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Article in the International Herald Tribune . 14th March 2007 By David Howell and Carle Nakhle (Lord Howell is a former UK Secretary of State for Energy. Dr.Carole Nakhle is Energy Research Fellow at the Surrey Energy Economics centre, University of Surrey)
Energy Security and Climate Security: No Need for Conflict.
“Above all” Talleyrand warned his supporters, “not too much zeal”. In the struggle to achieve a low-carbon future and combat climate change is it time for his advice to be heeded by the European Union Commission, as well as by a variety of member state leaders cheering on its efforts? In recent months a torrent of directives, initiatives and mandatory targets to cut carbon emissions has poured from the Commission. The list includes the world’s toughest limits on car emissions, a big boost for biofuels and a doubling of the 2020 target for the renewables percentage (wind, solar power, hydro, etc) in Europe’s energy supplies. Still more proposals, for raising energy efficiency standards sharply on consumer products and curbing aviation emissions , are in the pipeline. This almost feverish new momentum is admirable but dangerous. Rather than inspiring European business and the general public, it is making both constituencies thoroughly uneasy. Industry is opposed because it could all raise costs and cut competitiveness. The consuming public ,already hit by much higher energy and fuel prices, sees them rising still further, costing both money and , it is feared , jobs. But the biggest danger is of division once again between EU members states, with Tony Blair in Britain and Angela Merkel in Germany radiating enthusiasm for the Commission’s proposals while other countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic sound distinctly hostile. Twelve member states are said to be opposed to the new targets. The outcome is that battle lines are being drawn up between apparently conflicting views and goals - energy security on one side – plentiful, reliable, affordable energy supplies which everyone wants – versus a decarbonised , greener, cleaner future on the other side which everyone also wants. This is a clash which is totally unnecessary and completely avoidable. The two causes should reinforce each other instead being left to quarrel. Far from energy security needs and climate change concerns conflicting , it should be perfectly possible to make them fully compatible. Of course, at the extremes they will always be zealots ready to fight, even wanting a fight. At one pole there will always be evangelical carbon-crusaders , who want to end cheap air travel, cut back motoring, forbid or charge for almost anything that produces a carbon footprint, phase out all fossil fuels and care not at all about extra industry burdens. At the other pole there will always be those who question the whole climate debate and the science behind it, think the poorer countries should be left free to burn what they want and put other issues, such as water supplies and the eradication of HIV/aids, far higher up the agenda than carbon control. But in between are the rest of us, who want reliable, reasonably cheap energy both to heat and light our homes and to see the needs of the developing countries met, yet who also want a world in which coastal cities remain above sea-level, the air is pure, rivers stay fresh, wildlife is protected and forests flourish If the goal is a low-carbon global future ,then putting too much front-end emphasis on longer-term climate concerns , and on questionable targets and complex plans for rationing and allocating carbon permits , and hoping that other continents, with far greater emissions , will follow suit, may not be the way to get where we want. That route could lead not to climate security but to unseemly dogfights between interests, lobbies and EU member states of just the kind which seem to be emerging already. Instead, it ought to be possible to turn a conflict into an alliance. Ways should be found of combining the urgent needs for energy security in Europe , to which there are plenty of frightening and immediate challenges, as well as the urgent needs of the poorer world, with a fully effective long run campaign against global warming. Harnessing these two causes – of energy security and climate security – would be to create a grand unity of purpose which is visibly lacking at present. How should that be done, and how do we escape the apparent labyrinth of conflicting desires and aims which current policies are generating? The right path is certainly not straight and simple. Theseus had Ariadne’s thread to help him escape from the labyrinth of King Minos. We have no such helpful guidance. Yet if the EU’s policy-makers were to ease up in their zeal for new costs, taxes and permits, if instead they were to make their first priority reducing Europe’s over-dependence on imported oil and Russian gas, combined with maximum encouragement to energy-saving technologies, research and new product development they might get a pleasant surprise. Instead of mounting hostility they might find both business and the consuming public eager to cut their energy bills and move on to cleaner, greener and less costly ways of living and working, and they might find that they were anyway on the highroad to lower carbon and a calmer planet. The people of Europe are being asked to make radical changes to their lifestyles and ways they use energy. If that is going to happen, and if any targets for reducing carbon are to be met, there will be a need to explain much more clearly than hitherto how this can bring immediate benefits, (i.e reliable energy supplies and lower fuel bills) as well as long term gains for their grandchildren. It needs to be made far clearer how new industries and jobs can be grown fast and how efforts in the home region (Europe) can lead to world-wide action, rather than just being seen as a model which everyone admires and nobody copies. It would be folly to let yet another rift open up in Europe between near term energy worries and longer-term green concerns. Member states are bound to have divergent energy priorities and interests , but on these issues wise EU leadership should show them how they can march forwards together. Ends
‘Out of the Energy Labyrinth’ by David Howell and Carole Nakhle will be published by I.B.Tauris at the end of May 2007
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