Wednesday 16 November 2016

#28 The Paris agreement has been ratified. What does it mean?


1
Required emission cuts

Prior to the Paris conference it was made clear that with the achieved emissions cuts and promises we would face 2.7-5.2 degrees C global warming by 2100. Since the start of the industrial revolution we have added 40% carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere and the level is still rising, while it should come down to pre-industrial levels. It was also discovered that several aspects of ice melts were previously unknown and that unless we keep global warming to less than 2 degrees, sea level rises will become catastrophic. (post 26) The required greenhouse gas emission cuts are shown in the second graph in post 26. In June 2015 the Canadian PM, Mr. Harper signed the G7 agreement to reach 0 emissions by 2100, which require the same immediate emission cuts shown on the post 26 graph.

 In Copenhagen Canada and the US both agreed to cut emissions by 2020 to 17% below 2005 levels. Both countries ratified the Paris agreement by extending it to 2030. Canada pledged 30% reduction by 2030 and the US 26-28%. It appears that The US is on track but Canada will have to make extraordinary efforts to catch up. In 2005 our emissions were 749 megatons. The latest government figures show that the present trend is 768 in 2020 in and 815 in 2030. That means 2.5% and 9% increase rather than 17% and 30% decrease. (4) As shown under D,E and N in post 26, Canada is in an unique position to capture carbon dioxide from stacks or the air and convert it to fuels plastics, fertilizer and cement. Canada also started a national carbon tax which may encourage other countries to come to a global agreement. A global tax will allow paying for carbon capture and utilization (CCU). That industry, in combination with electrification of our railways, and building more modern railways fed by new wind farms will greatly diminish trucking and create many jobs. Reviving the 1970 Mid Canada Corridor concept will be an ultimate goal, bring prosperity to First Nations, much more economic transport of our minerals and better access to the North ( 8) We don’t need more pipelines. They may become stranded assets. Exporting our remaining oil as raw bitumen (neatbit) by rail is much safer. See points I to M in post 26 and a summary in the North Shore News (9)

Mr. Trump’s surprise win may alter the US stand on climate change but not that of the world. Canada may have to resort to border tax adjustments and define specific import duties from countries which don’t follow our carbon tax. This is similar to what the 2013 US Sanders Boxer bill envisaged. Unfortunately, it was never implemented.  The Canadian carbon tax was endorsed by the CEO of Canadian General Electric stating that “carbon pricing will have a transformative impact on the rate at which we adapt new technology” (17) Thanks to a previous US-China deal and a huge European concession (post 20), a global deal was established in Paris, which recently has been ratified by most of the 195 signatures. If Mr. Trump weakens the US stand it will be a benefit to China and Europe since they will from thereon dominate the development of green technology. China already spends 5 times as much on green technology than the $21 billion on coal firing. Its $ 110 billion investment last year in clean energy amounts to 1/3 of the world’s total.  They make more than half the world’s supply of solar panels. In 2015 five of the top 10 wind turbine manufacturers were Chinese. (17)   

2
Approval and ratification process

197 parties, mainly countries signed the Paris agreement. Most of them had already submitted their Intended nationally determined contribution (INDC), showing how they plan to help achieving 2 degrees or less of global warming. On Earth day in April 2016 parties had an opportunity to confirm in New York that they would abide by all the regulations and would work towards ratification.  By ratifying, the intention becomes an obligation and INDC becomes a NDC. it can no longer be changed unless it is replaced by a better one. Ratification requires that at least 55% of the parties, representing at least 55% of the world’s emission agree with all conditions and will stick to their NDC. The 55 country requirement had been reached for quite some time. The 55% emission requirement was reached on October 5th 2016 when a number of countries, including Canada ratified the agreement. The agreement takes effect on November 4th.  Canadian representatives will attend the United Nations climate conference in Morocco between Nov. 7 and 18 to discuss implementation of the Paris accord.




3
Difference between earlier agreements

Prior to Paris a main stumbling block was that China, the world’s largest emitter could not agree to drastic reductions unless developed countries, which emit far more per person would make big cuts as well. Australia’s repeal of its carbon tax did also play a role. The US is the world’s second largest emitter and agreed to drastic reductions, resulting in the important US-China Agreement (post 20). That removed the main stumbling block to come to a global agreement

After the 2009 Copenhagen agreement, temperature predictions and expected sea level rises have shown further urgency, encouraging countries to carefully prepare their INDC’s

The agreed NDC’s of countries will be monitored much more carefully. Penalties for non-compliance may arise in the future. Regular reports on emissions have to be submitted.

