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CCS (3:24)
Warming will cause extinction but should be avoided before we reach the
threshold
Roberts 13 (citing the World Bank Review’s compilation of climate studies)
(David, “If you aren’t alarmed about climate, you aren’t paying attention”
[http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/] January 10 //mtc)
We know we’ve raised global average temperatures around 0.8 degrees C so far. We know that
2 degrees C is where most scientists predict catastrophic and irreversible impacts. And we know
that we are currently on a trajectory that will push temperatures up 4 degrees or more by the
end of the century. What would 4 degrees look like? A recent World Bank review of the science
reminds us. First, it’ll get hot: Projections for a 4°C world show a dramatic increase in the
intensity and frequency of high-temperature extremes. Recent extreme heat waves such as in
Russia in 2010 are likely to become the new normal summer in a 4°C world. Tropical South
America, central Africa, and all tropical islands in the Pacific are likely to regularly experience
heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and duration. In this new high-temperature climate
regime, the coolest months are likely to be substantially warmer than the warmest months at
the end of the 20th century. In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle
East, and the Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most
extreme heat waves presently experienced. For example, the warmest July in the
Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer than today’s warmest July. Extreme heat waves in
recent years have had severe impacts, causing heat-related deaths, forest fires, and harvest
losses. The impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4°C world have not been
evaluated, but they could be expected to vastly exceed the consequences experienced to date
and potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of many societies and natural systems. [my
emphasis] Warming to 4 degrees would also lead to “an increase of about 150 percent in acidity
of the ocean,” leading to levels of acidity “unparalleled in Earth’s history.” That’s bad news for,
say, coral reefs: The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification, and
sea-level rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C global warming. The regional
extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems, which could occur well before 4°C is reached, would
have profound consequences for their dependent species and for the people who depend on
them for food, income, tourism, and shoreline protection. It will also “likely lead to a sea-level
rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters more to be realized in
the coming centuries.” That rise won’t be spread evenly, even within regions and countries —
regions close to the equator will see even higher seas. There are also indications that it would
“significantly exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions, particularly northern and
eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, while additional countries in Africa would be
newly confronted with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth.” Also, more
extreme weather events: Ecosystems will be affected by more frequent extreme weather
events, such as forest loss due to droughts and wildfire exacerbated by land use and agricultural
expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires could as much as double by 2050 with warming of
approximately 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels. Changes would be expected to be even
more severe in a 4°C world. Also loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services: In a 4°C world,
climate change seems likely to become the dominant driver of ecosystem shifts, surpassing
habitat destruction as the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research suggests that largescale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur in a 4°C world, with climate change and high CO2
concentration driving a transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown in human
experience. Ecosystem damage would be expected to dramatically reduce the provision of
ecosystem services on which society depends (for example, fisheries and protection of coastline
afforded by coral reefs and mangroves.) New research also indicates a “rapidly rising risk of crop
yield reductions as the world warms.” So food will be tough. All this will add up to “large-scale
displacement of populations and have adverse consequences for human security and economic
and trade systems.” Given the uncertainties and long-tail risks involved, “there is no certainty
that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible.” There’s a small but non-trivial chance of advanced
civilization breaking down entirely. Now ponder the fact that some scenarios show us going up
to 6 degrees by the end of the century, a level of devastation we have not studied and barely
know how to conceive. Ponder the fact that somewhere along the line, though we don’t know
exactly where, enough self-reinforcing feedback loops will be running to make climate change
unstoppable and irreversible for centuries to come. That would mean handing our grandchildren
and their grandchildren not only a burned, chaotic, denuded world, but a world that is
inexorably more inhospitable with every passing decade.
