Download `Much Ado about Carbon` by Dr. Alex Amato A close reading of the

‘Much Ado about Carbon’
by Dr. Alex Amato
A close reading of the Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016 (QNDS), published in
March this year, is instructive as it provides the first detailed plan to support of the Qatar National
Vision 2030 (QNV-2030) published in July 2008. It demonstrates that Qatar is really prepared to walk
the talk as within the QNDS there is evidence that a great deal of quantitative analysis has been
carried out to understand what exactly are the challenges in achieving the goals set out in QNV2030.
Quite correctly the QNDS document highlights the importance of man-made CO2 emissions that
contribute to climate change, and acknowledges the fact that Qatar has the highest per capita
emissions in the world. It does, however, go on to make the point that Qatar would be ranked
much lower if its CO2 emissions were assessed on the basis of consumption rather than consumption
and production, which is the current calculation method.
This is an important issue as a great deal of Qatar’s CO2 emissions are attributable to the
production of oil and gas fuels which are exported to developed countries like the UK.
Understanding that its CO2 footprint extends beyond its physical boundaries was one of the factors
that prompted the UK Government to increase its carbon reduction commitment and which have
now targeted an impressive 80% reduction of 1990 levels by 2050. If countries like the UK are
prepared to accept that per capita CO2 should be derived by a consideration of actual UK
consumption of all goods and services and that this is really the key CO2 indicator, then Qatar’s
stance on emphasising a consumption approach has great credence.
A logical next step is for Qatar to come up with a CO2 accounting methodology that excludes all
exports but the corollary is that all imports must also now be included. However, this is where the
difficulty lies, as assessing the CO2 footprint of an entire nation’s consumables is no mean task.
Having spent the last 20 years trying to quantitatively assess the environmental impacts of the
construction sector, particularly its material consumption, I can attest to this.
Nevertheless, methodologies, protocols and databases that facilitate this type of calculation are
now in place and complex though the task is, it is achievable. There are similar practices already in
existence if one looks around the world.
Aside from the Kyoto Protocol and the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), the EU has spent considerable time and effort in establishing the
ETS, the Emissions Trading Scheme, which is the largest CO2 cap and trading project in the world.
The ETS was established in 2005 and works by setting a ‘cap’ or limit on the total amount of
greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions that can be emitted from all factories, power stations or other
installations participating within the ETS. More than 11,000 installations are regulated by the ETS
throughout the EU, and these account for almost half of GHG emissions emitted within the EU.
1
Tradeable allowances or EU Allowances (EUAs) are subsequently allocated to these facilities that
are then obliged to measure and report their GHG emissions. Installations that have emitted more
GHGs than the amount of EAUs allocated to this installation then need to buy EAUs on the market,
in order to submit an amount of EAUs that is equal to the amount they have emitted. Installations
that have emitted less GHGs than the amount of EAUs allocated can sell their surplus of EAUs on
the market. In addition to EAUs, the covered installations can also submit international credits
coming from Kyoto Protocol CDM projects (so called CERs) or from Joint Initiative (JI) projects.
Now one might argue that it is all very well for the EU with its bureaucratic colossus to devise,
administer and police such a scheme but is it possible or appropriate for Qatar and more
importantly to what real benefit? My response to these two questions would be to point out that
Qatar has demonstrate its commitment to sustainability, as evinced by both the QNV-2030 and
QNDS documents, and aspires to be one of the leaders in the Gulf Region in this respect.
It
espouses an enlightened vision of a future knowledge based economy that inherently embraces
the core concepts of sustainable development. Although Qatar is a much smaller place than the
EU or many of the leading EU countries, it has a considerable capacity to be flexible and move
decisively, in short, its size means that it can change rapidly and with effect. Nor is it short of the
intellectual and administrative capability to take the measures that I am advocating. Coupled
with considerable financial muscle it is not unreasonable to suggest that Qatar is just the place
where in the near future we will see such rapid development towards a truly sustainable culture
that manages to combine high-tech with tradition.