4
The commitments

Ref 1 shows a list which summarises of 161 INDCs from 188 countries, accounting for over 90 percent of global emissions. When you click on the country’s name you can see how they will achieve it. Here is my comment and the gist of major emitters. A handy graph (2) shows that Canada is #9 of the major 10 emitters and the worst emissions from land use and forestry comes from Indonesia.

China

The country has rapidly modernized, their population got richer, requiring more energy. They manufactured many goods used in other countries so their emissions were not only 28% of the world’s emission but they still keep on rising. They spent a lot of money to install windmills and equip their coal fired power plants with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) but emissions are still going up. In 2015 China was the world’s biggest investor in clean energy, spending a record US$89.5 billion in 2015 to account for almost 29% of the world’s total renewables investment. They started carbon pricing in part of the country so reductions can be expected. Their NDC incudes stopping further increases on or before 2030, to lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level and to increase the forest stock volume by around 4.5 billion cubic meters on the 2005 level.


USA
The United States emits 16% of the world’s greenhouse gases, which make their reductions critical. It intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below its 2005 levels by 2030. It is an extension of the Copenhagen agreement to reach 17% reduction by 2020. Due to strict EPA rulings and possible adaption of the 2013 Sanders Boxer carbon tax bill this seems quite achievable.  Mr. Trump’s win may alter the EPA regulations. While carbon pricing is in effect in part of the country a national pricing approach may be delayed.

The European Union
As 3d largest emitter their cuts will be very significant A binding target of an at least 40 percent domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. compared to 1990 to be fulfilled jointly, as set out in the conclusions by the European Council of October 2014

Canada
At 1.7 % of the world’s emissions we are number 9 of the top 10 emitters. Canada committed to achieve an economy-wide target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. This an extension to Mr. Harper’s submission in Copenhagen. That included a 17% reduction by 2020. Since the latest review shows that there will be no reduction by 2020, we will, more than other countries, have to make drastic reductions immediately. The first graph above in megatons of CO2 per year (Mtpa) and some additional figures show how difficult it will be to achieve. When we signed the agreement in 2009 we had just dropped about 50 from 749 in 2005 and we were just below the green target line but soon started adding. The latest figure I found is 732 in 2014. That is only 2% below the 2005 level and about 80 above the green target line.
The most disturbing news comes from a Feb. 04, 2016  Globe and Mail report.  “Last Friday, Environment and Climate Change Canada, as the federal department has been renamed, very quietly posted its latest GHG projections for 2020 and 2030. They aren’t good. In 2020, emissions will hit 768 megatonnes of carbon dioxide – way above Canada’s target of 622. By 2030, they will have jumped to 815 megatonnes,” compared with a target for that year of 524”. You can read much more about it in the government’s publication(3)
That means that a previous audit of 7% reduction rather than the promised 17% by 2020 now amounts to a 2.5% increase. Obviously very drastic measures are required to come back on track. The second graph above illustrates how bad the situation is.

5
Emissions by Category

The latest Canadian emission breakdown I saw is for 2013 as follows:
Oil and gas 25%, transportation 23%, Electricity 12%, buildings 12%, EITE industries 11%, agriculture 10%, waste and others 7% (4)

World wide emission are as follows:
Electricity and heat production 25%, agriculture, forestry and land use 24%, industry 21%, transportation 14%, other energy 10%, buildings 6% (“D” in post 26)

6
Personal thoughts about progress and priorities.


Much emphasis has been placed on creating green energy and great progress has been made. Capturing of carbon from industries and the atmosphere will, in later years be essential to reach 0 emission by 2100. So far we have seen only carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, mainly for power plants, natural gas extraction, ammonia production and steel mills. The storage is expensive and most of the captured carbon, even that from an iron reduction plant, is used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) (“D” in post 26), which according to the curves will no longer be required in 30-40 years. Small scale facilities already have been built to convert the captured CO2 to fuels, fertilizer, plastics and cement. On average the present underground storage doubles the price of electricity from coal fired power plants. By using fuel cells this could be one-third or less according to a program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. (“N” in post 26) By recycling carbon rather than keeping adding it to the atmosphere, fossil fuel power plants can become green as well. No use to scrap all these good facilities and spend additional money to build more windmills and solar panels. A Canadian company, Inventys, has a unique patented capture process, which is expected to bring down the cost from $45 per tonne of CO2 to $ 15. (“D” in post 26) The new technology is now carbon capture and utilization (CCU) and we have to develop it fast enough so in particular China and the US don’t have to close all their coal fired plants. The best way to develop a thriving industry is to pay for CCU on a per tonne basis. I have often written that it can be funded by taxes on fuel exports, requiring a global carbon tax. Now the US senator Whitehouse has introduced a bill which will for a period of 12 years will pay $30 per ton of carbon.(7) One ton of carbon produces  3.67 tons of CO2, hence the $30 amounts to 30/3.67= $ 8.17 per ton of CO2. In Canadian metrics that is $8.99 per tonne


