Climate change panel: renewable energy to be key

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo Groups 5 May 11;

DOHA, Qatar – The world's top scientific body concluded that renewable energy in the coming decades will be widespread and could one day represent the dominant source for powering factories and lighting homes, according to a draft report obtained by The Associated Press Thursday.

But the report also warned that such expansion will be costly and policy changes will have to be enacted to ensure that renewable energy can achieve its potential in helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It called for better balancing competing demands for land, addressing "institutional barriers" that prevent the installation of solar energy as well as overcoming the constraints to transmitting renewable energy to users.

The four-day meeting of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which began Thursday in Abu Dhabi was largely bullish on replacing fossil fuels.

"It is likely that renewable energy will have a significantly larger role in the global energy system in the future than today," said the report. "The scenarios indicate that even without efforts to address climate change, renewable energy can be expected to expand."

A spokesman for the IPCC refused to comment on the report, saying it was still subject to several days of negotiations.

The report found that renewable energy — including solar, hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal and ocean energy — represented only about 13 percent of the primary energy supply in 2008. But its growth is picking up with almost half of new electricity generating capacity coming from renewables in 2008 and 2009.

That growth will continue through 2050 with 164 different scenarios predicting the use of renewables significantly increasing as the world shifts to a low-carbon economy.

The most ambitious projected it will represent 77 percent of global energy sources in 2050.

Commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coupled with cheaper technology for renewable energies will spur their growth, especially as the increasing shortages of oil and other fossil fuels raises those costs.

But the report made clear there are plenty of challenges that could hamper the growth of renewables as they still need to be better integrated into existing energy supply systems.

Policies also need to be changed to attract massive investment to build the infrastructure and spur the technology innovations needed that make renewables more affordable and dependable.

And despite its rosy predictions for renewable use, at least one environmental group observing the talks say the report falls short of their expectations.

"IPCC delivers a landmark report that shows the rapid growth potential for renewable energy — but unfortunately does not endorse a 100 percent renewable energy pathway until 2050," said Stephan Singer, director for Global Energy Policy at WWF International.

"We need to be fast if we want to tackle pressing issues as varied as energy security and efficiency, and at the same time keep climate change below the danger threshold," he added.

Renewable Energies To Leap, Costs Fall: U.N.
Alister Doyle Reuters 6 May 11;

Renewable energies such as wind or solar power are set to surge by 2050, and expected advances in technology will bring significant cost cuts, a draft United Nations report showed on Wednesday.

The most comprehensive U.N. overview of the sector to date said renewables excluding bioenergy, which is mainly firewood burned in developing nations for cooking and heating, could expand by three to 20 times by mid-century.

"The cost of most renewable energy technologies has declined, and significant additional technical advancements are expected," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a draft obtained by Reuters, based on a review of 164 scenarios.

"Further cost reductions are expected, resulting in greater potential for climate change mitigation and reducing the need for policy measures to ensure rapid deployment," it said. The IPCC is to meet in Abu Dhabi from May 5-13.

It said most scenarios pointed to a "substantial increase in the deployment of renewable energy by 2030, 2050 and beyond."

In 2008 renewable energy production accounted for about 12.9 percent of global primary energy supply and was dominated by bioenergy with 10.2 percent, followed by hydro power, wind, geothermal, solar power and ocean energy.

The projected expansion is likely to continue even without new measures to promote a shift from fossil fuels as part of a U.N.-led fight against climate change, it said.

COSTS

U.N. talks on a new deal to combat global warming have made little progress. A summit in Copenhagen in 2009 failed to agree on a binding treaty to combat global warming, which IPCC blames mainly on emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Costs of renewables have been a hurdle. "The levelized cost of energy for many renewable energy technologies is currently higher than market energy prices, though in other cases renewable energy is already economically competitive," the report said.

The draft, written before Japan's nuclear disaster in March, also said renewables by 2010 would probably account for a bigger share of low-carbon energies than nuclear power and fossil fuels from which greenhouse gases are captured and buried.

The 30-page summary for policymakers, part of a Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources, will be published on May 9.

