In August 2007, a climate plan – the ‘Meseberg programme’ – was published by the government. It then was promoted by the Social Democratic Party within the governing coalition, and called for a reduction in Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent over 1990 levels by 2020.8 Energy efficiency, a further extension of renewable energy sources and the cleaning up of coal and gas power stations were the basis of the plan. Nuclear energy did not figure, but without it, critics argued, the figures do not stack up. In their ‘Energy Concept’, the authorities included an extension of the operating life of the country’s nuclear power stations. The plants were to be run for 8–14 years longer than was originally decided. The last nuclear plant was supposed to close in 2034. More recently, policy changed again, with a return to a more positive attitude to nuclear. In 2008 Schröder’s successor, Angela Merkel, from the centre-right, shifted the government position to oppose the phase-out of the nuclear industry. These plans in turn were reversed following the episode at the Fukushima nuclear plant. All the country’s reactors are now due to be shut down by 2022.
Denmark
Denmark is also an interesting case, because of its forceful programme for expanding renewable sources of energy and because of the ambiguous results that have followed.9 At the time of the OPEC oil embargo in the late 1970s the country was heavily dependent upon oil, all of which had to be imported. The government of the time determined that this level of dependency should be reduced, and its successors continued similar policies. Taxes on natural gas and petrol were introduced to stimulate energy efficiency. Oilfields in the North Sea belonging to Denmark also started production at this time. In the early 1990s the country introduced a system of subsidies to facilitate the expansion of wind power. At that point renewables accounted for some 5 per cent of its electricity.
The fluctuating nature of wind energy was compensated for by importing hydroelectricity from Sweden and Norway, and by the use of small-scale combined heat and power stations which run on biomass of various kinds and which can be switched on and off quickly. By 2009 the proportion of electricity generated by wind power had jumped to well over 25 per cent and contributed 18 per cent of electricity use. Over the period from 1997 to 2003, under the aegis of a social democratic government (which fell in 2001) an average of 325 megawatts of wind-power capacity was installed each year. Under the successor right-of-centre government, that figure dropped to only 3 megawatts a year. Three projected new wind farms were cancelled, and in 2007 more wind-power capacity was dismantled than was put up. The country has the notable achievement of having kept energy consumption stable during a lengthy period of economic growth. However, over the past few years CO2 emissions have risen once again.
As of 2011, Denmark derives about 80 per cent of power from fossil fuels. A committee appointed by the government has reported upon how a zero-carbon economy could be achieved by 2050.10 The programme envisages a wholesale movement towards electricity, powered from renewable sources. As much as 70 per cent of energy consumption could be met by electricity, compared to the current figure of 20 per cent.
Spain and Portugal
The experience of Spain and Portugal deserves special mention. In Sweden, Germany and Denmark, it took quite a while to develop low-carbon energy sources. Spain and Portugal have shown that rapid energy transformation can be achieved. Spain moved from having 2 per cent of its energy delivered by renewables to 12.5 per cent in little over a decade – with some of its autonomous regions, where the new installations were clustered, greatly exceeding this percentage. More than 11 per cent of Spain’s electricity comes from wind power. In total, 20 per cent of the country’s electricity now comes from renewable sources. Some of the autonomous regions are aiming at 100 per cent renewable electricity generation in a few years’ time.
Although it is a much smaller country, Portugal has managed to act even more quickly. In 2004 the country’s leaders decided to reduce its dependence on imported fuels. At that point 17 per cent of Portugal’s electricity came from renewable energy sources. By the end of 2009, that proportion had risen to 42 per cent. In both cases these achievements were made with the support of tax incentives and by a partial restructuring of the energy system. The Portuguese government privatized and restructured former state-owned energy companies; at the same time, it took back the grid into public control. The changes in the two countries have not been unproblematic. Consumers saw a rise in the cost of energy. Both were seriously affected by the financial crisis and have vulnerable economies, which in turn has had consequences for their investment plans. On the other hand, renewables form one of the relatively few areas where their companies are internationally competitive.
There is a further important lesson to be learned from the cases of Spain and Portugal. A country that has a high proportion of renewables does not necessarily see an overall reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, since so much depends on what happens in the rest of the economy. As of 2008, when the recession took hold, Spain’s CO2 emissions were a massive 43 per cent higher than in 1990. Those of Portugal were 30 per cent higher.11 The reason is the importance of the construction industry to their economic development, together with other high carbon-emitting activities.
These are at most thumbnail sketches. Rather than looking at such initiatives from around the world in depth, I shall take the United Kingdom as a type case. Each country will tread a somewhat different path, but some core problems are generic.
