Moving On... Biodiversity Loss

Whilst CCS is by no means the only option available to reduce industrial CO₂ emissions, it is a good example of how technology is capable of achieving climate change goals. I will review other potential approaches in due course, but for the time being I want to move onto the next Planetary Boundary: Rate of Biodiversity Loss.

In a follow-up article to ‘A Safe Operating Space for Humanity’, Steffen et al. (2011) justify its inclusion in amongst the other 8 boundaries, “[though biodiversity loss] does occur naturally and would continue to some degree without human interference…the rate of animal extinction has skyrocketed in the postindustrial age”, going on to suggest that today’s rate per species is somewhere between 100-1,000 times more than what could be considered natural.

How does industry affect it?

Human activity at every scale effects biodiversity – from the keen gardener, to the individual farmer, through fisheries, all the way to global manufacturing companies. Some examples of the particular type of activity directly affecting the ecosystem:

-          Urban and agricultural development

-          Sprawl

-          Increases in wildfires that destroy habitat

-          Introduction of new species into environments

-          Exploitation of land to support human consumption

(Steffen et al, 2011; Dasgupta, 2011)

Why is biodiversity important?

Commonly, biodiversity is explored in economic terms, evaluating its value to humanity and the service it provides. Dasgupta (2011) and Alho (2008) have closely aligned arguments, the former stating, in reference to these economic-based approaches, that “the motivation is to understand the way in which the exploitation of ecosystems alters their usefulness to humankind by changing the biotic and abiotic processes that underlie various ecosystem functions, and hence the services they yield”. A huge variety of very specific studies such as those by Luwig et al. (2003), Perrings & Walker (2005) and Chichilnisky & Heal (1998) regarding lake eutrophication, land management and economic investment in the biosphere respectively, contribute to a huge breadth of literature that looks at ecosystems as a renewable natural resource. This is not to mention the less quantifiable ‘intrinsic’ value of having nature operate ‘as it should’, which many conservation organisations promote, for example Natural England. 

Even Rockstrom and his team admit that setting a precise and accurate planetary boundary for biodiversity loss is difficult (Steffen et al., 2011), but their reasoning is that because we know so little about the way species are interwoven and how they connect to the broader environment. But interdependency is surely a secondary limitation, once you consider that we know about so very few of the species existing on Earth. Richard Wright produced a very informative piece for the BBC, questioning how we can set a boundary for something we are yet to even quantify. This is a very good question, and one that I am not prepared to dispute; however there is a matter of principle here: even if we do not know how much biodiversity loss Earth and humanity can withstand, it does not mean it is not a worthwhile endeavour.  As I have discussed, biodiversity is of great concern to industries and businesses, and if only in economic terms, it represents an important global challenge.

Carbon Capture Storage

This week I will finally be looking at the technology that can potentially facilitate industries in reducing global carbon emissions. Haszeldine (2009) evaluates the current status of a technology going by the name of Carbon Capture Storage (CCS); he promotes this as one of, if not the only realistic option to achieving some of the global emissions targets set at Kyoto and other summits, or even those set by individual governments.

How does CCS work?

There are 3 methods of CCS currently being investigated, they are Postcombustion, Precombustion and Oxyfuel, all of which essentially serve the same purpose, but simply take place at different stages of production. Common to all three methods, is that CO₂is pressurised, liquefied and transported to storage sites (i.e. specific porous rock deep underground) via networks of pipelines.

Advantages

• Postcombustion technology can be applied to almost any industry and future upgrades will almost definitely increase efficiency substantially
• In the long term, conversion of power plants to CCS would aid UK households in avoiding substantial future energy costs, after an initial increase of around 10%.
• CO₂has been transported in pipes since the 1970s, so theoretically it should be ‘just’ a case scaling-up to a continent-wide pipeline network, serving multiple countries and feeding to various storage locations.
• Injected CO₂into rocks will stay securely sequestered for tens of thousands of years
• There is evidence to suggest that CCS will be cheaper to deploy and maintain in the long term than other renewable options, the main hurdle being the initial start-up costs (or rather acquiring funding for them) 

Challenges

• There are, unfortunately, a number of challenges that still hinder the progress of this technology, but not all are endogenous. 
• Chief among the drawbacks, certainly from the industry point of view, is that currently these methods significantly reduce the efficiency of production, with large amounts of solvents, heavy machinery and high maintenance efforts required.
• More learning cycles are required to refine the technology, before being able to meaningfully scale it up to the level needed – this will take time and money.
• Huge amounts of geological storage are required to have an impact on worldwide CO₂levels; this may be a tried and tested method, but only at a relatively small scale and in a restricted number of locations.