7
Value of captured CO2

The market price for CO2 varies a lot depending on demand, quality and origin. Historically pipelined CO2 has been sold for $9 to $ 26 per tonne. (5). Reference 62 in post 26 shows, what Mr. Eisenberger states. His equipment is extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, competing with our Carbon Engineering "There already exists a well-established, billion-dollar market for carbon dioxide, which is used to rejuvenate oil wells, make carbonated beverages, and stimulate plant growth in commercial greenhouses. Historically, the gas sells for around $100 per ton. But Eisenberger says his company's prototype machine could extract a concentrated ton of the gas for far less than that." While the CO2 for beverages can be expensive the price will probably come down due to competition. The large-scale commercial CO2 market today is mainly driven by demand from the food and beverage industry and the oil industry for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The beverage industry has been a consistent purchaser of high purity CO2 for decades, with total volumes of more than 300 million tons of purified CO2 delivered worldwide in 2007(7) The food industry also consumes large quantities of CO2 (    )

8
Sales potential for Inventys, payment for carbon capture in Saskathewan.

If the Canadian company is allowed to, either directly or via a subsidiary benefit from the US Whitehouse bill (7), they could make a profit . Their $ 15 per tonne of capture cost equals $ 13.63 per ton. If they can sell for $ 20 per ton as quoted in (10), they could profit. Prices of CO2 may drop when less is needed for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In the USA there is an established pipeline system for CO2 and as the demand for EOR drops there will be potential for feeding WindFuels plants (10). Those are plants which produce hydrogen from surplus wind power and by combining the hydrogen with CO2 produce fuels. If Canada would pay the same per ton of CO2 as the Whitehouse bill (7) provides it would allow faster expansion of CCU and help Saskatchewan, which at present is opposed to a carbon tax because they already spend their money on carbon capture and storage (CCS)

9
Carbon capture from the air

Post 26 details how globally we have to capture about 50% of the emissions from factories and the air to reach 0 emission by 2100. Canada is in that respect much better off. Marine and air transportation are 4+5=9% of all transportation (12 ) so we can cut 23- (.09X23)= 21% by making all land transportation electric. To reach 0 emissions we only have to capture 12% of industries from stacks and 2% transpprtation+10% agriculture +7% waste = 19% from the air. A lot of the agriculture +waste is methane and part of it can be captured at source or flared off. Cows produce 25% of the word’s methane and Argentine is already capturing some of it by mounting huge “fartpacks” on the backs of cows. The ‘fartpacks’ extract 300 litres of methane a day from a tube inserted into the cow's digestive tract and convert it into enough energy to run a car for 24 hours.(11) Probably Canada needs only to capture 15 % of our emissions  from the air.  Carbon Engineering has a single module of a plant in Squamish BC where captured CO2 from the air is converted to fuel (13) it will have to compete with obtaining power from biomass


As documented in post 26 a lot can be achieved by burning biomass. it is carbon neutral because it emits the CO2 when we let it rot away so by burning it for power generation or process steam and capturing the CO2 we reduce the CO2 content in the atmosphere. Apart from wood waste, algae are a promising development. They can grow fast using captured CO2 and can produce bio fuels using less space than other sources. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced that the U.S. military was about to begin large-scale oil production from algae ponds into jet fuel. A larger-scale refining operation, producing 50 million gallons a year, is expected to go into production in 2013. I have not yet seen the results but saw some literature, which I could not copy showing that biomass from algae is the most promising fuel production and is the only sustainable resource for third generation energy.


10
The carbon tax fiasco

The principle is so simple. Increase the price of carbon to discourage consumption and compensate those most affected, or at least make clear where the collected money goes to. In British Columbia all money collected goes back to people and businesses. In the US the 2013 Sanders Boxer bill will pay 60% to households, 25% to debt reduction and 15% to green projects. As documented in post 1 and points 4 and 5 of post 27 there has been in the US and Canada far too much fear mongering by special interest groups. They ignore all the refunds. As a result, we are still far from a global agreement on carbon pricing. Politicians seem to be unable to take a strong stand in favor of the tax and even environmentalists shy away from promoting it. Yet a revenue neutral tax, like we have in British Columbia is quite effective. At present 41.7% of all tax collected is paid out to people and 58.3% to businesses. Most of the personal refunds go to the poor and people in the 2 lowest income tax brackets. Corporations enjoy a 17% tax cut and the small businesses tax was cut by 44% to achieve the refunds. While low income people and businesses get more money back than they paid, the price of all goods and services goes up but that is a small inconvenience compared to having to pay for replacement of buildings and infrastructure damaged by heavy storms and having to build dikes around all low laying areas.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, warns that the fight against climate change is a process and that the necessary transformation of the world economy will not be decided at one conference or in one agreement. "This is the first time in the history of mankind she said that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight”. You can see a video of her whole speech. (15)