The case of the UK
The fact that Britain is on track to meet its Kyoto commitments comes in some part from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s decision to privatize the large state energy monopolies. She was determined to face down the power of the unions, especially in coal-mining. The switch from coal-fired to gas-fired power stations was driven by these aims, but also by the fact that gas was seen as the cheapest available source of energy. The closure of the coal mines coincided with the availability of natural gas supplies from the North Sea. Coal production declined from 84 million tons in 1988 to 35 million tons in 1995, and has since fallen by a further half.
According to current government estimates, about 20 per cent of the UK’s performance in terms of controlling emissions of CO2 can be put down to the ‘dash for gas’, although its contribution to reducing other greenhouse gases is considerably higher. Improvements in energy efficiency (in some part driven by privatization) contributed about 40 per cent. A much smaller proportion can be attributed to environmental policy, such as the Climate Change Levy set up in April 2001, and voluntary energy agreements (in which companies pay a reduced rate of the levy in exchange for meeting more rigorous energy efficiency targets over a 10-year period).
A Climate Change Bill was introduced in the UK in 2008. It marked a new level of ambition for the Labour government in power at that time, which previously had only a modest record on environmental issues in general, and on combating global warming in particular. The bill introduced statutory targets for emissions reductions. According to its original version, greenhouse gas emissions were to be reduced by at least 60 per cent by 2050 over a 1990 baseline. This proportion has since been raised to 80 per cent. A report on progress has to be published every five years and reviewed by Parliament, as well as the ongoing results of an adaptation programme. A carbon budget will be established to cover each five-year period. Late in 2008 the bill was endorsed by Parliament and became the Climate Change Act.
A Committee on Climate Change has been set up to advise the government of the day on the level of the carbon budgets and on the optimal path towards emission reduction targets. The legislation includes provision for ‘banking’ and ‘borrowing’ between carbon budget periods. Banking is the capacity to carry over unused quotas from one budget period to a future one; borrowing allows the government to count future anticipated reductions against the current five-year period, such borrowing to be limited to 1 per cent of the following carbon budget. Banking is supposed to provide an incentive to ‘overpe
rform’ during a given period, or at least remove disincentives that might kick in if a given budget were achieved early. It is accepted that there are costs involved in reducing carbon output and that energy prices will increase (and, therefore, so will other prices). The European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) (see below, pp. 198–200) is already having this effect in the UK, because power generators are able to pass extra costs on to consumers. However, it is suggested that the cost will not be large for individual households, and it might even act as an incentive to reduce energy use.
Recognizing how closely climate change and energy change policy are intertwined, the government introduced an Energy Bill at about the same time as the Climate Change Bill. It was passed as the Energy Act in November 2008. At that time the government also created a new ministry, the Department for Energy and Climate Change. North Sea oil and gas have supplied most of the UK’s energy needs since the 1980s, but stocks are declining. Most of Britain’s nuclear and some of its coal-fired power stations will reach the end of their lives by around 2020 – fully one-third of the country’s electricity-generation system will need to have been replaced by this point.
The UK is committed to meet the target set for the country by the EU by 2020, which is that 15 per cent of its energy (including electricity, transport fuels and heating) must come from renewable sources by that time.12 To achieve this, about 40 per cent of its electricity will have to come from renewable sources – an increase of 800 per cent over present-day levels. The Labour government of the time accepted that nuclear power has to be part of the mix, and included in the Energy Act were plans to build a new generation of nuclear plants.
The introduction of the two pieces of legislation shows a determination to confront the twin problems of climate change and energy security; the bills received a high degree of cross-party support in their passage through Parliament. Although some climate change sceptics used the opportunity to air their views during the debates, it turned out that the main clauses in the Acts were strengthened rather than weakened.
In December 2008, the Climate Change Committee published its first report on how the country should go about reaching its emissions reductions targets. The report included recommendations covering the first three budgets defining the path to emissions reductions to be followed up to 2022. Wind, solar, tidal and nuclear power, together with carbon capture and storage of ‘clean coal’, were the principal technologies listed as needing expansion. Home and office insulation together with increased vehicle efficiency also brooked large.
The Committee followed up with a further authoritative report in 2009.13 In tracing out pathways towards the country’s long-term emissions reductions targets, the report argued that a ‘step-change’ was needed from current practices and policies. The recession made it easier to meet the next carbon reduction budget, but deep structural changes are needed. A pathway to ‘deep decarbonization of the power sector’ by 2030, the Committee concluded, was demanding but feasible.
Figure 4.1 Per capita CO2 emissions for select major emitters, 2007 and 2030 (projected)
Source: World Resources Institute: http://www.wri.org/chart/capita-co2-emissions-select-major-emitters-2007-and-2030-projected
In May 2010 a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats came to power. The new government retained, and vowed to further develop, the framework that its predecessor had left. The prime minister, David Cameron, promised to lead ‘the greenest government ever’. Although the Liberal Democrats had been hostile to nuclear power, as part of the coalition they agreed to the building of new nuclear power stations, as long as they were not subsidized with public money. A new Energy Bill was introduced in 2011, with the objectives of increasing energy efficiency and promoting investment in low-carbon technologies. Other measures were promised, including placing a floor price on carbon.
