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‘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