The summary is due to guide governments, investors and companies, including wind firms such as Denmark's Vestas and Suzlon and solar firms such as First Solar or Suntech Power Holdings.

Most of the 164 scenarios showed renewable energies would rise to supply above 100 exajoules (EJ) a year by 2050, reaching 200-400 EJ a year in many scenarios. That is up from 64 EJ in 2008, when world supply was 492 EJ, it said.

The exajoule, or 10 to the 18th power joules, is a typical measure of global energy use.

"An increase of production of renewable energies (excluding traditional bioenergy) anywhere from roughly three-fold to 20-fold is necessary," the report said of the 2050 outlook.

Renewables' share of total energy supply varied widely in the scenarios, reaching up to 77 percent of total energy supply by 2050.

It also said the technical potential of renewable energies -- especially solar -- was substantially higher even than projected world energy demand.

Deployment of renewables has leapt in recent years. About 140 gigawatts of added electricity generating capacity came from renewables in 2008-09 of a world total of 300 GW, it said.

The review of 164 scenarios showed that renewable energies could lead to cumulative carbon dioxide savings of 220-560 billion tonnes from 2010 to 2050. That compares with 1.53 trillion tonnes of cumulative fossil and industrial carbon dioxide emissions in a reference scenario for the same years.

Global renewables investments, in four illustrative scenarios, were forecast at $1.36-$5.1 trillion for the decade to 2020 and $1.49-$7.18 trillion from 2012-30. Real costs would be lower, due to factors including savings on other energies.

(Editing by James Jukwey and Jane Baird)

Renewables major part of 2050 world energy mix: UN
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 7 May 11;

PARIS (AFP) – Renewable power from the Sun, wind, water and biomass can and should generate a major portion of the planet's energy supply by 2050, according to a draft United Nations report obtained by AFP.

Renewables have the potential to bring power to the world's poorest regions, boost energy security for nations dependent on imports, and curb the CO2 emissions that fuel global warming, the draft said.

The 30-page "summary for policy makers" -- boiled down from 1,500 pages -- is being vetted at a May 5-13 meeting of the 194-nation Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in Abu Dhabi, and will be unveiled Monday.

"The final version is likely be substantially different in wording and perhaps somewhat in emphasis, but not a great deal in substance," said an industry representative participating in talks.

By far the most comprehensive UN assessment of the status and potential for the clean energy sector, the report weighs 164 separate development scenarios.

Six types of renewables accounted in 2008 for 12.9 percent of global energy supply: biomass (10.2 percent), hydropower (2.3), wind (0.2), solar (0.1), geothermal (0.1) and ocean (0.002).

Once traditional use of firewood and animal dung for cooking and heating is set aside, however, that percentage drops to about seven.

Coal, oil and gas together make up 85 percent, and nuclear energy two.

Boosted by some government policies, declining technology costs and rising fossil fuel prices, "deployment of renewable energy has been increasing rapidly in recent years," the draft summary said.

The sector contributed, for example, nearly half of the 300 gigawatts of new electricity generating capacity added worldwide in 2008 and 2009, with more than 50 percent installed in developing countries. Coal accounted for most of the rest.

The report says there is virtually unlimited technical potential for renewables, with much of it coming from solar energy.

Drafted before the Fukushima plant meltdown in Japan undercut the so-called nuclear renaissance, the summary said renewables will likely make a higher contribution to low-carbon energy supply by mid-century than nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) combined.

Overall, a majority of projections reviewed show a "substantial increase" -- ranging from 3-to-20 fold -- "in the deployment of renewable energy by 2030, 2050 and beyond."

Many scenarios showed renewables reaching 200 to 400 exajoules (EJ) a year by mid-century in a world where total primary energy supply is forecast to be about 1,000 EJ, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

An exajoule is a unit of measure for energy.

Clean energy's share of future supply varies hugely across different forecasts, with the most ambitious envisioning a world in which it covers three-quarters of all energy needs.

But the continuing growth of renewables is not inexorable and faces many barriers, ranging from vested political interests to inadequate incentive structures for developing new technology, and fossil fuel subsidies.

