NZSSES26th October, 2007

Carbon Trading for Every Season

Peter ReadMassey University Centre for Energy Research

The Kyoto Protocol (Art 4.2(d)) is the end

product of a long drawn out process that began with the Berlin Mandate agreed at COP1 in 1995.

At that time climate change was regarded as a very long term gradual process shrouded in uncertainty

The bad news Climate Change science has overtaken it

The good news As someone said“There’s got to be a better way”

But for sure, whatever we need to do, carbon trading will make it easier

Art 3.3

• The Parties should take precautionary measures….

• Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage , lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as reason for postponing such measures …[which] … should be cost effective so as to ensure global benefits

Is there a threat ?

Some controversial climate science

(But note that the IPCC 4th Assessment Report [the best scientific information ?] is sanitized in its references to climatic instability – visit http://www.meridian.org.uk/Resources/Global%20Dynamics/IPCC/contents.htm )http://w ww.meridian.org.uk/Resources/Global%20Dynamics/IPCC/contents.htm)

So: vide

Hansen, J., M. Sato, P. Kharecha, G. Russell D.W. Lea and M. Siddall, 2007.“Climate change and trace gases”, Phil Trans Roy Soc (A), 365, 1925-54.

Ruddiman, W., 2003. “The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago”, Climatic Change, 61, 261-293.

Controversial ? They disagree with each other ! [that can’t be good science, surely ??]

“The processes that give rise to nonlinear ice sheet response (almost universal retreat of ice shelves buttressing the West Antarctic ice sheetand portions of Greenland, increased surface melt and basal lubrication, speed-upof the flux of icebergs from ice streams to the ocean, ice sheet thinning and thuslowering of its surface in the critical coastal regions, and an increase in thenumber of ‘icequakes’ that signify lurching motions by portions of the ice sheets)are observed to be increasing.

“Part of the explanation for the inconsistency between palaeoclimate data andIPCC projections lies in the fact that existing ice sheet models are missingrealistic (if any) representation of the physics of ice streams and icequakes,

In the absenceof realistic models, it is better to rely on information from the Earth’s history.

That history reveals large changes of sea level on century and shorter timescales.

We infer that it would be not only dangerous, but also foolhardy to follow a BAU path for future GHG emissions.” [Hansen, et al, op cit]

Surface Melt on Greenland

Melt descending into a moulin, a vertical shaft carrying water to ice sheet base

Source: Roger Braithwaite, University of Manchester

Quite abit of basallubricationhere ! (PR)

This and following slides from W. Ruddiman, op cit (PR)

→

Ca. 6000 year deglaciations followed by slower glaciating phases in the last ~half million years. * indicates the insolation peaks ending the warming phases. Note → the increase of CO2 levels since the last (St1)insolation peak, attributed to anthropogenic emissions related to forest fire deforestation in the course of land clearance for agricultural expansion (PR)

Depopulation due to plagues caused abandonment of agricultural land and forest regrowth, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and leading to cool climatic phases – the ‘little ice age’ after the Black Death and the ‘dark ages’ after the plagues thatoccurred with the collapse of the Roman empire (PR)

Methane in atmosphere trended upwards (anomalously compared with earlier glaciating phases) coinciding with the commencement of paddyfield rice cultivation about 5000 years ago (PR)

“But what we have been hearing over the past weeks and months is that the scale and urgency of the challenge we face is worse than we had feared.

It is now clear that tackling climate change is an imperative not a choice, a problem for today not tomorrow.”

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, Berlin, 24.x.06

Conclusion: Earth’s climate is extremely sensitive to anthropogenic forcing

“Most critically, researchers know relatively little about feedback effects that might enhance – or weaken – the pace and effects of climate change.”.

“Key sticking points include the inability of global climate models to [re]produce the amount of sea level rise observed over the past couple of decades and whether ice flows at the bases of glaciers is accelerating or not. How volatile the Antarctic and Greenland glaciers might become in a warmer world is therefore pretty much guesswork”Nature, pp280-281, 8.Feb, 2007

So yes, the science is uncertain

But doing nothing is a silly response

We (posterity and NZ Inc.) need a precautionary policy

The good news

CARBON REMOVALS

1. extract more CO2 from the atmosphere2. stock it somewhere safer

As a precautionary strategyA Do low cost enabling things first (be prepared)B Do costly things later if need be (enabled by A)

Comparison of carbon removals (F) with emission reductions(Z) in mitigating the level of CO2 (in ppm) in the atmosphere

 

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

550

600

1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060

Year

[CO

2]

A

Z

F

A SRES-A2Z SRES-A2 with a transition to zero emissions technologies between 2011 and 2035F SRES-A2 with a transition to land improvement carbon removal technologies over the

same period, with land use change complete by 2035 and technological progress to 2060

As regards 1, there is only one way

It involves large scale land improvement to raise its productivity and yield all we need in food/fibre co-produced with fuel

