Strong call for emissions reductions in Mail on Sunday
Dramatic regulatory intervention is needed to bring down emissions of carbon dioxide and prevent dangerous climate change, argues a prominent climate scientist in the Mail on Sunday. It’s perhaps not the message you’d expect to be featured in the newspaper. So what does the piece mean?
Professor Myles Allen, head of climate dynamics at Oxford University, is part of the team behind a recent study that suggests rising levels of carbon dioxide could lead to slower atmospheric warming than previously thought. But he still thinks that the world needs to take action to tackle climate change. In an article in the Mail on Sunday, he writes:
“[Slower atmospheric warming] may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than everyone feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down”.
With global emissions still rising, Allen argues that radical action is required. But instead of setting targets for emissions reduction, energy efficiency and renewables, governments should make it compulsory for companies burning fossil fuels to capture and bury the associated carbon emissions.
Keep burning carbon, but use CCS
Allen says most carbon policy mechanisms – carbon pricing, energy efficiency schemes, renewables targets – aren’t necessary. The world can go on burning fossil fuels, he argues, but “fossil fuel industrialists” should be legally required to bury the carbon emitted using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology – preventing emissions rising to dangerous levels.
Allen has made the same case before, suggesting that it’s unrealistic to expect the world to stop burning fossil fuels for energy. Crucially, he thinks this approach would be less expensive than current approaches to decarbonisation. “Fossil fuel industrialists will need a few years to gear up [CCS], but they won’t need taxpayer-funded subsidies,” he writes.
The approach seems more stick than carrot – and companies will then be forced to innovate to develop CCS. Says Allen:
“[M]aking capture mandatory would trigger a headlong race to find the cheapest sources of carbon dioxide and places to bury it”.
Consumers would presumably have to bear some of the costs of innovation, but the companies won’t need subsidies, he believes.
Would it work?
According to Allen, CCS would capture emissions from the whole economy – transport, heating and the power sector. Given the current state of CCS development, this is an ambitious goal.
According to consultants Poyry, the UK has the best prospects for CCS in Europe. But this potential is in danger of not being fulfilled. The UK’s first competition to fund CCS projects for electricity generation collapsed in 2011, and the government is currently reviewing two potential new projects with a final decision due in 2015.
Globally, the International Energy Agency says CCS could account for about a fifth of global emissions reductions needed by 2050, in a scenario where global warming is limited to two degrees. Björn Nykvist, research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute, says there would need to be a tenfold increase in CCS development and investment over the next 40 years to reach the level of CCS contained in the IEA projections, however.
But perhaps this is making Allen’s argument for him. He clearly believes that strict regulation would lead to significantly faster innovation. And it’s not a CCS-or-nothing approach – he also mentions that the country might choose to invest in renewables or electric cars if they become more economic in comparison to using fossil fuels, although there’s no more detail on how they would contribute to emissions reductions.
It’s all about reducing emissions
The Mail on Sunday, perhaps unsurprisingly, puts its own spin on Allen’s article. Characterising it as a “game changing intervention…from an expert respected by the green fanatics themselves”, the paper argues in an editorial that Allen’s intervention shows “every penny we are spending on reducing carbon emissions in a penny wasted”. Using Allen’s article, it implies that MPs should oppose a new target for reducing emissions from the power sector in a vote next week.
This obviously reflects the Mail on Sunday’s agenda, which has been consistently opposed to pretty much any environmental policy other than curbing the use of plastic bags. But the paper’s argument sits oddly with the substance of Allen’s piece, which is essentially calling for a radically interventionist approach in the energy sector, that would create mandatory regulation of the fossil fuels industry, complete with its own costs.
Still, whatever you make of the actual policy prescription, it’s good to see a strong article from a climate scientist arguing for emissions reductions in the Mail on Sunday. Allen’s piece also highlights the weaknesses in current approaches to addressing emissions cuts. His approach suggests far more drastic measures than any government so far – that perhaps says something about the scale of the task at hand.