Does substantial mitigation of climate change, absent global economic collapse, presuppose social revolution? Is a global economic collapse resulting from oil and gas depletion the most likely scenario for substantial mitigation of climate change?

I find it difficult to articulate my political desires (for systemic socio-economic transformation) with the foreshortened timescale we are presented with within which to substantially mitigate climate change. I am wary that climate change can become the vehicle for political desires (my own included) such that realistic options may be rejected on ideological grounds - or to put it another way that the profound potential for climate change to act a vehicle for social transformation becomes an ideologically driven focus above and beyond the objective conditions of climate change. An illustration of the problem…Carbon Trading A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power edited by Larry Lohmann, makes the case convincingly that the UN, governments, academics and many environmentalists are united around an essentially neoliberal response to climate change in which the Northern elite is manoeuvring to defend its power over the global atmospheric commons and thus contain the threat of the radical transformation of scion-economic forces potential in the problem of climate change. I agree with this reading. A central plank of the ‘technological fix’ element of this neoliberal discourse is carbon capture and sequestration. We see the US Department of Energy teaming up with oil majors to fund research in this area - thus rather than seeking to reduce and replace fossil fuel use a prominent proposed ‘fix’ to the climate change problem is actually an enabler of increasing fossil fuel use - a “little tested and hazardous techno-fix”. Aren’t techno-fixes a perpetuation of the thinking that got us to where we are? Shouldn’t we oppose such funding for research into sequestration projects as dangerous business-as-usual? Shouldn’t we oppose the construction of coal power stations per se, even those employing ‘clean coal technology’?

China is expected to construct the generating equivalent of 150 new 1000mw coal plants by 2010, a further 168 by 2020, with lifetime emissions of 25bn tons of carbon. This is within the limit of the timeframe we have to mitigate catastrophic climate change. These are conventional coal-fire plants with which, for technical reasons, carbon capture and sequestration are not possible. The International Energy Agency projects that China will become the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in 2009, overtaking the United States nearly a decade earlier than previously anticipated. Coal is expected to be responsible for three-quarters of that carbon dioxide. China has 13% of the world’s coal reserves. It is increasingly dependent on imported oil. In the event of a oil importation supply crunch China would undoubtedly ratchet up its already ambitious program of producing synthetic oil from coal (it’s current program aims to produce 10% of national requirements by 2020). For those of us who expect an earlier rather than a later supply crisis in world oil reserves, it is well before 2020, thus China may increase its use of coal above current projections.

Coal gasification plants produce cleaner power with emissions comparable to natural gas and potentially can use capture and storage technology. They cost about 10% to 20% more per megawatt than old style coal-fired power plants (see Peakist). Estimates for including carbon capture and storage technology are in the region of 40% more. Before the break up of the Chinese State Power Corporation in 2002 into quasi-private corporations China was set to develop cleaner coal technology. Now subject to market forces, in the absence of an imposed cost for carbon and\or the reduction of the price gasification and storage technology to market competitive levels the 218 proposed plants will not be amenable to reduced carbon emissions through technological means during their operating lifetimes. David Hawkins points out (Kolbert 2006) that contrary to the argument for US inaction in the face of the China’s enormous emissions growth the US should forge ahead technologically and with a regulatory framework because history shows that where America goes China will follow. This is because, firstly, the conditions motivating regulation are objective - urban pollution from car exhausts, or sulphur dioxide pollution from power plants for example - China is now regulating for these just as the US previously did. On a practical level US R&D and market economies of scale both drive the price of the technology down (sulphur dioxide scrubbers today, coal gasification and carbon capture technology tomorrow) and China can regulate in the knowledge of an existing tried and tested technological solution. No new coal fired plants have been built in the US for some time, but new plants are on the horizon (the Pentagon is also funding the development of coal-to-liquid fuel technology as it intends the US military to free itself from dependence on imported oil - see Peakist). David Hawkins argues the US should regulate so that no new plants should be allowed except those that employ carbon capture technology, therefore kick-starting Chinese use of the technology within a time frame to impact on the 13 coming years of coal plant development and reduce emissions from them within the timeframe for action on claimte change.

I ask again, shouldn’t we oppose funding for research into sequestration projects as dangerous business-as-usual? Shouldn’t we oppose the construction of coal power stations per se, even those employing ‘clean coal technology’?

To head off a couple of points, I am fully aware of the technological uncertainties and potential dangers of sequestration. Chinese geologists have given a preliminary estimation of storage space in oil fields and aquifers for more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide–more than China could emit at their current rate for hundreds of years. I don’t think anyone would suggest that it is realistic to think 218,000 mw capacity could be provided by renewables in China over the next 13 years.

The possible scenarios it seems to me are 1) status quo, the capacity is provided by dirty coal plants 2) capacity provided by clean coal plants with the potential for sequestration 3) the capacity is not built due to economic collapse, either apocalyptic, in which case emissions drop, or not, in which case lack of investment is likely to mean the existing capacity carries on emitting beyond its currently assumed lifetime.

IPCC carbon capture.pdf