On the face of things, the UK has the most robust framework for reducing carbon emissions in the world, supported by a cross-party consensus. Because the country has lessened its dependence on coal, it is in some ways in a more favourable position than, for instance, Germany. Yet as with every other country with ambitious aspirations to reduce emissions, the practical difficulties are formidable. As far as renewable energy is concerned, Britain at the moment lags far behind. Among the 27 EU countries, in such terms it is near the bottom of the league.
Looking at where the countries discussed above stand drives home how far there is to go in order to make significant progress towards major emissions reductions. The nations discussed are among the best performers in the world and even their progress is relatively limited. Germanwatch and Climate Action Network produce an annual ranking comparing 59 countries in terms of the effectiveness of their climate change policies. Sweden is top of the list, but the organizers of the ranking say that no country in the world is so far on a path compatible with keeping temperature rise below 2ºC. An interesting feature of the ranking is that Brazil was placed second, largely because of progress made in reducing deforestation. (For more on Brazil’s climate change policies, see below, pp. 225–6.) The index of the 10 largest emitters of CO2 is alarming because some countries one might expect to take the lead rank very low down. The United States and Canada place very poorly, with the US in 53rd position and Canada last, at position 59.14
Climate change policy and the US
It is worth commenting at this point on climate change policy in the United States. The US may or may not be a fading power in global terms, but its importance in respect of climate change is enormous. With 4 per cent of the world’s population, the United States consumes 25 per cent of global energy each year and generates over 20 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions. Yet far from being in the forefront in seeking to reduce its emissions, it has been a laggard in climate change policy, especially at a federal level. Of course, the US is far larger and more diverse than those countries discussed earlier in the chapter, and on a regional and state level the picture is more complicated.
The Clinton administration played a part in negotiating the Kyoto agreements (see below, pp. 186–8). However, it was not possible to persuade Congress to ratify US participation. Carbon markets originated in the US, but neither the Clinton administration nor any subsequent one has managed to get a national scheme endorsed – or any other significant climate change legislation.
In 2002 George W. Bush set the goal of reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of the country by 18 per cent over the period 2002–12. This policy amounted to a 4 per cent reduction in total emissions over a business-as-usual trend and was in line with the decarbonizing trend already present in the US economy. The Bush administration did introduce some tax incentives for renewables, nuclear power and CCS, as well as energy conservation; and in 2007 Bush signed an Act aimed at improving the fuel efficiency of cars. However, these measures were largely driven by energy security considerations, not by a concern with climate change.
Because of the unwillingness or inability of successive US presidents to enact significant climate change legislation, the most important domestic initiatives emanated from the Congress. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman championed a Climate Stewardship Act in 2003, which was defeated in the Senate. It was followed by the Lieberman-Warner Bill introduced in 2007. The initiative provoked a deep schism between the Democrats, who mostly supported the legislation, and the Republicans, who were solidly against. It was also defeated.
When he was elected in 2008, President Obama spoke forcefully of the need for far-reaching climate change legislation, both on a national and international level. He supported the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, after its authors, Henry Waxman and Edward Markey). The bill set out a cap and trade system (see below, pp. 198–202) and would have introduced subsidies for nuclear power, CCS and other technologies. It was criticized by many environmentalists for not being radical enough; and by the political right on the grounds that it would be expensive and would c
ost the US economy jobs.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives with a measure of cross-party support, but was abandoned in the Senate. In November 2010, in the congressional elections, the Democrats lost control of the House and with it any chance of getting climate change legislation enacted at a federal level for the time being.
In his State of the Union Address of January 2011, President Obama gave considerable space to clean energy. The US, he asserted, needs to invest in research and development in low-carbon technologies on a level not seen since the space race. He envisaged ‘clean energy breakthroughs’, ‘that will translate into clean energy jobs’.15 In so doing, he appealed for a renewal of bipartisan support, on the grounds that the drive for clean energy could renew the American sense of purpose. He also spoke of asking Congress to ‘eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies’. However, in his speech he did not once mention global warming, let alone a policy package that would help to contain it.
At present, the US, the country with the greatest responsibility to develop a far-reaching climate change policy, has done nothing at all on a national level. It is almost alone among industrial states in this respect. How can this be? There would seem to be three reasons. First, the separation of powers in the American constitution, which requires the President to negotiate with Congress on almost all matters of domestic policy. Second, the ability of well-funded lobbies to have an enormous influence upon individual members of Congress. Running for office normally means spending large amounts of money, which quite often places candidates in the hands of corporations or well-funded interest groups. The fossil fuel and other extractive industries are highly organized, with access to influence through their support of congressmen and women.
The Politics of Climate Change Page 10