What is needed?

Power plant capture, pipeline transportation and geological injection of CO₂can technically be implemented now, but with inefficiencies and many energy losses. So what is needed to make this technology a viable option?

• More intricate details of the storage process must be worked on, along with the sourcing of suitable locations, before any large-scale commitments can be made to converting industries to CCS
• Aside from the resolvable limitations of the technology itself, legal permission, business development, a lack of supporting policies and public opposition represent genuine hurdles to the progress of CCS.
• The largest blockage is not technological, but rather the lack of a market to provide revenue that justifies large investment

It is important to bear in mind that CCS is a solution that deals with CO₂emissions, rather than one that prevents emissions entirely. In this respect it cannot truly be considered ‘green production’, but I see this as its main potential strength, too – the fact that almost any existing industry can be equipped with CCS technology, without drastically disrupting the production process.

In reviewing something like CCS, we can begin to understand what is needed to tackle global CO₂levels. More specifically, we can start to get an idea of what is required to help industries drive the change. By this I mean a supporting legislative infrastructure provided by both governments and multi-regional organisations that can provide incentives for businesses of all sizes and sectors, to make the leap.

Something Topical...

So today saw the kind of cooperation that is needed on a much more widespread scale, as both Republican and Democratic governors saw eye-to-eye in the US over wind farms and the possibility of a carbon tax. 

As the Guardian points out, such a tax would offer the US government a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - climate change and the country's budget crisis. It is this kind of incentivizing that will go a long way to encouraging businesses and governments alike to adopt more environmental measures. 

A little closer to home, the potential is also being realised, with some consideration going to how the revenue could most effectively be spent: Carbon tax could boost economy and combat fuel poverty

Global Carbon Markets

As promised, this week I will be looking at the alternative ways we can pursue industrial activity, so that global CO₂ emissions can be reduced. In the last post I mentioned the European Union Carbon Trading Scheme, which branches from the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), set at the Kyoto Protocol. I will use this as my starting point in evaluating the effectiveness of legislative approaches to tackling emissions.

Michael Wara (2007) provides this summary of the CDM, explaining that it “works by paying developing countries to adopt lower-polluting technologies than they otherwise would. The difference in carbon emissions between the cleaner method and what they would have used can be converted into CDM credits and sold to industrialised nations who use it to offset their own emissions.” Thus there are a certain number of carbon credits in the market (like any other currency) which can be traded, limiting the amount of pollution that can take place worldwide. At least, that is the theory. Wara’s article in Nature asks the question ‘Is the Global Carbon Market Working?’ Below I have summarised his key findings:

• There are mild successes, such as reducing GHG emissions (but only by a tiny fraction of the annual level).
• Initially the market was expected to create strong incentives to invest in infrastructure for low-carbon energy in developing countries, but it has also allowed developed countries to ‘justify’ their high levels of emissions by buying up carbon credits
• Research shows that only 33% of existing projects in the global carbon market are concerned with reducing CO₂, 62% are concerned with other waste gases – considering the potency of CO₂compared to other GHGs and the much greater quantities in which it is emitted, this ratio must at least be inverted.
• Certain distortions exist – such as that of HFC-23 (a potent GHG which is a product of refrigerant processes). It is very cheap to cut HFC-23 emissions, and thus earn credits – which can be sold at a standard price. It is estimated that a one-off pay out of €100million from the developing world would cover the cost of installing the simple technology needed to capture and destroy HFC-23 at industrial source, saving an estimated €4.6billion in CDM credits that could be spent on other climate-protecting uses. Similar fixes could also be applied to other emissions, such as nitrous oxide.
• The solution that Wara offers is this: make the global carbon market a market for CO₂rather than for all 6 Kyoto Protocol gases (CO₂, methane nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride)

