Climate Change

The primary weapon in the US Administration’s crusade to save the world from anthropogenic global warming (climate change) is the US EPA Clean Power Plan, which sets CO2 emissions limits for coal-fired electric generators which could only be met with the installation of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) systems. The plan requires CO2 emissions from power generation to be reduced by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Plan effectively requires the retirement of older coal-fired generators which are either technologically or economically unsuitable for the installation of carbon capture systems. The Plan also effectively discourages (prevents?) the construction of new coal-fired generators, since CCS is currently not demonstrated technology at commercial scale; and, the technology does not appear to be economically viable, even on new plants designed to accommodate CCS. The Plan also encourages expanded transition from economic dispatch of power generators (lowest cost first) to environmental dispatch (renewables and lowest emissions first), thus inexorably increasing wholesale power costs.

A coalition of 26 states and one coal company have filed suits against EPA in federal court, seeking to have the court overturn the EPA rule; and, to stay its execution until the legal challenges are resolved. The stay is viewed as essential, given EPA’s history of “slow walking” the appeals process, thus forcing those affected by the regulations to prepare to comply with the contested regulations, even as they challenge them in the courts. This is particularly important for electric generators, which require long lead times for planning, regulatory approval, equipment procurement and installation, construction and commissioning.

Members of the US Senate and House of Representatives have also filed challenges to the Plan under the Congressional Review Act, challenging EPA rules for both existing and new power plants. Congress considered the inclusion of CO2 under the Clean Air Act, but chose not to include CO2 as a criteria pollutant under the Act. Thus, certain members of Congress believe that EPA has effectively rewritten the Act in the issuance of the Clean Power Plan.

“The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things; of painted ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.”

The pledges of GHG emissions reductions made by the developed country participants at COP 21 will impose a variety of costs on individuals and businesses in those countries. Premature replacement of existing coal-fired electric generating facilities will result in economic dead losses, both for the owners of the generation facilities and for the owners of the coal mines which have provided their fuel. The extent of these economic dead losses cannot be accurately determined until the specific generators to be abandoned and coal mines to be closed have been determined; and, that process is ongoing. The closure of these plants and mines will also result in job losses in both industries, as well as job losses in the transportation industries which moved the coal from the mines to the generators.

Closure of these existing facilities will require the construction of new facilities to replace their electricity output. New natural gas combined-cycle generators will be more efficient than the coal generators they replace; and, in the current market, will use less expensive fuel. In areas without available natural gas transmission and storage capacity, major investments will also be required to deliver and store the additional natural gas required to fuel the new generators.

New renewable generating facilities will be more expensive per megawatt hour generated than either the closed coal plants or the new natural gas plants; and, will require significant expansion of the electric transmission grid and the installation of massive quantities of grid storage, increasing electricity rates as has occurred in several countries in Europe, including England and Germany.

Taxpayers in the developed countries will also be required to provide the $100 billion per year pledged to the UN Clean Development Fund to support energy development and climate change mitigation and remediation in the developing countries. The developing countries, to the extent that they implement renewable generation, will find their development impeded by the higher costs of the renewable generation and the construction costs of the storage required to achieve acceptable reliability of service.

China, India and other developing nations have clearly expressed their unwillingness to impede their economic development in the interest of controlling the global climate. While these nations intend to increase their reliance on nuclear generation and renewables, they are also aggressively increasing their use of coal-fired generation. Once each of these countries reaches its peak CO2 emissions rate, at some undefined date in the future, their emissions will decline slowly over a period of approximately 40 years (expected plant life, absent life extension investments), assuming that old coal-fired plants being retired are not replaced by new coal plants. The COP 21 Agreement does not preclude such actions by these countries.

The COP 21 Agreement includes the intent to achieve net-zero global annual CO2 emissions by 2100. The global investments required to achieve this result are estimated to exceed $1 trillion per year. The Agreement also includes the desire to achieve net-zero emissions, at least among the developed nations, far sooner, with the hope of limiting global mean near-surface temperature increase to 1.5^oC. The investments required to achieve that result would be far greater than $1 trillion per year, because of the shorter period over which the investments would be made and the state of development of the technologies required to achieve that result.

