legislation. If passed by the end of 2018, construction can start in the next year.

A solution to the Pacific's rising sea levels
The Seasteading Institute believes their vision for "sustainable, floating islands and innovative islands" will prove to be part of the solution to rising sea levels.
"So much of the world — places like Kiribati and many of the islands of French Polynesia — are threatened by rising sea levels," Mr Hencken said.
"We are planning to spin off a new industry of floating islands that will allow people to stay tethered to their sovereignty as opposed to having to flee to other countries.
"That's certainly why the Tahitians are interested in us. They want the environmental resiliency as well as the economic opportunities."

Links

• Floating farms may boost Singapore's food security
• US group plans floating cities with 'start-up governments'
• A plan to create cities which float on the ocean
• The Seasteading Institute

'Extreme Year': 2016 Declared Hottest Year On Record As Climate Change Builds On Big El Nino

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

The world's major meteorological agencies have declared 2016 to the hottest year on record - making it three new highs in as many years - as increases in greenhouse gases drove global warming.
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said global sea and land temperatures last year were 0.99 degrees warmer than average for the 1951-1980 benchmark period, eclipsing the previous high set only a year earlier by 0.12 degrees.

The state of our climate in 2016
Australia is already experiencing an increase in extreme conditions from climate change - and it's projected to get worse.

The World Meteorological Organisation, which uses data from NASA, the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, said temperatures in 2016 were about 1.1 degrees higher than the pre-industrial period, or about 0.83 degrees above the 1961-1990 reference period. That beat the 2015 record by 0.07 degrees.
"2016 was an extreme year for the global climate and stands out as the hottest year on record," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
As expected, all but one of the 16 hottest years on record have occurred this century. 1998 is the other year, and came at the end of the biggest El Nino on record.
Almost two decades on from that spike, 2016 was more than one-third of a degree higher, according to NASA data released on Wednesday. (See NASA chart below.)



"The trends, which we've seen since the 1970s, are continuing and have not paused in any way," Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute, told a media briefing.

A girl drinks water from an irrigation tube in northern India's Jammu region during a May heatwave. Photo: AP

Global temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees per decade since 1880, accelerating to a 0.17-degree per decade rate since 1970, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its annual report.
Dr Schmidt said the recent El Nino probably boosted 2015 by about half a degree, compared with the trend, and just 0.12 degrees last year. The warming trend is contributing "about 90 per cent of the signal", he said.
Petteri Taalas, WMO's Secretary-General, said in a statement that "carbon dioxide and methane concentrations surged to new records. Both contribute to climate change".

Heatwaves
The record hot year was marked by heatwaves in South Asia and the Middle East, with Kuwait reaching 54 degrees in July - a reading that may be Asia's hottest on record.
Extraordinarily warm northern temperatures have slowed or reversed Arctic sea ice formation this winter, while at the southern end of the planet, Antarctic sea ice has also been tracking at record low levels in satellite data collected over more than three decades.
In combination, climate scientists in the past week have estimated the Earth has not had such low extent of sea ice in thousands of years. With less ice, less solar radiation is reflected back to space, ending up in the exposed seas instead - contributing to further build-up of warmth in the regions.
"Greenland glacier melt - one of the contributors to sea level rise - started early and fast," Mr Taalas said.
"The Arctic is warming twice as fast a the global average," he said. "The persistent loss of sea ice is driving weather, climate and ocean circulation patterns in other parts of the world."
(See NASA chart below for the areas of the planet with the biggest departures from the long-run average temperature.)


2017 outook
Dr Schmidt said he expected this year to see "a small negative push" in temperatures after three years of records.
"It's still going to be a top five year," although unlikely to be a fourth year of records, he said.
For its part, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated 2016 global temperatures beat the previous year by 0.04 degrees. Differences in accounting for Arctic changes account for some of the discrepancy between agencies.
"Since the start of the 21st century, the annual global temperature record has been broken five times - 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015, and 2016," NOAA said.
"Despite the cooling influence of a weak La Nina in the latter part of the year, the year ended with the third warmest December on record for the globe."
El Nino years tend to spur global temperatures as changing wind patterns in the Pacific means the giant ocean absorbs less heat from the atmosphere. La Ninas reverse the process and tend to suppress global temperatures. (See chart below.)

