The Challenge of Energy and Environment in China and the World

1
The Challenge of Energy and Environment in China
and the World

• John P. Holdren
• Teresa John Heinz Professor of Environmental
  Policy
• John F. Kennedy School of Government
  Professor of
  Environmental Science Policy
• Department of Earth Planetary Sciences
• HARVARD UNIVERSITY
• Director
• THE WOODS HOLE RESEARCH CENTER
• Panel Presentation for the
  Harvard Alumni
  Association Global Series Meeting
  
  Shanghai 29 March 2008

2
Why is energy important?

• Because
• meeting basic human needs is important
• economic growth is important,
• the environment is important,
• international relations are important,
• and energy is intimately entwined with all
• four.

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Economically

• Affordable energy is a crucial ingredient of
  sustained prosperity sustainable development.
• Energy is 10 of GDP, 10 of world trade, and a
  large part of trade deficits in importing
  countries
• Costly energy ? inflation, recession,
  frustration of economic aspirations of the poor.
• Investments in energy-supply systems are 800
  billion/yr worldwide 15 of gross domestic
  investment in developing countries.

4
Environmentally

• Energy supply major contributor to dangerous
  difficult environmental problems from local to
  global
• Specifically, energy supply is the source of
• most indoor and outdoor air pollution, most acid
  rain
• much of the hydrocarbon and trace-metal pollution
  of soil and ground water
• almost all of the oil humans add to the ocean
• most radioactive waste
• most of the human emissions of greenhouse gases
  that are disrupting global climate.

5
International relations

• Oil gas are so important to economies that
  suppliers can use cut-offs as a weapon, and
  importers may threaten or wage war to gain or
  maintain access.
• Spread of nuclear-energy technologies spreads
  access to nuclear-weapon capabilities
• Energy systems are force-multiplier targets for
  terrorists dams, nuclear reactors, oil
  refineries
• Internal international tensions upheavals can
  result from energy-strategy inadequacies that
  threaten, create, or perpetuate great economic or
  environmental harm.

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Growth of world population prosperity over past
150 years brought 20-fold increase in energy use
Growth rate 1850-1950 was 1.45/yr, driven mainly
by coal. From 1950-2000 it was
3.15/yr, driven mainly by oil natural gas.
7
Rapid growth high fossil-fuel dependence are
continuing
Units are millions of tonnes of oil equivalent
Growth rate 2000-2006 averaged 2.7/yr.
8
Much of the growth is in Asia Bars show role
of China India in growth 2000-2006
WEO 2007
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Some comparative country data for 2006

• USA
  China India
• Population, millions 299
  1311 1122
• GDP/pers, 2006 (ppp) 44300
  7900 3800
• Total energy supply, EJ 106
  86 29
• of which fossil fuels 88 84
  62
• Oil consumption, EJ 42
  16 5
• Oil imports, Mb/d 12.3
  3.5 1.9
• Electricity generation, TWh 4250 2830
  730
• of which coal generates 50
  80 70
• Fossil C emitted in CO2, MtC 1710
  1640 380
• ppp at purchasing-power parity, EJ
  exajoules, TWh terawatt-hours, MtC megatons
  of carbon in CO2. Total energy supply includes
  biomass fuels. Electricity generation is gross,
  not net.

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Continued high growth is expected to 2030
US EIA 2007 and IEA WEO 2007 reference forecasts

• 2006 2030
• Primary energy, exajoules
• World 526 800
• United States 106 150
• China 86 175
• Electricity, trillion kWh
• World 19.3 35
• United States 4.3 6.0
• China 2.8 7.5

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and beyond, if business as usual continues

• World use of primary energy reaches
• 2.5 times the 2000 level by 2050,
• 4 times by 2100.
• World electricity generation reaches
• 3 times the 2000 level by 2050,
• 5 times by 2100.

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Fossil fuels are expected to continue to dominate
supply in the decades immediately ahead
WEO 2007
13
Projected growth of oil use for road transport in
Asia is particularly large
WEO 2007
14
These oil demands are projected to be met mainly
by imports
WEO 2007
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Projected growth of coal-fired electric power
plants in Asia is also high

• Coal-fired capacity, GWe, actual USEIA
  projection
• USA China India World
• 2003 310 239 67 1120
• 2010 319 348 95 1300
• 2020 345 531 140 1600
• 2030 457 785 161 2000

World coal-electric capacity goes up 900 GWe by
2030, and 640 GWe of the increase is in China and
India.
Source US EIA, International Energy Outlook 2006
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High fossil-fuel dependence already causes big
problems for Asia and the world

• Increasing dependence on imported oil natural
  gas means economic vulnerability, as well as
  international tensions and potential for conflict
  over access terms.
• Coal burning for electricity and industry and oil
  burning in vehicles are main sources of severe
  urban and regional air pollution SOx, NOx,
  hydrocarbons, soot with big impacts on public
  health, acid precipitation.
• Emissions of CO2 from ALL fossil-fuel burning are
  largest driver of global climate disruption,
  already associated with increasing harm to human
  well-being and rapidly becoming more severe.
• The oil market, pollutant transport,
  climate are global. Each country is
  affected by what other countries do.

