Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
It is hard to see why any developing country would accept any limits on its
own production if countries which have used vast amounts of fossil fuels in
the past are able to ignore this historical responsibility. This means the 'start
date' for calculations of national carbon budgets needs to be amended. A
start date of 1990 - widely used in climate negotiations - seems an absolute
minimum. Taking into account historical emissions more comprehensively
would mean a much earlier start date.
Adding the actual global carbon emissions for 1990-1999 (234 Gt CO
2
)to
Meinshausen's 2000-2049 global carbon budget for a 33% chance of not
exceeding a 2 1C global temperature rise (1158 Gt CO
2
)
17
gives a global figure
of 1400 Gt CO
2
(rounded to the nearest 50 Gt). On a per capita basis, the UK's
share of this budget is 12.2 Gt CO
2
.
How much of this have we used already? Since 1990, the UK has extracted
oil, gas and coal resulting in emissions of 12.1 Gt CO
2
. On this basis, the
UK's remaining carbon budget is 0.1 Gt CO
2
. The use of production rather
than consumption figures here is deliberate. Consumption levels are clearly
critical, but production and consumption are linked, and production in one
country can affect consumption in another: shale gas production in the US
has led to coal exports to Europe (see section 2.1.3).
Maintaining and indeed increasing fossil fuel production creates add-
itional pressure to maintain fossil-fuel-based consumption patterns and
makes it harder to reduce demand. Global carbon emissions need to peak
and decline almost immediately - this requires a twin approach of reducing
demand and reducing supply of fossil fuels. Friends of the Earth believes
that the prospects of a strong global deal on climate change are made much
less likely if developed countries like the UK continue to accelerate their own
fossil fuel production programmes.
However, the UK is still aiming to maximise hydrocarbon recovery. The
Government's central projections for conventional fossil fuel production
would emit 3.7 Gt CO
2
- already many (37) times our remaining carbon
budget. The production of unconventional gas and oil would add signifi-
cantly to this, including a potential additional 7 Gt CO
2
from shale gas,
based on the recovery of 130 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of shale gas, which is
10% of the central (P50) total gas-in-place estimate in the Bowland Shale.
23
The potential for shale gas is underpinning the Government's desire to build
new gas-fired power stations, risking lock-in to gas. The Government's ocial
advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, have written of the dangers of
such a 'dash for gas': ''The apparently ambivalent position of the Government
about whether it is trying to build a low-carbon or a gas-based power system
weakens the signal provided by carbon budgets to investors (and is) damaging
prospects for required low-carbon investments''.
24
Similar views have been ex-
pressed by the respected think-tank Chatham House: ''also significant is the
argument that a ramping up of shale gas operations could come at the expense
of needed investment in renewable energies like wind and solar''.
25
The Tyndall Centre has calculated that the cost of building shale-gas-
generated electricity capacity in the UK (well costs plus power station costs)
