Countries Big and Small Are Connecting Economic Growth to Renewable Energy, and It's Working

by Taylor Hill, Take Part: http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/03/26/uk-carbon-emissions-down-renewables

 

Taylor Hill is TakePart's associate environment and wildlife editor. full bio

The United Kingdom saw the steepest single-year drop in greenhouse gas pollution in more than two decades in 2014, according to government data released on Thursday.

The country's carbon emissions fell 8.4 percent, even as its economy grew by 2.6 percent. The decline in carbon emissions was the largest ever in a year when the U.K. economy expanded, according to The Carbon Brief.

It’s a big step forward for a country that has legally committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to just 20 percent of its 1990 levels. The U.K. is currently emitting about 28 percent less than it was in 1990.

U.K. carbon dioxide emissions fell by 9.7 percent in 2014 compared with the previous year, according to figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. (Graph: Courtesy DECC)

In Europe as a whole, energy use dropped to 1990 levels last year, despite population and economic growth. Worldwide, emissions from the energy sector flatlined even as economic activity grew in 2014 - a development not seen in 40 years.

Different factors contributed to decreasing the U.K.'s greenhouse gas emissions. The country gets a fifth of its energy from renewable sources like wind and solar farms; in 2014 energy generated from coal-fired power plants fell 23 percent, taking emissions of carbon dioxide down almost 10 percent.
CO2 created by burning fossil fuels is the leading cause of global warming.

Since 1990, U.K. carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 29 percent, due in part to the changes in the mix of fuels being used for electricity generation, including the growth of renewables. (Graph: Courtesy DECC)

Environmental activists praised the record drop in carbon emissions while calling for even stronger steps to curb climate-changing pollution.

“We must remember that more ambitious carbon emissions reductions are required across different sectors to meet our climate change commitments,” said Emma Pinchbeck of the World Wildlife Fund. “We have the technology for a clean, green, low-carbon economy, we just need to see it rolled out to reduce our reliance on dirty fossil fuels.”

Across the Atlantic Ocean, Costa Rica also hit a big energy milestone: For the first 75 days of 2015, the Central American country produced all of its energy without burning any coal, gas, or other fossil fuels.

Heavy rainfall levels at the sites of four hydropower plants, combined with increased solar, wind, and geothermal energy capacity, allowed Costa Rica to power its grid solely with renewable sources from January 1 to March 16.

“2015 has been a year of electricity totally friendly with the environment to Costa Rica,” the Costa Rican Electricity Institute announced in a press release.

Like the U.K., Costa Rica saw economic growth at the same time its energy-based greenhouse emissions decreased. The 3.6 percent increase in the country’s 2014 gross domestic product is just the latest in a five-year streak in economic growth. The Central American country and its 5 million citizens have a goal of being carbon-neutral by 2021. Mixing new geothermal energy projects in with its existing hydropower plants will make it even less reliant on fossil fuels.

Countries able to limit emissions while growing economically is good news and a “welcome surprise,” said Fatih Birol, International Energy Agency executive director - especially ahead of climate treaty talks in Paris later this year. Negotiators at those talks will be seeking to finalize the next formal international agreement on cutting carbon pollution to limit climate change.

Death of US Coal Exemplifies Need for Paradigm Shift for Global Energy System

Kayford Mine in West Virginia (Dennis Dimick/cc/flickr)

by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/24/death-us-coal-exemplifies-need-paradigm-shift-global-energy-system 

 

A new report released Tuesday by the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative warns that the crash of U.S. coal markets is but a harbinger of things to come for all fossil fuel investments.

The report, The U.S. Coal Crash - Evidence for Structural Change (pdf), found that the slump in coal prices has forced more than two dozen U.S. coal companies into bankruptcy over the past three years.

With the rise of renewable energy and a growing call for countries to adapt their energy infrastructures for a more carbon-constrained future, the authors of the report argue that the crash of the U.S. coal economy "provides an excellent example of how the future may pan out globally and with other fuels as the world moves to a low-carbon economy."

According to the study, the market's demise has been driven by a combination of factors, including: lost market share to cheap shale gas, the falling cost of renewable energy sources, and increased environmental protections and industry regulation - driven largely by the Environmental Protection Agency. Further, international markets in Asia have similarly moved to adapt their energy usage in the face of growing concern over carbon emissions.

"The roof has fallen in on U.S. coal, and alarm bells should be ringing for investors in related sectors around the world," said Andrew Grant, Carbon Tracker’s financial analyst and report co-author. "These first tremors are amongst the clearest signs yet of a seismic shift in energy markets, as high carbon fuels are set to be increasingly outperformed by lower carbon alternatives."

On Monday, the international market research firm Macquarie Research warned investors that the outlook for U.S. coal producers is "increasingly bleak," and the sector is likely to undergo "a wave of bankruptcies."

Where the U.S. coal market was historically tied to economic growth, as Carbon Tracker notes, "there is now clear evidence" that the two indicators have been "decoupled."

"The Dow Jones Total Market Coal Sector Index is down 76 percent in the last five years compared with the Down Jones Industrial Average that grew by 69 percent in the same period," says the report.

Andrew Logan, director of the oil and gas program at Ceres, a sustainable investment organization, said, "We’ve known for decades that coal posed serious health and environmental risks, but now coal has also become an investment risk as countries take serious actions to clear their air and protect the climate."

Logan added that investors have now taken up the call of environmentalists and are now "pushing for coal and other fossil fuel companies to face facts and adapt their business models to thrive in a carbon-constrained world."

The warnings come amid a growing call for universities and other large endowments to divest their holdings from fossil fuel companies. Last week, the Guardian newspaper publicly challenged the world's two largest foundations, the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust, to pull their combined $70 billion from fossil fuel investments.

It is worth noting that these market shifts have occurred without any global climate deal or U.S. federal measures specifically labelled "carbon" or "climate." Leaders are set to meet in Paris in December to hash out an international climate agreement.

"The evolution of the U.S. energy sector is far from over," the report continues. "Companies and investors by and large underestimated the risks in U.S. coal and did not see the way the wind was blowing until it was too late, and suffered very material losses because of it."