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Developing Asias oil imports from Persian Gulf
Source EIA International Energy Outlook 2006
are now bigger than North Americas and growing
faster
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??????????????Forecasts of SO2 and NO2 Emissions
?? Scenario 2000 2010 2020
????(??) SO2 (10,000 tons) A ?? Scenario A 2719 4072 5738
????(??) SO2 (10,000 tons) B ?? Scenario B 2719 3900 4947
????(??) SO2 (10,000 tons) C ?? Scenario C 2719 3443 4056
????(??) NOX (10,000 tons) A ?? Scenario A 1988 3417 4982
????(??) NOX (10,000 tons) B ?? Scenario B 1988 3273 4295
????(??) NOX (10,000 tons) C ?? Scenario C 1988 2889 3521
Under the preferred (green) scenario, Chinese NOx
emissions still increase 75 by 2020, SOx
emissions by 50.
Liu Shijin, The State Council, 2004
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Health Costs from Particulate Pollution in China
Source Clear Water, Blue Skies Chinas
Environment in the New Century, World Bank, 1997.
20
Acid precipitation under BAU growth
Wet and dry reactive nitrogen deposition from the
atmosphere, early 1990s and projected for 2050
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China passes USA as biggest CO2 emitter in 2007
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The temperature of the Earth is rising steeply
C
Green bars show 95 confidence intervals
2005 was the hottest year on record the 13
hottest all occurred since 1990, 23 out of the 24
hottest since 1980.
J. Hansen et al., PNAS 103 14288-293 (26 Sept
2006)
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This climatic disruption is already harmful
Weakening of the East Asia Monsoon is an example
Qi Ye, Tsinghua University, May 2006
Predicted by climate models, this change has
produced increased flooding in the South of China
and increased drought in the North.
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Floods have been increasing on every continent
Major floods per decade, 1950-2000
The most dramatic rising trend is in Asia.
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Under BAU much bigger disruption is coming
Last time T was 2ºC above 1900 level was 130,000
yr BP, with sea level 4-6 m higher than
today. Last time T was 3ºC above 1900 level was
30 million yr BP, with sea level 20-30 m higher
than today. Note Shaded bands denote 1 standard
deviation from mean in ensembles of model runs
IPCC (2007) scenarios
EU target ?T 2ºC

IPCC 2007
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Stabilizing CO2 concentration to limit T increase
requires big emissions reductions from BAU
BAU (? 6C)
(3C)
(2C)
Path for 50 chance of avoiding ?Tavg gt2C (gold)
is much more demanding than path for 50 chance
of avoiding gt3C (green).
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Solutions better technologies are key

• ONLY WITH IMPROVED TECHNOLOGIES CAN WE
• limit oil imports oil dependence overall
  without incurring excessive economic or
  environmental costs
• improve urban air quality while meeting growing
  demand for automobiles
• use the worlds abundant coal resources without
  intolerable impacts on regional air quality, acid
  rain, and global climate
• expand the use of nuclear energy enough to make a
  difference for climate change and oil gas
  dependence, while still reducing
  accident/terrorism proliferation risks

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Needed new or improved technologies

• Cleaner, more fuel-efficient motor vehicles
  hybrids (diesels, plug-in hybrids)
• More energy-efficient commercial residential
  buildings
• Fuel- and electricity-efficient manufacturing
• Improved coal technologies to make electricity
  hydrogen with CO2 capture storage
• Advanced nuclear reactors with increased safety
  and proliferation-resistant fuel cycles
• Biofuels that dont compete with food forests
• Cheaper photovoltaic cells

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Policy innovation is needed in order to

• provide the scale, continuity, coordination of
  effort in energy research development needed to
  realize in a timely way the required
  technological innovations
• get the benefits of market competition in the
  electricity sector while protecting public goods
  (provision of basic energy services to the poor,
  preservation of adequate system reliability,
  protection of environment)
• ensure the rapid diffusion of cleaner and more
  efficient energy technologies across the least
  developed countries and sectors
• devise and implement an equitable, adequate, and
  achievable cooperative framework for limiting
  global emissions of greenhouse gases

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Asias role in solutions

• Good education system, high production of
  scientists engineers, business environment
  favor rapid innovation.
• Asias growing role in global energy-environment
  problems means USA Europe want to cooperate
  with Asia to solve these problems (e.g.,
  cost-sharing, technology transfer).
• High growth rate of Asian economies allows for
  dominance of new, efficient technologies
  infrastructure over old, inefficient ones.
• This and other factors position Asia to be a
  world leader in renewable energy, energy
  efficiency, clean coal.
• Underdeveloped rural regions in Asia provide
  opportunity to plan build new
  resource-conserving towns.

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Thank you!