LAL ‘ S CHAT BY G . LALCHAND
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Chart 1 |
THE 26TH Conference of Parties ( COP ) 26 in Glasgow , Scotland , was on Oct 31-Nov 12 . It was to be “ The last best chance ” for the global community to make the necessary enhanced commitments to realise the objective of limiting the global temperature rise due to climate change to “ below 2 0 C , and preferably to 1.5 0 C ”, by the end of this century , as was agreed under The Paris Agreement ( PA ) in 2015 . The consensus is that most participating countries have not fully adhered to the necessary commitments since the PA was formulated and agreed upon .
It has been attributed mainly to the non-adherence of the obligation by the developed and affluent countries to provide the promised carbon emission reduction financial assistance of up to US $ 100 billion a year .
The current consensus is also rather pessimistic over the possibility of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 0 C by the end of the century unless the current trend of emission reductions is greatly enhanced .
Hence the perception that COP26 presented “ The last best chance ” for the global community to come together and promise more drastic emission reduction strategies for the coming decade at least , to have a realistic chance to achieve the aspiration of a global temperature rise of no more than 1.5 0 C ( or at worst not more than 2 0 C ) by the end of the 21st century ,
However , the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the global aspirations to reduce carbon emissions , mainly from fossil fuel power plants .
The pre-pandemic trend of the use of coal for power generation showed a “ peaking ” of coal use during the last decade , as seen in Chart 1 , while the generation share from RE ( low carbon sources ) overtook the share of coal-fired generation .
The Covid-19 pandemic caused global restrictions on energy-consuming economic activities as it hit different countries at different times and with varying severity . The limits also severely restricted human and logistic transport due to the various degrees of “ lockdowns ” imposed increasingly more severely during 2020 .
Consequently , energy use reduced rapidly in 2020 , resulting in “ Mother Nature ” taking over the planet to rehabilitate it to its natural state .
Nature recovered its environmental health rather rapidly when human intervention was out of the picture and reduced
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carbon emissions .
Even the snow-capped Himalayas could be seen from a great distance , after a stated lapse of about 30 years .
“ Wild animals ” took the opportunity to return to urban areas of human habitat in various cities .
Sadly , the pandemic caused untold human misery , with massive loss of lives , jobs and livelihoods through lockdowns imposed to minimise escalating infections and hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients that overwhelmed health services , resulting in millions of fatalities .
The global reaction was for the more highly advanced and affluent economies to invest heavily in developing and producing vaccines to stop the almost uncontrolled spread of infections .
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Fossil fuel use will increase shortly
As the Covid-19 vaccines were developed and certified to reduce the spread of the infections , their rapid deployment started to contain the spread in the countries with the more significant share of vaccinated citizens .
This success encouraged the countries concerned to pull back their restrictions and restart their economic activities .
And what a difference that made to the desire to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuel power plants !
Up until early 2021 , the reduced energy demand led to a reduction in the use of primary energy resources , particularly fossil fuel supply .
A fall in demand curtailed the production and delivery of fossil fuels . But as soon as the economic activities recommenced , they caused a rapidly growing energy demand surge , which has led to supply shortages and consequent cost escalation due to the supply-demand imbalance .
The resulting cost escalation caught some of the countries that were , and still
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are , more dependent on fossil fuels with the threat of inadequate fuel supply leading to shallow reserves and even supply curtailment .
Fortunately , Malaysia was reasonably well insulated from some of these issues , particularly the energy supply problems .
Recent projections estimate that fossil fuel use will increase shortly until even more enhanced implementation of RE power generation projects can displace the polluting fossil fuels .
We must not forget that 1 MW of RE , especially from solar PV , is not an equivalent of 1 MW of conventional fossil fuel power plants in terms of their energy generation capability .
Typically 1 MW of a fossil fuel power plant generates as much as four times as much energy ( in MWh ) as a solar PV plant . So apparently , high RE generation capacity buildup is not necessarily a quick success in the transition to RE .
Unfortunately , the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic hamper the desired reduction of fossil fuel use , especially coal , for global emission reductions .
Hopefully , COP26 ’ s policies and strategies will get us back on track for the desired aspiration of a global temperature rise of no more than 1.5 0 C ( or , at worst , not more than 2 0 C ) by the end of the 21st century .— @ Green
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