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- Theodore Roosevelt
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Sfpnotices] Green Energy Solves Dual Crises of Poverty
and Climate
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:23:44 -0500
From: Robert Korol
To: Sfp Notices-list" <[email protected]>
Carla - thank goodness we are getting the power houses of our economic engines
like the*World Bank* on side with respect to green energy.
Maybe there is hope for the world after all!
Bob
On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:42:37 -0500
"Carla"<[email protected]> wrote:
Source:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/green-energy-solves-dual-crises-of-poverty-and-climate/
Green Energy Solves Dual Crises of Poverty and Climate
By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 25 2013 (IPS) - Green energy is the only way to bring
billions of people out of energy poverty and prevent a climate disaster, a
new study reveals.
Conservative institutions like the World Bank, the International Energy
Agency and accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) all warn humanity
is on a path to climate catastrophe unless fossil fuel energy is replaced by
green energy.
The U.N.'s/*Sustainable Energy for All*/ initiative intends to bring universal
access to modern energy, doubling the share of renewable energy globally,
and doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.
Poverty eradication, sustainable development and the transition away from
fossil fuel energy go hand in hand.
If those targets are met and similar efforts undertaken to*reduce
deforestation*, then climate disaster can be avoided, said Joeri Rogelj of
the<http://www.iac.ethz.ch/> Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science
in Zurich who headed the analysis published Sunday in the journal
<http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html> Nature Climate Change.
"Poverty eradication, sustainable development and the transition away from
fossil fuel energy go hand in hand," Rogelj told IPS.
The U.N.<http://www.sustainableenergyforall.org/> Sustainable Energy for
All (SE4All) initiative is ambitious, but brings a wide range of benefits
including improvements in health, less air pollution and makes the
all-important break from increasing fossil fuel energy use. The analysis
shows the costs of SE4All is far less than the public subsidies the fossil
fuel industry currently receives, he said.
Nearly three billion people still use fire for cooking and heating. Of
those, some 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity. For a billion
more, their only access is to sporadic and unreliable electricity networks.
Indoor air pollution from burning dung, charcoal, and wood for heating and
cooking leads to nearly two million premature deaths of women and children
every year, more than all the deaths from malaria and tuberculosis.
Dirty fossil fuel energy is also a major health hazard in industrial
countries, responsible for 50,000 to 100,000 premature deaths and 400
billion dollars in health costs a year in the U.S. alone, said Mark Jacobson
an energy expert at Stanford University in California.
"In the European Union, it is 350,000 premature deaths a year," Jacobson
told IPS.
SE4All was first announced in 2009. "Energy interacts with all of the
development challenges we face," Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the
United Nations Industrial Development Organisation
<http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/06/development-green-energy-for-all-by-2030/>
told IPS at the launch.
Energy experts calculate that decentralised, off-grid technologies like
wind, solar, geothermal and micro-hydro energy generation are the fastest
and most cost effective solutions. Extending current electrical grids only
makes economic sense to meet 15-20 percent of the need due to the high
costs.
SE4All is well under way now, with more than 50 developing countries working
on national plans to achieve the three goals of universal access, increasing
renewable energy, and doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency.
Since 80 percent of human carbon dioxide emissions come from the global
energy system, Rogelj and colleagues at the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenberg, Austria wanted to quantify the impact
on the global climate.
"Achieving the three SE4ALL objectives could put the world on a path towards
global climate protection," they
<http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1806.html
> conclude in their paper "The UN's 'Sustainable Energy for All' initiative
is compatible with a warming limit of 2 °C".
"Doing energy right will promote the Millennium Development Goals, such as
poverty eradication and social empowerment, and at the same time kick-start
the transition to a lower-carbon economy," says IIASA researcher David
McCollum, who also worked on the study.
"But the U.N.'s objectives must be complemented by a global agreement on
controlling greenhouse gas emissions."
Even if the targets are achieved, explosive economic growth coupled with
greater energy use will overwhelm the climate protection benefits of SE4All.
"There is an explicit need for a global cap on emissions," said Rogelj .
Global carbon emissions were about 52 gigatonnes (billion metric tonnes) in
2012 and that means fossil fuel energy use must decline so emissions are
about 41-47 Gt by 2020 to have a reasonable chance of keeping global warming
below two degrees C.
The shift to green energy is under way. Every new megawatt added to the U.S.
electricity supply in January came from renewables, and more than half of
all new electricity generation in 2012 was also from renewables, not gas as
often believed.
Iceland has 81 percent renewable energy. Scotland has a mandate to achieve
100 percent renewable power supply by 2020. Denmark passed laws requiring
that the whole energy supply - electricity, heating/cooling, and
transportation - be met by renewable resources.
Stanford's Jackobson, among others, have proposed detailed plans on how to
meet 100 percent of the world's energy needs with green energy. Jacobson
believes it could be done as soon as 2030.
Costs for the SE4All plan are relatively modest at between 30 and 40 billion
dollars a year, a fraction of the 523 billion dollars in subsides for dirty
energy in 2011, according to the International Energy Agency. By 2030, 300
billion dollars a year will be needed to bring electricity into every home
on the planet and prevent catastrophic climate change.
Fossil fuel emission reductions will have to continue after 2030 and
eventually decline to near zero in order to stay below two degrees C, said
Rogelj.
- See more at:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/green-energy-solves-dual-crises-of-poverty-and-climate/#sthash.bCVEtR8U.dpuf
- - - - - - -
Robert Korol
Professor emeritus, Civil Engineering
McMaster University
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