The second part of the question is what real benefit would Qatar gain if it undertook such a rigorous
analysis of the nation’s CO2 consumption footprint. The short answer is that you can’t manage if
you don’t measure. The reason for carrying out such an analysis should not be just to remove
Qatar from its unenviable position at the top of the national per capita list of worst CO2 emitters but
to obtain an effective means to manage its CO2 footprint and identify areas of the economy that
are the CO2 ‘hotspots’ that require suitable attention to effect reductions. It might be argued that
these are already known but is this really true? After carrying out a consumption based footprint
analysis many questions are raised. For example, just what is the carbon footprint of all the food
that is flown into Qatar? What is the CO2 footprint of all the construction materials that will go into
Qatar’s rapidly expanding infrastructure programme? Will these be the real ‘hotspots’ when the
CO2 footprint of exported oil and gas production is stripped out of the national calculation? At
present we just don’t know.
It is worth at this juncture, just stepping back for a moment to consider why CO2 is such an
important issue. Why is there so much “Ado” About Carbon? To answer this we need to start from
first principles. We know, thanks to work by Joseph Fourier in 1824, John Tyndall in 1858, and Svante
Arrhenius in 1896, that without our atmosphere’s greenhouse effect, the Earth’s surface air
temperature would probably be about 30ºC cooler than at present and that if there was life, it
would be very different. We also know that in the past there have been both cooler and warmer
2
climatic periods which are matched by corresponding variations in atmospheric CO 2
concentrations; with warmer periods having higher CO 2 concentrations in terms of parts per million
(ppm) by volume than cooler periods.
Evidence from Antarctic ice cores shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have
varied by volume between 180–210 ppm during ice ages, increasing to 280 – 300ppm during
warmer interglacial periods.
However, increases in anthropogenic CO2 since the industrial
revolution have now raised the concentrations to considerably more than the interglacial norm of
280 - 300ppm and current concentrations are estimated to be over 390 ppm with a rate of increase
that is rapidly accelerating alarmingly.12 The assessment promulgated by the IPCC and UNFCCC is
that such concentrations and rate of increase will inevitably lead to man-made climate change.3
This in turn will affect the world economy, potentially with such severity that it will destabilise markets
around the globe, making the sub-prime economic meltdown of 2008 seem like a picnic. Some of
the predicted effects are:1. A rise in sea level, due primarily to the thermal expansion of the oceans (i.e. greater volume)
rather than melting of the ice caps.
The IPCC predicts a 280 - 430mm rise by 2100 with
consequent floods and increases in communicable diseases that threaten to affect up to 200
million people. If anthropogenic CO2 emissions continue unabated then both the Greenland
and West Antarctic ice caps will melt and the sea level would eventually rise by approximately
12m – large areas of the Gulf will be completely inundated.
2. Over the next 25 years severely reduced rainfall within tropical and sub-tropical regions will
cause chronic water shortages, subsequent crop failures and food shortages, potentially
affecting 5 billion people.
3. As the atmosphere retains more energy there will be a significant increase in the incidence of
extreme weather events, e.g. hurricanes/typhoons, floods, droughts etc.
4. Desertification of large areas of agricultural land and forests in temperate latitudes and
consequent extinction of flora and fauna, severely reducing biodiversity.
5. Finally, as a result of the above effects there is a real risk of destabilising the world’s established
political order and for conflicts over resources, water and habitable territory to arise.
Some dismiss the above as both unproven science and even if correct, alarmist. In the end one
has to make up one’s own mind, but considering the weight of the very robust science presented
so far, it seems that not to infer anthropogenic CO 2 climate change and its consequent effects is
extremely illogical. If you concur with my view, then we have to accept that climate change is
already happening, is largely caused by manmade CO2 from our use of fossil fuels to power our
1Tans,
2
Pieter. "Trends in Carbon Dioxide". NOAA/ESRL. Retrieved 2009-12-11.
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/09/hl-full.htm Carbon Budget 2009 Highlights
3
The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the international scientific body tasked by the
UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) to provide scientific evidence that
illuminates the ‘phenomenon of climate change’. It is recognised as the authoritative body in this respect.
3
industrial and post-industrial urban society and that matters are getting worse not better. So what
do we do now?