What is highlighted in this article is the overall vagueness of the scheme. It has, through over-ambition, tried to encompass too much and reach too far, and in doing so lost its effectiveness. Wara’s solution is a sensible one, refining the market to focus on just CO₂ would allow more specific limits, targets and legislation to be put in place. It also addresses a key undermining aspect of the scheme, something that Brechet at al. (2012) describe as “the issue of low-hanging fruits”: As long as other gases are covered by a trading scheme, whichever is easiest and cheapest to remove will garner most attention (as the HFC-23 example illustrates). Doing so earns the same reimbursement in carbon credits as reducing carbon emissions would; a clear distortion of the market and an inherent problem with the scheme.

Haszeldine (2009) insists that simply pricing carbon in a market is not enough to enforce decarbonisation, and Brechet et al. (2012) illustrate just why that is the case, revealing yet more problems with the incumbent manifestation of the concept:

• Countries endogenously set their carbon targets at the Kyoto negotiations, rather than them being given to them externally. This meant they were able to assess what a comfortable and realistic level would be for themselves, before agreeing to it.
• Too many carbon credits in the market, which means that countries can engage with the system, profit from it, but not meaningfully reduce global carbon emissions.
• But, the CDM is a good mechanism for countries that are unable to raise the funds for their clean investments, by selling carbon credits.

So what would a more effective global market look like and how can planetary boundaries help? Firstly, it must be more specific by, i) only encompassing one GHG (in this case carbon) so that differentials in ease and cost of removing others does not distort the market, and ii) set specific targets for countries, based on planetary boundaries and the proportion of global carbon emissions that country’s industry is responsible for. In addition to this, the number of credits in the market must be reduced, so that it leads to a meaningful reduction in emissions, and does not simply allow developing countries to profit, and developed countries to merely offset their continuingly high level of emissions.

Of course such a scheme must also be accompanied by widespread and viable technology, as well as facilitating legislative reform … so I’m sure you can guess what the topic of the next post!

First Things First

First, and arguably most significant, of our boundaries is Climate Change (as caused by CO₂ emissions). Carbon Dioxide is a key Greenhouse Gas (GHG), the higher its concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere, the more effectively it insulates the planet. In doing so it causes temperatures to rise and therein lie the many associated problems of Global Warming. I will take the bold assumption that if you are reading this blog, you are at least familiar with the effects of Global Warming, and it certainly goes beyond the capacity of this post to summarise the vast body of associated literature, so just in case, here is a nice overview from the trusty National Geographic.

Whilst all living things produce CO₂ naturally, since around 1750 when humans first began to use industrial processes on a large scale, the total global level has risen at an extraordinary rate. 

But exactly what processes are responsible, and which contribute most? Below is a 2005 illustration of GHG emissions from the World Resources Institute.

Another noteworthy graph can be found here. To quickly clarify that what this blog refers to as industrial, is all commercial activity that provides a mass consumed product. In the case of these two illustrations, that therefore encompasses energy supply, agriculture and forestry. That being the case, it is easy to see the enormous proportion of CO₂ that it accounts for. An article in the Guardian in 2006 revealed that "Five companies in Britain produce more carbon pollution together, than all the motorists on UK roads combined" and that EON UK produced more CO₂ than Croatia. That's more CO₂ from one branch of one multinational energy company than an entire country. Now I realise Croatia isn't the largest country in the world, but I think it leaves little doubt over the responsibilities of companies like EON, RWE Npower, Drax, Corus and EDF when it comes to reining-in global  CO₂ pollution.

It is the prolific use of fossil fuels to build, power and heat industrial centres across the globe that is chiefly responsible for these emissions, but deforestation and cement production have also had massive contributions. In an industrial sense, carbon emissions fall into two main categories: those associated with industry and goods production (i.e. factories, power plants etc.) and those resultant from commercial transport. In future posts, I will be looking at the alternative, carbon-reduced methods for pursuing these activities.

Having said all that, Carbon Dioxide is also the most tended-to of all our Planetary Boundaries worldwide. The European Union Carbon Trading Scheme represents just one of the many attempts to use legislation to actively reduce emissions. In the next post I will evaluate that, and other efforts to control industrial activity.