Changing the political climate
T he scientific consensus is
clear - climate change is
occurring. Existing renew-
able energy technologies could play
a significant mitigating role, but
says Professor Tim Jackson of the
Centre for Environmental Strategy
at Surrey University, UK, the eco-
nomic and political climate will
have to change first. He tells Nina
Morgan why.
Climate change is real, it’s happening
now, and greenhouse gases produced by
human activities are significantly con-
tributing to it. Those are the scientific
conclusions reached in the latest UN
lnrergovernmenral Panel on Climate
Change (IPPC) report. The predicted
global temperature changes of between
I.5 and 4.5 degrees C could lead to
potentially catastrophic environmental
impacts - including sea level rise,
increased frequency of extreme weather
events, floods, droughts, disease migra-
tion from various places and possible
stalling of the Gulf Stream. This is why
scientists argue that climate change
42 October 2001
issues are not ones that politicians can
afford to ignore.
Blood, sweat and tears And policy makers tend co agree. Bur
reaching international agreements on
climate change policies is no trivial task.
“International negotiations on climate
change began in the late 8Os, and there
is no question that they have involved a
lot of blood, sweat and tears,” explains
Professor Tim Jackson, Professor of
Sustainable Development at the Centre
for Environmental Strategy at Surrey
University in the UK. “Although we’re
far from reaching a consensus on how
to deal with the problem, there are
some signs of progress. For example,
the science is certainly less of an obsta-
cle than it was, and it is accepted
increasingly within policy circles that
quite deep cuts in greenhouse gas emis-
sions will need ro be made by the mid-
dle to rhe end of this century. In the
UK, for example, the Royal
Commission has talked about- 60% cuts
in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
And, in addition, NGOs, IGOs and
others have also offered various other
suggestions about what is needed in the
longer term.”
So if the need for cuts in greenhouse
gas emissions is recognised, what’s
stopping us from implementing them?
“This,” he notes, “is a very complex
question thar involves social and polit-
ical as we11 as technological issues.”
Political science On the technological side, renewables
have an obvious role co play. “In gener-
al, there is no problem in terms of the
technical potential of renewables to
deliver energy,” notes Professor Jackson.
“And there are very, very good opportu-
nities for renewable energy technologies
REFBCC:S www.re-focus.net
to play an important role in reducing
emissions of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere - certainly far more than
have been exploited so far.
Bur there are still technical issues to
address to cope with the incermirrency
of some renewables, particularly wind
and solar. It is generally agreed that you
can support around 30% of rhe total
generation from intermittent sources
without incurring severe penalties. But
that still leaves some way to go to meet
deep cuts in CO, emissions.”
However, the biggest problem with
relying on renewabIes to deliver the
necessary cuts in greenhouse gas emis-
sions is more to do with politics and
policy issues than with technical ones.
“The problem is not so much that the
technologies aren’t there,” he argues,
“it’s more that they aren’t there al the
right price. The single most important
step governments could take to pro-
mote and increase the use of renewables
would be to improve access for renew-
ables to the energy market. That access
ro the market would need to be under
favourable conditions and possibly
under favourable economic rates. One
move that could help - or at least justi-
fy - better market access would be to
acknowledge that there are environ-
mental costs associated with other ener-
gy supply options, and that these costs
are nor currently inrernalised within the
market price of electricity or fuels. As it
is now we are subsidising the use,
exploitation, research and development
of fossil fuels - and have been for
decades. If that policy were to change, it
could make a significant difference,
particularly if, in their place, appropri-
ate subsidies were applied to renewable
energy in recognition of environmental
benefits it offers.”
To some extent this is already hap-
pening and some progress is being
INTERVIEW
made. “For example,” he notes, “the
climate change levy in the UK, which
places an obligation on suppliers to
purchase a proportion of their electric-
ity from renewables, is one way of
encouraging investment in renewables
and helping to shift the balance away
from fossil fuels. It also establishes a
buy-out price for those who evade the
obligation and this provides a way of
encouraging finance to flow into the
renewable energy market. The propos-
als for carbon and energy taxes in
Europe, although they have been very
slow in developing and still face strong
opposition, are also mechanisms for
moving towards renewables.”
But, he cautions, “relying solely on
financial mechanisms to promote a
shift from fossil fuels to renewable ener-
gy technologies is not straightforward
because there are many social factors
involved. The coal industry, for exam-
ple, has been heavily subsidised for
decades. The removal of those subsidies
would have quite severe social implica-
tions in that it displaces and removes
the livelihoods of mining communities.
So it is a very complicated equation,
and one that requires policy making
which crosses from traditional energy
Professor Tim Jackson Professor Tim Jackson received an MA in MathematiG from Cambridge
University and a PhD in theoretical physics from St Andrews University in 1985
before going on to work as a consultant on environmental and resource issues.
Following five years at the international environmental research organisation,
The Stockholm Environment Institute, he moved to the Centre for
Environmental Strategy, at Surrey University in 1995. As Professor of Sustainable
Development, he now leads research groups on ecological economics and, in col-
laboration with Professor Roland Clift, environmental systems analysis.
Contact: tel: 01483-879072; e-mail: [email protected]
sector analysis, through economic and
financial issues to social issues.”
Not the whole story And in any case, Professor Jackson
argues, although renewables have an
important role to play in mitigating
climate change, they are not the whole
story. “The necessary cuts in green-
house gas emissions can’t come entire-
ly from renewable energies, at least in
the medium term,” he says. “They will
have to come from a combination of
energy efficiency, low carbon sources
and renewable energy.
“If you look at the energy equation
on a global basis, in the longer term the
issue of per capita energy consumption
becomes absolutely critical. It does not
seem conceivable that the worId could
industrialise in such a way that it con-
sumed the same amount of per capita
energy as is consumed in North
America. The stress on the ecosystem
from conventional industrial develop-
ment along the North American model
would be enormous.
“The real possibility of substituting
those polluting energy sources with
renewable energy at North American lev-
els of energy consumption would be ide-
alistic, heroic - utopian almost. Cutting
energy consumption through end-use
efficiency is absolutely essential. And this
suggests that issues of end-use consump-
tion of energy will have to come onto the
table in the foreseeable future.”