(call it “Global Gardening” – if we look after Mother Nature there’s some chance she will look after us )

It should be good news for farmers and landowners: instead of

difficult emissions reductions, the energy sector invests in low cost land based activities to secure a strategic (biomass) raw material supply and provide a hedge against high cost oil

As regards 2

i) standing forestii) Biochar soil improvement + bio-oilsiii) BECS (Bio-Energy with CCS)iv) More wooden houses and other structures

As regards A [low cost actions first]

1. Invest in forest plantations to stock carbon and act as a strategic reserve of biomass raw material

(quite useful as timber if the climate change panic goes away)

2. Invest in a vehicle fleet that is compatible with biofuels(a useful hedge against ‘peak oil’ – the dear oil age

3. Invest in biofuel supply systems• maybe 2nd generation cellulosic ethanol• maybe gasification and Fischer Tropsche liquids• most likely pyrolysis with biochar for soil improvement• maybe on-farm gasification linked to ‘herd-homes’ and riparian tree plantations to prevent pollution of our rivers

An investment should not be treated as a cost

As regards B [if we get desperate]

Be ready to retrofit CCS onto all large stationary furnaces

CCS is a pure cost

Before that, how to make A happen?

“The first essential element of climate change policy is carbon pricing…. Putting an appropriate price on carbon…. means that people pay the full social cost [???] of their actions….

Fortunately an emissions cap is not just a price signal – it involves a quantity constraint.

… “But the presence of a wide range of other market failures and barriers mean that carbon pricing alone is not sufficient. Technology policy… is vital to bring forward the range of low-carbon and high efficiency technologies that will be needed to make deep emissions cuts” (p308, introducing Part IV on Policy Responses for Mitigation). 

Stern Report

tradable obligations that increase over time are the preferred policy instrument.

For example, a tradable requirement on transport fuel sellers to include a rising proportion of sustainably produced biofuel in their product sales, and a tradable requirement on sellers of fuel for other uses, and on agricultural and other emitters of methane (CH4) and

nitrous oxide (N2O) to offset a rising proportion of their

emissions through carbon storage.

“Tradable” means that the obligation could be discharged by contracting it to a third party – Shell could contract its obligation to BP, Solid Energy to Meridian, or both to Weyerhaeuser Inc. – there will still be a market.

So, a today solution to the today problem

• Mandate a rising proportion of biofuels

• Mandate a large proportion of flexifuel cars in the new car import mix

• Mandate importers of 2nd hand cars to adapt them to 10 per cent ethanol

• Mandate investment by stationary emitters [both energy, and land based] in a rising area of new plantations

Do not rely on price signals – today’s price is a weak driver for investment decisions

HOW? : global implementationCalculations illustrates impact of carbon removalsDo NOT illustrate how it could be implementedNOT a thousand plantations each 1 million Ha (3 in NZ) BUT• a million plantations each 1 thousand Ha (3000 in NZ) – and

many other types of carbon removals project – each serving local needs and providing sustainable rural development paths

• Capacity building programme to train ~100,000 grassroots entrepreneurs with skills to engage commitment of farmers, communities, villages, etc., to initiate country-driven projects funded by energy consumers seeking sustainable best practice bio-fuel supplies

• A series of bi-lateral bio-energy partnerships in which South partners agree to objective sustainability criteria in exchange for investment, technology transfer and a shared hedge against peak oil, shared with North partner (e.g. NZ and selected Pacific Island partners – Fiji one day soon we may hope).

HOW ? – a leading role for NZ

Because:NZ economy is more exposed to accelerating climate change

impacts than any other Annex 1 country and needs an effective post-2012 regime

NZ economy has comparative advantage in the land based activities that are central to BCSM, and consultancy expertise for relevant technology transfer

And because BCSM serves multiple objectives in the Millennium Development Goals and Multilateral Environmental Agreements that New Zealand supports

·<1000m·<15o slope· none < 1ha·no DOC·no diary or hort·incl grazing and forestry

·<1000m·<15o slope· none < 1ha·no DOC·no diary or hort·incl grazing and forestry· returns <$350/ha/yr

·<1000m·<15o slope· none < 1ha·no DOC·no diary or hort·incl grazing·returns <$350/ha/yr·EXCL FORESTRY

NI 4,060,000 Ha 1,442,000 Ha 587,500 Ha

SI 4,356,000 Ha 2,629,000 Ha 2,525,000 Ha

Identified Land Areas

So New Zealand has the land

But don’t do it all in New Zealand

Any solution to today’s problem must involve developing countries

On a global scale that’s where the land is

And their emissions will outstrip developed countries very soon unless they are enabled to develop sustainable energy systems

So grow the tress and develop ethanol and other biofuel systems in the Islands and elsewhere that NZ has good links

Not as aid but as DFI by energy firms mandated to invest in CSM

Thank you