Greenwire reports today that South Africa's ambitious emissions reductions goals are going to be difficult to achieve:Slashing emissions in coal-dominated South Africa will require an overhaul of national policies as well as significant funding, a new study finds.The figure above shows (a) carbon dioxide intensity of GDP for South Africa for 1980 to 2020 (back line, data from EIA and Maddison), (b) BAU carbon dioxide intensity of GDP (red line, assuming growth occurs at historical average rates), and (c) carbon dioxide intensity of GDP implied by the emissions reduction target of 34% below BAU emissions. The implied annual average rate of decarbonization of the South African economy is about 3.4%.
South Africa surprised nations in the run-up to climate talks in Copenhagen last month when it offered to curb the growth of carbon dioxide emissions 34 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2025 with financial support. The goal, leaders said, would be to have the country's emissions peak between those years and start to decline in absolute terms by 2035. . .
According to South African press reports, country officials plan to submit a mitigation plan for achieving the 34 percent by 2020 reductions to the U.N. climate regime by Jan. 31.That path, according to a report released this month from the German Development Institute, is achievable but is likely to be rocky. The study (pdf) of private-sector investment in South Africa's electricity sector finds that early efforts to enhance and promote both energy efficiency and renewable energy "have failed to have any large-scale effects."
Capacity in renewable energy, the study found, "is lacking at every stage of the technology cycle, from research and development to installation and maintenance."
I estimate that South Africa could achieve this target by replacing about 65% of its 2006 coal consumption with nuclear power, necessitating the equivalent level of effort of about 35 new nuclear plants by 2020. That is why I call it a magical solution.
10 comments:
Roger,
The article is newspeak.
South Africa offer to 'cut its rate of growth' by 34%. Their 2008 rate of growth in coal consumption was 4.9%. Their 10 year average is 2.2%. So they offered to limit the growth to either 1.45% or 3.2% depending on what they used as a baseline. They aren't offering to decrease their use of coal at all.
IIRC the historical average fossil fuel growth rate world wide has been 1.5%/annum worldwide since the 1950's. The various 'climate models' should have used a 1.5% increase per annum(Hansen 1988 did).
The current DOE estimate for US CO2 emissions growth out to 2035 is 0.3% per annum. An 80% reduction in the CO2 growth rate.
Ethanol and Biofuels apparently don't count in the CO2 equation, apparently as their uptake is equal to their emissions.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf
No Harrywr2,
The relevant section of the South African Presidency statement of 6 December is as follows: "South Africa will undertake mitigation actions which will result in a deviation below the current emissions baseline of around 34% by 2020 ..."
So the projected reduction in emissions is expressed in relation to “the current emissions baseline”, not the past rate of growth as your comment implies. Whether South Africa has, or intends to, put figures on the baseline projections is another question.
Then the WWF is confused about what South Africa agreed to as well...
http://www.wwf.org.uk/news_feed.cfm?3535/South-Africa-offers-new-climate-pledge
[quote]We’re very pleased to hear South Africa’s announcement that they’ll reduce greenhouse gas emissions 34% by 2020 (compared with ‘business as usual’ levels), and with a timeline for peaking and cutting in real terms. It’s great to see this major developing nation taking a lead against climate change.[/quote]
Cutting in real terms doesn't occur until 2035.
As Rogers quick math shows...it is virtually impossible for South Africa(or any other country) to cut CO2 emissions by 34% in real terms by 2020.
"A promise is a cloud, fulfillment is rain" (Arabic proverb)
Harrywr2,
Your statement that "cutting in real terms doesn't occur until 2035" is correct, but it's virtually the same as the article's statement that "the country's emissions ... start to decline in real terms by 2035.
Similarly, the WWF statement that "they'll reduce greenhouse gas emissions 34% by 2020 (compared with 'business as usual' levels)" is virtually identical to the official South African statement that their actions "will result in a deviation below the current emissions baseline of around 34% by 2020."
There's no implication in either statement that South Africa offered to reduce the absolute level of emissions in the short term. The "deviation from baseline" formulation used by South Africa follows the IPCC approach for non-Annex-I countries (see Chapter 13 of the WGIII AR4 Report, Table 13.7, p. 776). This expression of the target is straight-forward and is not 'newspeak'.
Ian,
I would define 'newspeak' as follows.
"A reasonably well educated person would infer from what was stated something that isn't actually stated."
Roger clearly meets the 'reasonably well educated' criteria and inferred 'absolute cuts'.
If I search the internet other reasonably well educated people have inferred absolute cuts as well.
It's a problem in the level of discourse on virtually every subject.
I can read plenty of newspaper articles that say "Obama agreed to cut GHG emissions by 80% by 2050". I don't see how that can possibly happen without electric airplanes and electric trucks.
If I step back and say...the US position has been based on CO2/GDP then I can go look at the charts and see that the amount of CO2 being emitted in the US per unit of GDP has been trending downward by 2% per year. So 40 years with a 2% downward slope gets us to 80% cut in CO2/GDP. It doesn't result in any actual cuts of CO2 in absolute terms.
So I have to conclude either..
A) The stated goals are unrealistic and will lead to economic ruin
B) The stated goals don't deviate from current trends anyway so we don't need a complicated system to regulate something that is happening in the absence of regulation.
-6-Harrywr2
Apologies for any confusion, but this post is based on emissions reductions from a baseline of BAU emissions growth. The figure shows the implied decarbonization of the SA economy based on this assumption. Please ask if unclear. Thanks.
I think the key words of the South African offer are "with financial support".
They'll take the money and build some nuclear plants. Whether they meet their proposed target is of no concern at all, so long as they get the money.
Roger,
Is the source data for that figure publicly available? Can you post a link?
-9-Tom
These are more recent versions of the datasets used to generate that graph:
GDP:
http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/vertical-file_02-2010.xls
Emissions:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8
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