Control Coal to Mitigate Climate Change?

Top CO2 emitting countries have a large proportion of world coal reserves

Coal consumption is the key practical issue to be addressed in tackling the problems of climate change. Unsurprisingly trends in CO2 emissions bear a strong relation to coal consumption. Compare 'Coal Consumption of Top 15 CO2 emitters' (Figure 8.1) in this post with that showing the CO2 emission trends in the previous post.

Figure 8.1 Coal Consumption of Top 15 CO2 Emitters (click image to enlarge)

Coal is the major source of anthropogenic CO2 and a significant source of other environmental pollutants, but coal is the most abundant fossil fuel that provides an intense energy source and is relatively cheap.

Many economies have significant dependence on coal in their primary energy mix and its use provides electrical power and supports industry. To transform coal dependent economies, even if the will to do so existed, would take great efforts.

The coal reserves of the Top 5 CO2 emitters are shown in Figure 8.2. Apart from Japan these countries have large coal reserves, amounting to nearly 70% of the world total.

Figure 8.2 Coal Reserves of Top 5 CO2 Emitting Countries

An apparently reasonable strategy for combating climate change would be to phase out the use of coal worldwide or to reduce its use drastically. Technically and scientifically this would be a practical solution for CO2 mitigation but politically it would pose extreme challenges. (Issues to be considered in a future post)

Considering their substantial coal reserves, could the high CO2 emitting countries be persuaded of the wisdom of leaving their coal in the ground?

Claims about 'clean coal' technologies disguise the fact that the only clean coal technology is a coal technology in which all CO2 is captured and sequestered. As yet, although elements of the technology have been used in other sectors, the crucial Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are still being developed and pilot tested.

A flexible CCS technology that could retrofitted to a wide range of existing power plants would be the ideal, but that seems an unlikely prospect in the short to medium term.

Can we control coal use to mitigate climate change? Have we the wisdom to leave it in the ground or only to use it when the CCS technology has been developed?

CO2 Emissions- theTop Fifteen Countries

CO2 emissions, and emissions growth rates are both important

In 2008 the fifteen top CO2 emitting countries together accounted for around three quarters of global CO2 emissions. These countries merit special attention during the COP15 climate change negotiations as their cooperation is important to achieving a successful outcome.

The trends in CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2008 for the fifteen major emitting countries are shown in Figure7.1 using data compiled by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Figure 7.1 CO2 EmissionsTrends 1990-2008 - Top 15 countries (click image to enlarge)

These data illustrate the massive contributions to global CO2 emissions made by the USA and China, and that since the beginning of the new millennium, China has raced ahead of the USA to become the world's largest CO2 emitter.

The group of countries with the next highest levels of emissions (~0.5 -1.7 thousand million tonnes CO2 per year) is now a mixture of developed and developing countries a distinction which, in relation to GHG emissions, is becoming outmoded since CO2 emissions from developing countries now exceed those of developed countries.

In terms of climate change impact both the absolute values of CO2 emissions and emissions growth rates merit consideration.

In relation to the amount of CO2 emitted, a small percentage reduction from a 'large emitter' represents many millions of tonnes of CO2 per year which are not added to the environmental burden.

The same percentage reduction from a country with moderate to low emissions represents a much smaller quantity of 'CO2 not emitted'. Nevertheless, when summed over many countries, these smaller reductions are also valuable.

However for climate change negotiators, focusing their efforts on persuading countries with large CO2 emissions to reduce them would have more impact as a strategy to achieve mitigation of global warming then distributing their efforts more widely.

In Figure7.1 the steep rise in CO2 emissions from China and also India are evident, and although emissions are high the USA, they do not show comparable growth rates. Despite the inadequacies of the Kyoto agreement, the emissions trends of most developed countries in the top fifteen are not increasing as steeply as those of developing countries.

Figure7.2 CO2 Emissions 1990 and 2008 - Top Five Countries

The rate of growth of CO2 emissions in China and India is staggering, the former more than doubling between 1990 and 2008 and the latter increasing by ~140% (Figure 2). In climate change negotiations, persuading countries with the highest rate of CO2 emissions growth to moderate such growth is vital.

Continuing business as usual in countries with both high and growing CO2 emissions could overwhelm collective emissions reductions made by even those countries with moderate emissions.

Focus on the fifteen

Trying to broker a universal agreement in which all countries preferences are taken into account is the ideal, but it is a complex and time consuming process. Reaching an agreement to mitigate CO2 emissions is urgent so one which can satisfy all countries may not be possible in the timescale needed.

It may be that climate change negotiators would have more immediate impact by focusing on the Top Fifteen emitters of CO2. By persuading those countries with large CO2 emissions to agree to reduce them, and those with the highest CO2 emissions growth to moderate their emissions growth, a solution might be found.




* Footnote
Data are taken from a collation by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). In this post only CO2, not other GHG and LULUCF, is considered .The PBL data includes CO2 from cement manufacture.