Carbon pricing around the world is hard to compare because some of it applies to all fossil fuels like in BC while other countries only tax specific emitters. Norway charges $72 per ton of CO2 for offshore activities while some inland industries pay $ 9 per ton or none at all. (16) Most cluster between $10 and $30 per ton. For example, California’s price is currently around $13 per ton, and British Columbia’s price is currently around $28. The price outlier at $168 per ton is Sweden, where a high and persistent price has helped reduce pollution 13 percent in a decade. A carbon tax of $28 plus other policies have helped Ireland slash pollution more than 15 percent since 2008. A map shows how fast carbon pricing has developed and the amount of emissions regulated by each of the 31 jurisdictions (14) In Paris 73 countries and more than 1000 companies supported a price on carbon. (17)


11
Electric trains and the Mid Canada Corridor
In 1968 I started working for Acres, an engineering company which did the study for the Mid Canada Corridor. I learned from the executives that they had looked at magnetic levitation trains. When I saw how eager China is to finance and profit from building 300 km per hour bullet trains in many countries (post 27), I wondered if the subject had re-surfaced. In particular since global warming will open up new areas for agriculture the corridor would become more attractive. I saw that global warming will have a parching effect on some southern portions requiring far more reservoirs and irrigation.  Further north there could be great agricultural benefits. (18, 19) Even apart from global warming one of the Acres maps (20) shows that there are some areas in the corridor designated for mixed agriculture, grain and livestock.

Regarding trains there may be no immediate need for fast trains but electric trains, like they have in other countries must be introduced quickly throughout North America. It will eliminate a lot of trucking. Automobiles will all become electric and with less trucks on the roads there will be less congestion.  Wind power has become relatively cheap (24,25) and there are cheaper systems developed to store power in areas where there is no hydro or the possibility to introduce pumped storage. Hybrid locomotives seem to be the answer before all railways are electric. Among several makes Canadian Bombardier (21) appears to be the most versatile.  Their TRAXX locomotives operate with alternating current AC, direct current DC or diesel propulsion on all standard gauge railways and in cross-border services on all important rail transportation corridor

12
Additional prospects for the corridor’

When I glanced through chapter 17 and appendix 1 of the Acres report, all dealing with railways it becomes clear how much more important all these connections have become. It was written before wind power was available and before it was established that oil transport of raw bitumen (neatbit) by rail is far safer than by pipeline. (points K, L and M in post 26 and a North Shore News article (9) Apart from all the mineral and forest products indicated on the Acres map it could be a corridor for electric energy and oil transport. By having an abundance of electricity in the corridor, greenhouse agriculture may also be considered. One of the Acres maps shows the soil conditions in all areas and greenhouse technology has improved quite a lot. (22). Also when using heat pumps to heat them it will be all electric and at a fraction of the fossil fuel cost, allowing a payback on investment in 10 years or less (23). Obviously due to future droughts in California and higher transportation costs our products will become competitive.

13
Recent interest in the corridor.

To see if there is at present any interest in these developments I googled it and found several interesting sites. One is from the Northern policy institute (26) where John van Nostrand stated “Local workforce development and immigration is another priority.  On-reserve populations are expected to increase 64 percent by 2026 to 667,900 persons, necessitating serious action on education and training to increase Aboriginal labour force participation. At the same time, it’s important to direct more immigration to mid-Canada settlement, effectively reducing the dependency of resource extraction activities on fly-in fly-out populations, not to mention mitigating the social issues such communities tend to create” Mr. Nostrand addressed the Senate on the matter and several news organizations have recently written about it. The emphasis is on the Northern route which would also help us to protect our Northern border and assist in shipping through the Arctic. Read through references 26 to 30 and you will see how this Northern Development can solve quite a few problems. Apart from mining and forestry there will now an additional benefit of wind power generation, agriculture and safe oil transport as raw bitumen(neatbit) in electric trains.(9) All these developments will greatly benefit First Nations, who no longer have to live in isolated areas where there is little work. It will also eliminate the high prices Northern people have to pay for basic necessities.



 Carbon dioxide (CO2) is most often mixed with argon as a shielding gas used to prevent atmospheric contamination of molten metal in electric arc welding processesCarbon dioxide (CO2) is most often mixed with argon as a shielding gas used to prevent atmospheric contamination of molten metal in electric arc welding processesCarbon dioxide (CO2) is most often mixed with argon as a shielding gas used to prevent atmospheric contamination of molten metal in electric arc welding processes

 

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The Globe and Mail 12 November 2016
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