A recent analysis by University of Alabama Hunstville (Drs. John Christy and Roy Spenser) suggests that, at current warming rates, the global temperature anomaly would peak below 1.5^oC regardless of the emissions reductions agreed to in the COP 21 Agreement. However, that analysis, like the continuing satellite temperature record, is likely to be ignored, since it does not fit the globalist narrative.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at COP 16 in 2010, as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention. The original intent was for the developed countries to provide a fund of $100 billion for use by the developing nations in climate adaptation and remediation, of which only about $10 billion has actually been pledged.

COP 21 set a new “collective quantified goal” of $100 billion per year for GCF funding, beginning in 2020. However, the Group of 77 plus China argued that this base funding level must be substantially increased if it is to meet the requirements of the Group of 77 plus China to contribute to the goals of the COP 21 Agreement, as well as meet their adaptation and remediation needs.

It is interesting that the number 1 and number 3 GHG emitters are members of this group; and, that neither of these countries has submitted an Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) document which makes any commitment to emissions reductions.

The UNFCCC COP 21 Agreement expresses some degree of urgency with regard to this funding, despite the fact that there are no demonstrated adverse impacts of anthropogenic global warming (AGW); and, significant evidence of positive climate impacts on crop production and general vegetation growth.

The Board of the Green Climate Fund has determined that the pledged funds should be allocated approximately 50% to adaptation and 50% to remediation over time; and, that at least 50% of the adaptation funds should be devoted to meeting the needs or the most vulnerable nations.

There is currently no formula which determines the contributions of individual nations to the Green Climate Fund. Currently, relatively few nations have announced commitments.

Prior to COP 21, nations were asked to submit Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) toward the COP objective of reducing global carbon emissions. The key aspects of the INDCs submitted by the four largest CO2 emitters are listed below.

1 – China (9680 Mt CO2)

• Peak CO2 emissions by around 2030.
• Lower CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65% from 2005 levels.
• Increase non-fossil share of primary energy consumption to ~20%.
• Increase forest stock volume by 4.5 billion cubic meters from 2005 levels.

2 – USA (5561 Mt CO2)

• Reduce GHG emissions by 26-28% by 2025 from 2005 levels

3 – India (2597 Mt CO2)

• Lower CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 20-25% from 2005 levels by 2020.

4 – Russia (1595 Mt CO2)

• “Limiting anthropogenic greenhouse gases in Russia to 70-75% of 1990 levels by the year 2030 might be a long-term indicator, subject to the maximum possible account of absorbing capacity of forests.”

The EU countries collectively are the fourth largest emitter (~4500 Mt CO2). The EU countries have agreed to reduce annual emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

The INDCs of the rest of the nations which submitted them can be found here.

There are several key points which must be made about these INDCs.

• None of these INDCs are legally binding.
• Global annual CO2 emissions would continue to increase, even if these INDCs are actually achieved.
• Any nation can exit the agreement after 3 years, effective 1 year after notification.
• The INDCs are not directly comparable in form or time frame.

• The USA contribution is a percentage reduction from a historical emissions level by 2025
• The Russian contribution is also a percentage reduction from a historical emissions level by 2030, subject to a condition.
• The Chinese contribution is actually negative “until around 2030”, though it commits to a reduction of “carbon intensity” from a historical intensity level.
• The Indian contribution is also negative, through an undefined time frame, though it commits to a reduction of “carbon intensity” by 2020.

In summary, it is not possible to determine when, or even if, global annual CO2 emissions would stabilize, no less begin to decline, under the Agreement reached at the conclusion of COP 21. It appears unlikely that stabilization will occur prior to 2030; and, even less likely that net zero CO2 emissions will be achieved by 2050.

It is clear that the current INDCs, even if met in their entirety, are insufficient to allow the earth to stay within the 2^oC target established by the UNFCCC, no less achieve the 1.5^oC sought by the nations which have declared themselves to be the most vulnerable. These nations are typically low lying coastal nations or island nations thought to be most susceptible to sea level rise. This is particularly interesting, since there has been no significant change in the rate of sea level rise over the past 145 years, despite the significant increase in global annual CO₂ emissions over the past 65 years. There does not appear to be even a coincidental relationship between CO₂ emissions and sea level rise, no less any causal relationship.

In October of 2015 the Global Warming Policy Foundation invited Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, to deliver a lecture at their annual meeting. See what he has to say about CO2 in his "SHOULD WE CELEBRATE CO2?"