BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st December, 2018) The EU ambition to become "climate neutral" by 2050 is laudable, however the bloc should not go to extremes while fulfilling energy transition goals, bearing in mind unequal economic costs of a switch to renewables for member nations and their population, experts told Sputnik.
EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete announced on Wednesday that the European Union is aiming to become the first major "climate-neutral" economy in the world by 2050.
"Going climate neutral is necessary, possible and in Europe's interest. It is necessary to meet the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. It is possible with current technologies and those close to deployment. And it is in Europe's interest to stop spending on fossil fuel imports and invest in meaningful improvements to the daily lives of all Europeans. No European, no region should be left behind. The EU will support those more impacted by this transition so that everyone's ready to adapt to the new requirements of a climate neutral economy," he said.
The plan means that EU countries would not emit CO2 anymore by 2050, or at least that all emissions of CO2, the main "greenhouse gas," would be compensated by planting more trees and introducing carbon capture technologies, which would see the CO2 buried underground. According to the bloc, "the move will also cut premature air pollution deaths by 40 percent."
The announced goal is in line with the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) report, which was issued in October. The report maintains that net-zero emissions by 2050 are needed to have a fighting chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2030 instead of the 2 degrees Celsius target agreed in Paris in 2015.
According to Jean louis Tison, a professor in charge of the glaciology laboratory at the University of Brussels (ULB) and organizer of numerous expeditions in Antarctica, the EU goals are extremely challenging, albeit realistic.
"It is not too late to curb this dramatic rise of the oceans, but we need to set to the task. For each of us, as citizens, it does not mean a revolution, but simple small decisions, such as flying less for a two-day weekend for example. The goals that the EU is trying to set up are very tough to reach, but it can be done," the expert told Sputnik.
European Commission's Vice-President for the Energy Union project Maros Sefcovic, meanwhile, recently expressed his belief that the ambitious goal will not come at a price of people's quality of life, with no region of Europe expected to be left behind.
"To reduce emissions, it is not necessary to sacrifice the present livelihoods of Europeans. Over the last years, we have managed to reduce emissions, while creating prosperity, high-quality local jobs, and improving people's quality of life. Europe will inevitably continue to transform. Our strategy now shows that by 2050, it is realistic to make Europe both climate neutral and prosperous, while leaving no European and no region behind," he said.
ARE ALL NATIONS ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH?
The IPCC report on the need to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius was a "wake-up call" for the world. There have been a lot of international meetings, conferences and promises, but the gap has grown between what countries promised to do under the Paris agreement, and how far they advanced with those endeavors.
It is suffice to note that US President Donald Trump launched the process of his country's withdrawal from the Paris deal. The French government, meanwhile, has to fight a revolt against fuel price spikes, which are actually part of the energy transition efforts.
The same day with the EU announcement, Brazil has pulled out of hosting next year's United Nations global summit on climate change, sending a signal that Latin America's largest nation no longer aspires to be an influential player in efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The statement from Brazil, which left the United Nations scrambling to find a new venue for the conference, comes about a month before the inauguration of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro. According to Brazilian Foreign Minister-designate Ernesto Araujo, the movement to reduce global warming is a plot by "Marxists," meant to stifle the economic growth of capitalist democracies while benefiting China.
In Europe, several countries are keen to press ahead with ambitious environmental goals. In particular, 10 EU nations, including Denmark, Sweden and Spain, wrote a letter to the EU bodies, asking for a "clear direction" toward CO2 net-zero emissions.
Not every country in Europe, however, is happy with the new strategy. Germany seems to be one of them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's successive governments accepted many demands of the "eco-lobby." The country was the first to invest massively in the intermittent renewable energies: solar and above all wind energy sources.
The problem is that the periods without wind and sun as well as policy of refusing from energy generated by nuclear power plants are compensated by building more coal plants. The result is that Germany has increased its CO2 emissions with some 45 new coal plants and made the price of its electricity one of the most highest in Europe.
Other EU countries, such as Poland, are similarly still heavily reliant on its coal and object to any restriction on the use of fossil fuels.
Another problem for the European Commission and its announcements is the fact that climate change "negationists" are still active. There are scientists who question global warming. There are others who question the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
These scientists have even created an "anti-IPCC." It is called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and questions many of the assertions put forward by the Nobel-prize winning team of IPCC.
In 2011-2012, Francois Gervais, a professor of thermophysics at France's Tours university, volunteered to be a reviewer of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) report. In a book published in 2013, he "opposes the univocal and reductive conception that carbon dioxide is responsible for all the ills" in terms of climate and denounces the "alarmist exaggerations." In particular, he discusses the problem of the saturation effects of the greenhouse effect.
In his comments to Sputnik, Gervais argued that "the impact of lower CO2 emissions on the increase in global temperature is minimal," suggesting that the world is facing "natural variability of the climate."
"The global average temperature has fallen for 30 consecutive years after 1945, while CO2 emissions increased dramatically. The general anxiety about global warming is unfounded. We have completely ignored the natural variability of the climate and CO2 emissions are overestimated. In a century, the concentration of CO2 in the air has gone from 0.03 to 0.04%. It is not about to double. Reducing emissions by 20% will prevent the planet from warming by less than a thousandth of a degree!" he pointed out.
According to the professor, "CO2 [in the air] is indispensable to plant growth," and is actually "greening the planet," reducing hydric stress for plants.
He nevertheless defended the need for energy transition, given that the resources are finite, but noted that focus on renewables led to soaring electricity prices for consumers.
"As the world population increases, we must of course consider an energy transition, because the planet's resources are not inexhaustible. Hydroelectric dams are the best source, but we have come to limits. Solar panels and wind turbines are not a large scale solution. Moreover, the more photovoltaic panels and wind turbines are installed, the more the consumer pays for electricity," Gervais added.
Commenting on the EU idea of planting more trees as a way to maintain CO2 balance, a researcher in forestry of the Swedish paper & fibre industry group SCA, in Sundsvall, told Sputnik that it is not a panacea.
"Growing trees fixes carbon from the air (CO2) into solid carbon in the form of wood/timber. To be positive for the CO2 balance, the wood must then be transformed into furniture, construction, pulp, paper, hygiene products and others. So, a forest is only CO2-positive if it is exploited like our millions of [hectares] of existing forests are in Sweden. If you consider the Amazon for example or any natural rainforest untouched by man, its CO2 balance is not positive: it is neutral, because old trees fall, wood decays and CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. The Amazon is not 'the lungs' of the earth. It is very important for biodiversity and other reasons, yes, but not for CO2 reduction at all," the researcher said.
EITHER OBSERVE EU FISCAL POLICES OR INVEST IN GREEN ECONOMY
Meanwhile, Belgian economist Pau De Grauwe, a professor at the London school of Economics, pointed to incompatibility of the EU push for climate neutral economy, which will cost billions of Euros, with its austerity polices of "discouraging national governments to finance public investment with issue of debt."
"According to UN climate experts, the world needs to triple its efforts if it wants to slow down climate change. But playing with emotions and moral shaming about our behaviour is an underproductive, even counterproductive process. We had better bet on rational arguments, on science and technological innovation ... The European Commission, which declares that it wants to make the continent climate-neutral by 2050, is the same body that, like an accountant, sanctions all budgetary policies providing for large public investments. There is a choice: either respect the EU, OECD and IMF budget standards, or do everything to preserve the climate. The decision should be easy to make," he told Sputnik.
The European Union is yet to hold a debate among member nations about financing the ambitious environmental goal. The plan is to adopt and submit the ambitious strategy to the United Nations by early 2020.
