This week, the Clean Energy Ministerial, an organization of representatives from countries responsible for 80% of today’s carbon emissions, will meet in New Delhi to share environmental experiences and encourage the transition to a more stable, globalized energy infrastructure.
However, according to one representative who will be in attendance, Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy has been shelved in favor of temporarily stimulating national economies. “The average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago,” she claims.
Modern power plants are the worst polluters of all. Usually dependent upon coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, these power plants emit astronomical amounts of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. In order to track these levels, the IEA has relied on a system of evaluation called the Energy Sector Carbon Intensity Index (ESCII). The ESCII calculates the average amount of carbon emissions expected in the production of an individual unit of energy. In 2010, the index calculated that, in order to produce energy from one metric ton of oil, 2.37 metric tons of carbon dioxide would be given off – or nearly the exact same number registered back in 1990!
Can you think of any other industry that’s experienced stagnant quality or production costs and actually survived amidst the free-market? Didn’t think so. Hence the reason Apple, Nike, and all of your favorite brands compete for the top designers and then outsource production to manufacturers where laborers have never heard of a “minimum wage.”
The important of developing alternative energy sources has been stressed amongst the media, environmentalist, and politicians alike for decades now. Yet, as van der Hoeven points out, the “growth of coal-fired power is actually outpacing the increase in generation from non-fossil energy sources.”
Why? Because sticking with what’s already in place is usually the easiest option -- not necessarily the right one.
Even countries making “honest” attempts to curb their carbon emissions eventually succumb to greed. The United States, for example, is burning less coal than in the past, but is selling their stockpile of unused coal to facilities over in Asia. One way or the other, the stuff is getting burned. It’s polluting our air and waterways. And the problem is only getting worse. Since we consume roughly 50% more energy compared to a decade ago, and yet the ratio of carbon output to energy production hasn’t improved, that means we’re pumping cataclysmic amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
At our current pace, van der Hoeven thinks “the world is on track to have global temperatures rise by 6 degrees Celsius,” or 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit, by the year 2100. If that happens, most scientists agree – we’re done for. (In fact, they estimate that if surface temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the world as we know it will cease to exist.)
“The overall lack of progress should serve as a wake-up call,” warns van der Hoeven. “We cannot afford another 20 years of listlessness. We need a rapid expansion in low-carbon energy technologies if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic warming of the planet.”
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