The 2015-16 El Nino was the third-strongest on record. Conditions have been mostly neutral since the El Nino pattern broke down in the first half of last year.
For Australia, 2016 was the country's fourth hottest year according to mean temperature data going back to 1910.
Among other agencies recording last year as the hottest on record was Japan's Meteorological Agency, which released preliminary data earlier this week.

Links

• Climate change: Data shows 2016 likely to be warmest year yet
• 2016 hottest year ever recorded – and scientists say human activity to blame
• 2016 breaks record for hottest year ever
• US scientists officially declare 2016 the hottest year on record. That makes three in a row.
• NASA Data Shows 2016 Was Warmest Year on Record Globally
• 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded – UN weather agency

China’s War On Coal Continues — The Country Just Canceled 104 New Coal Plants

Vox - Brad Plumer

A Chinese fisherman passes a coal powered plant on Shazai Island Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Because China is such a behemoth, its energy decisions absolutely dwarf anything any other country is doing right now. Case in point: Over the weekend, the Chinese government ordered 13 provinces to cancel 104 coal-fired projects in development, amounting to a whopping 120 gigawatts of capacity in all.

To put that in perspective, the United States has about 305 gigawatts of coal capacity total. The projects that China just ordered halted are equal in size to one-third of the US coal fleet. If the provinces follow through, it’s a very, very big deal for efforts to fight climate change.

This move also shouldn’t come as a big surprise. In recent years, China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, has been making major efforts to restrain its coal use and shift to cleaner sources of energy. When Donald Trump and other conservatives in the United States complain that China isn’t doing anything about climate change, they simply haven’t been paying attention.

China’s coal use is falling — and this may be a lasting shift

Back in 2013, China was using as much coal as the rest of the world combined, and it looked like coal use would keep growing astronomically forever. Local officials were planning hundreds of new coal plants as demand looked like it would keep soaring for decades.

Except then an odd thing happened. Since 2013, China’s coal consumption has actually fallen — due in part to a major economic slowdown but also in part to sluggish output in heavy industries like steel and cement that have traditionally accounted for half the country’s coal use. (The usual caveats about China’s murky energy statistics apply.)

Increasingly, many analysts suspect that this slowdown in coal consumption is a lasting shift — particularly as China transitions away from heavy industry and investment-driven growth and into a modern service-oriented economy that’s far less carbon-intensive. Going forward, China’s economy is expected to be focused more on retail shops and hospitals, less on steel and cement plants. Energy demand will slow.

On top of that, as China’s leaders start to take global warming seriously, the country has been making massive investments in clean energy. As part of the Paris climate deal, China has pledged to get 20 percent of its energy from low-carbon sources by 2030. The government is planning to install an addition 130 gigawatts of wind and solar by 2020 and making big bets on nuclear power. Some analysts suspect this growth in clean energy could be sufficient to satisfy much of the future growth in household electricity demand.

When you add those two trends together, many forecasters think China’s coal growth will either flatline or fall in the years ahead. One recent paper in Nature Geoscience predicted that China’s coal consumption may have already peaked in 2013. And if that’s true, then many of the hundreds of coal projects that China has on the drawing board will be flatly unnecessary.

China is now putting a hard limit on coal capacity — but there’s a catch

So that brings us to the recent cancellations. China currently has around 920 gigawatts of installed coal capacity — and many of those plants are already running at lower-than-expected capacity because of weak demand. But there are also hundreds of new coal plants in various phases of planning around the country that would bring total coal capacity nationwide up to 1,250 gigawatts.

That seems excessive, given recent trends. So in China’s latest five-year plan, Chinese officials put a hard cap on future coal capacity at 1,100 gigawatts. Then last week, they ordered provinces to cancel 104 coal projects in the works that were worth an estimated $30 billion. Of those, 47 projects were already under construction, according to a Greenpeace analysis.

Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at Greenpeace who has been following this story closely for years, made a map of the plants targeted for cancellation:

(Greenpeace)

That said, there are a whole bunch of important asterisks here. First, Beijing has only ordered the provinces to cancel the plants. The provincial governments still have to actually comply. (And we’ve seen some provinces defy Beijing on overcapacity cuts before.)

Second, even under the new cap, Chinese coal capacity still has some room to expand going forward — which is why environmental groups like Greenpeace are calling on the government to go even further and cancel the rest of the dozens of new coal projects still in various stages of planning.