"To achieve international climate mitigation targets that incorporate high shares of renewable energy, a structural shift in today's energy systems will be required over the next few decades," the report said.

It will also take a lot of money -- 1.4 to 5.1 trillion dollars for the coming decade, and another 1.5 to 7.2 trillion dollars for the period 2021-2030.

Clean sources of power must play a critical role if the UN-backed goal of preventing average global temperatures from rising more than 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is to be met, the IPCC said.

Currently, use of fossil fuels in the energy system accounts for some 60 percent of all greenhouse gases.

UN climate talks have remained largely stalemated since the near collapse of the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, even as scientists warn that climate change is accelerating.

"Renewable energy can help decouple development and rising emissions, contributing to sustainable development," the draft summary said.

Global cumulative CO2 "savings" between 2010 and 2050 will total 220 to 560 gigatonnes (Gt) off a projected accumulation from fossil fuel sources of 1,530 Gt over the same period, according to various scenarios.

The IPCC meeting has set aside four days to review every line of text in the summary.


UN climate meet must not be talking shop: Zuma
Yahoo News 5 May 11;

CAPE TOWN (AFP) – The next round of UN climate talks in South Africa must not be a talking shop, but push for concrete decisions, President Jacob Zuma told the World Economic Forum on Africa.

South Africa will host the summit in Durban at the end of the year and Zuma said he hoped that participants do not "just make speeches as we always do".

"By the time we get to Durban, we should have narrowed the gap. We should have clarified the issues, we should be able to know where are the problems," said Zuma.

"So that we get there not to talk all the time but to say these are the issues, these are the decisions that we need to talk and persuade those who are finding it very difficult. For the sake of humanity, I think we need to take very concrete decisions in Durban."

The last UN climate summit took place in the Mexican resort city of Cancun in December.

The Cancun agreements focused mainly on the easiest steps to be taken, after an effort 12 months earlier in Copenhagen to achieve a much more wide-ranging accord saw the UN climate process almost collapse.

Climate scientists told to 'stop speaking in code'
Karl Ritter, Associated Press Yahoo News 4 May 11;

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Scientists at a major conference on Arctic warming were told Wednesday to use plain language to explain the dramatic melt in the region to a world reluctant to take action against climate change.

An authoritative report released at the meeting of nearly 400 scientists in Copenhagen showed melting ice in the Arctic could help raise global sea levels by as much as 5 feet this century, much higher than earlier projections.

James White, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, told fellow researchers to use simple words and focus on the big picture when describing their research to a wider audience. Focusing too much on details could blur the basic science, he said: "If you put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it will get warmer."

Prominent U.S. climate scientist Robert Corell said researchers must try to reach out to all parts of society to spread awareness of the global implications of the Arctic melt.

"Stop speaking in code. Rather than 'anthropogenic,' you could say 'human caused,'" Corell said.

The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the global average in recent decades, and the latest five-year period is the warmest since measurements began in the 19th century, according to the report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program — a scientific body set up by the eight Arctic rim countries.

The report emphasized "the need for greater urgency" in combating global warming. But nations remain bogged down in their two-decade-long talks on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The World Bank's special envoy for climate change, Andrew Steer, said the new findings "are a cause for great concern." The sea rise will affect millions in both rich and poor countries, but would particularly affect the poor, he said, because "they tend to live in the lowest lying land and have the fewest resources to adapt."

Steer said bank studies showed the costs of major flooding events on infrastructure and the economy could run into billions of dollars.

"It is clear that we are not on track in the battle against climate change," he said.

Bogi Hansen, an expert on ocean currents from the Faeroe Islands, said one problem is that scientists can come off as unsure about conclusions because they are reluctant to talk about anything with 100 percent certainty.

White, the Colorado scientist, agreed. At a news conference later Wednesday, he said those opposed to reining in fossil fuels "sow the seeds of doubt that give the people the impression that ... unless every single one of us lines up behind an idea, that decisions can't be taken."

The AMAP report will be delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers of Canada, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia, at an Arctic Council meeting in Greenland next week.