One of the primary observations arising from the ‘Stern Review’ that studied the economic effect of
climate change is that if business-as-usual (BAU) continues then the world inevitably risks the serious,
irreversible impacts from climate change outlined above. 4 However, the main message that
emerged from this landmark report was that it would be much more effective, and would cost less
in the long run, if mankind immediately commenced the necessary mitigation to stem climate
change straightaway, rather than postponing these measures until the future; vigorous early action
is Stern’s clear recommendation. Here surely there is cause for optimism, for if mankind takes the
necessary collective action required right now (i.e. the Kyoto Protocol and further UNFCCC
resolutions and initiatives) to stabilise the atmospheric concentration of CO2e within the range of
450 – 550ppm as recommended by Stern, then we can expect to avert the worst effects of climate
change.5 Admittedly, that is a big “if”.
Before returning to the main discussion of this paper, “the benefits of carbon foot-printing
accountancy in Qatar” it is important to make one further point about the significance of CO 2e.6
Because energy is inevitably required for human development and energy produced from fossil
fuels (i.e. the majority of the world’s energy) is synonymous with CO2e emissions, then there is a
clear link between development and CO2e. Associated with human development are numerous
environmental impacts aside from climate change that are well understood including,
acidification, abiotic resource depletion, reduction in biodiversity etc. Therefore, acknowledging
the strong link between CO2e emissions and other environmental impacts ensures that carbon
footprint can be regarded as a proxy indicator of a wide range of environmental impacts, not just
climate change; it essentially becomes a robust indicator of the scale of general environmental
degradation caused by human development.
Applying carbon footprinting to assess a whole industrial sector, process or even an entire country
therefore gives a reasonably robust representation of its larger environmental impact. The corollary
of this acknowledges that reductions in CO2e (carbon footprint) are a great deal more significant
than just reducing the risk of climate change. They represent real advancement in environmental
sustainability and this is the underlying reason why we should take the issue of CO 2e reductions per
The report discusses the effect of global warming on the world economy, although this was not the first
economic report on climate change, it is significant as the largest and most widely known and discussed
report of its kind The Stern Review was published in October 2006 and authored by economist Sir Nicholas
Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London
School of Economics. – from "Time to get Stern on Climate Change“ by Francis Cairncross
5 Equivalent CO2 (CO2e) is the concentration of CO2 that would cause the same level of radiative forcing as a
given type and concentration of greenhouse gas. Examples of such greenhouse gases are methane,
perfluorocarbons and nitrous oxide. CO2e is expressed as parts per million by volume, ppmv. Carbon dioxide
equivalency is thus a quantity that describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gas, the amount
of CO2 that would have the same global warming potential (GWP), when measured over a specified
timescale (generally, 100 years). from Wikipedia
6 The equivalent CO2e of a ‘product’ assessed over its life cycle can be described as its carbon footprint. In
the construction sector
4
4
capita, (i.e. reducing the nation’s carbon footprint) very seriously in Qatar, especially so as it has
proclaimed its commitment to sustainability and protecting the natural environment for future
generations, which is nothing less than a serious environmental objective.
Returning to my central argument about the need for Qatar to adopt a methodology that will
emplace an accurate carbon foot-printing accountancy regime, the importance of doing so now
becomes apparent given the significance of CO2e discussed above. In fact, setting CO2e as a key
national indicator could be regarded as an objective, quantitative measure of Qatar’s progress in
terms of environmental sustainability. It is my contention that just by declaring and commencing
these CO2e accountancy and key sustainability indicator policy initiatives that a number of
beneficial consequences will almost automatically flow.
The first of these is the obvious mapping and scaling of Qatar’s entire national carbon footprint
based correctly on consumption as argued previously. Although the energy production sector will
probably loom large as a CO2e emitter, the exclusion of exported fuels (and the energy consumed
by their treatment in Qatar before export) is likely to produce a carbon footprint picture that will be
substantially different from previous thoughts and perceptions on this matter. Clearly identified at
last will be the ‘hotspots’ discussed above and also a scaling of these in relation to the overall
national carbon footprint. Inevitably this will helpfully inform policy and also spur on the next steps
that need to be carried out to mitigate these ‘hotspots’. Reduction targets can be realistically set
and importantly mitigation strategies can be costed and optimised so that Qatar can get the
biggest green CO2e reduction for its buck.