Third, while any slowdown in Chinese coal demand is good news for climate change, it’s not great news for climate change. If the world wants to avoid drastic global warming — typically defined as 2°C or more — then it’s not enough for China’s CO2 emissions to simply plateau. They have to fall, very drastically. Doing that will require more than simply canceling any future coal plants. It will mean either retiring existing coal plants and replacing them with cleaner sources (as the United States is currently doing) or retrofitting the plants with carbon capture technology and burying their emissions underground.

Finally, there’s an important political angle here. China’s struggle to curtail coal use is putting thousands and thousands of miners out of work, and if it moves too fast, it risks unrest in key coal-producing regions (something US politicians are familiar with). Last year, Prime Minister Li Keqiang announced the central government would need to set aside $15.3 billion for areas ravaged by unemployment. He also promised that future job growth in other sectors would help absorb losses in the declining coal and steel sectors. But no one knows if China can pull off this tightrope act.

Which is all to say that this week’s big coal plant cancellation is just one (important) chapter in a story that’s going to unfold over many decades, with plenty of twists and reversals still to come.

Links

• The real war on coal is happening in China right now
• Mapped: The coal power plants China just suspended
• The US coal industry is falling apart. Here's the surprising reason why.
• Want to see why Trump will struggle to save the coal industry? Look at Michigan.

Turnbull Backs Cleaner Coal For Hitting Renewable Target

The Australian - Rosie Lewis

Malcolm Turnbull inspects a coastguard boat in Brisbane yesterday. ‘My approach to energy is absolutely pragmatic’. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Australia should be a world leader in demonstrating that carbon emissions can be lowered by replacing ageing electricity generators with new and emerging technologies to produce cleaner coal, Malcolm Turnbull has declared.

The Prime Minister also hit back at Tony Abbott days after he called on Mr Turnbull to dump the renewable energy target, saying renewables had a “role” to play in reaching the government’s carbon reduction target of up to 28 per cent by 2030.

As revealed in The Australian yesterday, research commissioned by the Turnbull government has estimated the country’s emissions would be cut by up to 27 per cent if coal-based power generation ran on “ultra-super-critical-technology” used in other parts of the world.

Carried out by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, the research showed emissions would be reduced even further — by up to 34 per cent — if the technology now in development was adopted across Australia.

Mr Turnbull acknowledged coal would be part of the world’s energy mix “for a very, very long time” as he attacked the Labor state of South Australia, which generates 40 per cent of its energy through wind, for having the “most expensive and the least reliable electricity” in the country.

“We are the biggest coal exporter in the world. If anybody, if any country has a vested interest in demonstrating that clean coal and cleaner coal with new technologies can make a big contribution to our energy mix and at the same time reduce our emissions in net terms — it’s us,” Mr Turnbull said.

“Our approach, and my approach, to energy is absolutely pragmatic and practical ... Renewables have a role. Fossil fuels have a role. Every type of energy — storage, all of it — has an important role to play.”

Mr Turnbull said it was “wrong” to be ideological about the nation’s energy mix after Mr Abbott wrote in The Weekend Australian that the government should urgently scrap the mandatory RET, insisting the focus should be on what is most affordable.

The Minerals Council of Australia said the Department of Industry’s projections showing new coal generation technologies could reduce emissions “sharply” were consistent with emissions savings being achieved around the world.

“With high efficiency low emissions (HELE) coal technologies as clean as gas plants, countries accounting for nearly half of global CO2 emissions are deploying these technologies to meet their emissions targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement,” the council’s chief executive Brendan Pearson said.

“These HELE plants deliver secure, affordable energy while lowering CO2 emissions by as much as 50 per cent compared with existing plants. As the adoption of carbon capture and storage technologies increases, these emissions savings will increase to 90 per cent.”

Resources Minister Matt Canavan said Asian countries were not only reducing carbon emissions by installing supercritical coal-fired power but they were doing so “at a cost cheaper than many other emissions reducing options”.

“When reducing the carbon emissions of our power stations we should seek to do so at the lowest cost,” he told The Australian.

Replacing sub-critical technology with super-critical technology saves CO2 at a cost of between US$15 to US$25 a tonne in Southeast Asia, according to the World Coal Association.

Links

• Climate change a significant, growing threat to health, says US report
• Burden of Disease from Rising Coal-Fired Power Plant Emissions in Southeast Asia
• The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health
• Acclaimed Canadian author lays out dirty back story of fossil fuel industry and government
• British doctors and health professionals call for rapid coal phase-out