The second benefit is that it sends a clear message to markets and the private sector that carbon
footprinting is important and will in the future inform policy making decisions, enabling clear targets
to be set once the ‘hotspots’ have been identified. These will be based on a CO2e accounting
system that is accurate and can discern small but real CO 2e differences between alternative
competing products and services.
The Government need not do very much more as the market will provide its own drivers to effect
market transformation, provided that the Government makes it known that it now has a
quantitative mechanism to make policy decisions based not just on economic but also on
environmental sustainability considerations, and intention to use it as stated in the National
Development Strategy.
For example, the BSI (British Standards Institute) in the UK recently published Publicly Available
Specification (PAS) 2050, which presages the CO2e foot printing of all goods and services in the UK.
PAS 2050 provides a robust Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology for assessing the life cycle
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (i.e. CO2e) of goods and services jointly referred to as “products”.
It thus provides a consistent methodology accessible to all, for manufacturers and service providers
to calculate the CO2e of their products through the products complete life cycle; “cradle to grave”
or even “cradle to cradle”.
5
You might say that this is just accounting again, how can this lead to market transformation? The
short answer is competition; competition not just on cost but also on quality, one of the qualitative
attributes being a low carbon footprint. In a world that is increasingly aware of anthropogenic
climate change as a reality, despite detractors, people are prepared to take action even if they
are not motivated by the ample science provided by the IPCC, they may yet be motivated by the
precautionary principle. Hovering over the supermarket shelf, choosing a packet of potato crisps
that has a fractionally lower carbon footprint may seem pretty feeble in relation to arresting the
retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas but multiply this a billion times and you begin to make a
difference. The efficacy of consumer choice is not to be underestimated and manufacturers and
service providers are very aware of the changing values that inform the choices made by their
customers.
This is equally true in the construction sector where over the last two decades we have seen the
growth of green building assessment systems like BREEAM, LEED and now in Qatar, QSAS, the Qatar
Sustainable Assessment System, to drive the industry towards sustainability albeit on a voluntary
basis.
QSAS is an excellent system and it is anticipated that it will form the basis of national
mandatory building performance regulations in the near future, its use as a regulatory tool is most
welcome. It also has within its materials section the capability to include an LCA CO2e accounting
procedure that could deliver a carbon footprint figure for all construction materials and products
used in Qatar. Here small differences are again important, as buildings and projects in the GCC
region tend to be very large, and so small CO2e differences between alternative products can be
significant when scaled-up over a whole project and also when considered over a building’s
service life.
Consider the effect of the clear and unequivocal message that construction materials and product
manufacturers will have been sent; that the sustainability attributes of your materials and products
will be measured by CO2e foot-printing and this will be taken into account during the specification
of materials and products for each project.
All that is required now is a materials/product
benchmarking system that shows the relative CO2e attributes of alternative materials and products
and is accessible for all design professionals to scrutinise. This will be sufficient to act as an effective
driver for manufacturers to improve their products. It also accords with another important aim of
the National Development Strategy (QNDS) by providing an important stimulus for local Qatar
based manufacturers to innovate, thus helping to develop a knowledge based non-hydrocarbon
economy in Qatar – a QNDS core strategic aim.
Buildings can be considered to be sort of super product with a very long service life; the accretion
of numerous smaller components, materials and products. They also require operational energy to
furnish their functionality. The carbon footprint of a building is therefore the total sum of all its
embodied CO2e (all materials and products that go to make and maintain the building over its
service life) and all its operational CO2e emitted over its service life. This is a fairly straightforward
calculation these days and would involve no more effort than preparing a QSAS submission
6
assuming that the materials LCA criterion in QSAS is activated. The operational and embodied
models are required for a standard QSAS submission and thereafter combining both models will
effectively produce a building life cycle carbon footprint, a task that is relatively undemanding.
Establishing a carbon footprint benchmarking system for buildings may well stimulate a similar
catalytic effect upon clients and their design teams as previously suggested with construction
product manufactures, spurring them on to achieve more sustainable buildings.
Sceptics may point out that there is a world of difference between modelling buildings and their
actual performance and indeed much recent research has been carried out that substantiates this
observation.
However, if benchmarking at the ‘design-intent’ stage is combined with a
requirement to carry out energy audits on completed buildings, then benchmarking at both stages
will provide a valuable insight into the actual effectiveness of energy performance building
regulations and the causal links between design intent and actual performance.
Such insights would of course be very useful when contemplating future regulations and economic
incentives geared to improving the sustainability of Qatar’s built environment. They would help to
establish the cost to the industry of implementing energy efficient legislation and the actual CO 2e
reductions that could be expected from setting specific energy targets. The ability to carry out
such cost benefit calculations would be another direct result of establishing the CO2e
accountancy scheme that I am advocating. When carrying out such cost benefit assessments it is
but a short step to also consider the opportunity cost of diverting the fuel that would be saved by
carrying out extensive energy conservation measures to Qatar’s built environment, and then selling
the saved fuel on the international gas or oil markets. If there is a substantive difference between
the profits potentially earned form sales of fuel to the market and the cost of implementing energy
conservation measures, there is a powerful financial incentive to carry out the energy conservation
measures until marginal costs and benefits are eventually balanced.
This could initiate a Government led scheme to both retrofit the existing building stock and new
construction with energy conservation measures and the deployment of low carbon technologies.
This would again stimulate the non-hydrocarbon economy, and invigorate applied research and
expertise in local Qatar based companies. In the meantime Qatar would be demonstrably a
much more sustainable country with a lower CO 2e per capita and all just for the sake of a bit of
carbon accounting and some target setting.
In conclusion what I hope to have conveyed is that establishing a consumer based CO2e
assessment, as advocated by the QNDS, is both just and sensible but to do so means setting up a
carbon foot-printing accountancy system that must also take into account both exports and
imports. My central argument is that by setting up a CO2e accounting system that is transparent
and rigorous and thus respected internationally, a number of real benefits to Qatar would then
follow. I have also argued the significance of CO 2e and demonstrated that it is an accepted
7
robust indicator of overall environmental impact and as such when CO2e reductions are achieved,
can be regarded as a key indication of Qatar’s progress towards environmental sustainability.
The first obvious benefit that arises is that it is likely that Qatar will no longer be at the top of the list
of countries that have the worst CO2e emissions per capita. More importantly a measuring system
is derived that allows management through the setting of targets and the identification of CO 2e
‘hotspots’. Commitment to this process of measurement and target setting in turn sends a strong
message to the private sector. This is very likely to provoke a positive response from the sector in
terms of innovation to reduce its products’ carbon footprint, but only if it is convinced that this will
be an important attribute considered during the selection and specification of its products. While
this is true in both the non-hydrocarbon and hydrocarbon sectors it is in the non-hydrocarbon
sector that growth and innovation is desired in the QNDS.
This stimulus will also affect and drive the construction sector, which is likely to be one of the largest
CO2e ‘hotspots’, to be more environmentally sustainable.
Moreover, there may be a strong
opportunity cost financial benefit to reduce fossil fuel generated energy consumption in Qatar’s
built environment, instead selling the fuel that would otherwise go to provide this domestically
consumed energy on the international oil and gas markets.
So a number of worthwhile benefits emerge for Qatar by simply taking the steps to set up a really
good CO2e measuring accountancy system and generally making it understood that carbon footprinting will be used to inform policy and be taken into consideration for the selection of goods and
services. However, even after these measures Qatar will still be more profligate with its resource use
than it should be to reside comfortably with its much proclaimed and laudable aspirations to be an
exemplar of good sustainable practice within the GCC region. With the eyes of the world upon
Qatar to walk the sustainable talk other incentives and regulations will have to follow, but the
adoption of CO2e accountancy will have amounted to a paradigm shift at very little real cost and
thereafter provide a firm logical basis for all subsequent regulation and incentives to drive Qatar
towards its sustainability goals.
8