Warming not inevitable, we can delay 450 ppm but we must act now-CCS
Key
Neslen 2016
(Arthur, Arthur Neslen is the Europe environment correspondent at the Guardian, “Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere forecast to shatter milestone”, The Guardian,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/13/carbon-dioxide-levels-in-atmosphere-forecast-to-shatter-milestone//ghs-an)
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will shatter the symbolic barrier of 400 parts per million
(ppm) this year and will not fall below it our in our lifetimes, according to a new Met Office study.¶ Carbon dioxide
measurements at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii are forecast to soar by a record 3.1ppm this year – up from an annual
average of 2.1ppm – due in large part to the cyclical El Niño weather event in the Pacific, the paper says.¶ The surge in CO2 levels will
be larger than during the last big El Niño in 1997/98, because manmade emissions have increased by 25% since then, boosting the
phenomenon’s strength.¶ The Met Office also attributes around a fifth of the current El Niño’s severity to forest fires, which were
started by humans and exacerbated by drought.¶ The paper’s lead author, Professor Richard Betts of the Met’s Hadley Centre and
Exeter University, said the fact that the 400ppm threshold had been breached a year earlier than expected carried a warning for the
future.¶ “Once you have passed that barrier, it takes a long time for CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere by natural processes,”
he said. “Even if we cut emissions, we wouldn’t see concentrations coming down for a long time, so we have said goodbye to
measurements below 400ppm at Mauna Loa.Ӧ The leap across the 400ppm watershed at the Hawaiian observatory will not change
any climate change fundamentals. Rather, it marks a psychological rubicon, and reminder of the clock ticking down on global
warming.¶ The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that
CO2 concentrations must be
stabilised at 450ppm to have a fair chance of avoiding global warming above 2C, which could
carry catastrophic consequences.¶ Doing that that will require a 40-70% emissions cut by 2050, compared to 2010 levels,
and zero emissions by the end of the century.¶ CO2 turned into stone in Iceland in climate change breakthrough¶ However, despite
the Paris agreement last December and a boost in renewable energy that has at least temporarily checked the growth in global
emissions, the world is on track to substantially overshoot the target.¶ “We could be passing above 450ppm in roughly 20 years,”
Betts said. “If
we start to reduce our global emissions now, we could delay that moment but it is
still looking like a challenge to stay below 450ppm. If we carry on as we are going, we could pass 450ppm even
sooner than 20 years, according to the IPCC scenarios.Ӧ Climate modelling is a complex and delicate science, but confidence in the
latest projections is high among the Met Office experts.¶ CO2 concentrations follow seasonal flows, reaching an annual maximum in
May and a minimum in September, when tree foliage acts as a sink, breathing in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.¶ Last
November, the Met Office predicted that mean concentrations of atmospheric CO2 in May 2016 would reach 407.57ppm, with a
0.5ppm margin of error. In fact, they reached 407.7.¶ Prof Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a co-author on
the paper, said: “Back in September last year, we suspected that we were measuring CO2 concentrations below 400 ppm for the last
time. Now it is looking like this was indeed the case.”
Paris fails because of lack of regulations and sustainable framework
Bandarage 2016
(Asoka, Asoka Bandarage is an Affiliated Associate Professor at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute in Washington, DC, “Change The System - Not The Climate”,
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2987820/change_the_system_not_the_climate.html//ghs-an)
We are seeing the realities of climate change: rising temperatures, declining Arctic sea ice, extreme weather events, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, droughts, stronger
storms and hurricanes and so on. According to UN estimates, there will be 1 billion ‘climate refugees', i.e. victims of disasters induced by climate change in the world by
2050.¶ India is now experiencing the highest temperatures ever with a heatwave and drought, which has left many people with little access to water. Bangladesh got
pummeled yet again by heavy rains leaving two million people homeless. Sri Lanka - which has experienced significant rise in sea levels in recent years - has just faced
unprecedented floods and landslides which have left some 500,000 people homeless and over 200 families buried in the landslides.¶ Those most affected by climate
change are those least responsible: the poor nations and communities of colour that have historically provided the natural and human resources for the enrichment of
the privileged classes in the industrialized nations. The international policy frameworks in place are far from adequate to address the urgency of the climate crisis.¶
International Frameworks¶ The Kyoto Protocol, linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted in 1997, though flawed and never fully
implemented, committed parties to internationally-binding emission reduction targets. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the high
levels of greenhouse gas emissions, it placed a heavier burden on developed nations based on the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."¶ However,
even minimal efforts to address climate change became derailed by international economic competition. Industrializing countries such as China, India, and Brazil wanted
the "rich, powerful and deeply fossil-fuel addicted" countries in the Global North to take the lead in drastic emissions reductions allowing them room to industrialize and
advance economically. Fearing loss of their economic edge, the Global North wanted to move away from the targets and obligations to which they had previously agreed.
Lobbied heavily by the fossil fuel industry, The United States government never even ratified the Kyoto Protocol.¶ Pointing out that the ability of populations to adapt
and mitigate against climate change is shaped by political and economic realities, civil society organizations mostly from the global South declared the Bali Principles of
Climate Justice in 2002. It framed the climate crisis as a political and ethical issue, not simply an environmental and physical phenomenon. The countries of the global
South demanded the rich Northern nations to pay their ‘climate debt', that is, compensation for their historically disproportionate emission of greenhouse gases which
the U.S. China bilateral
Climate Deal of November 2014 was welcomed as an important achievement by the two most
polluting nation states. Unfortunately, however, this Deal is merely a statement of aspirational
goals: it has no binding targets, no specific plans to cut emissions and no penalties for noncompliance.¶ According to this Deal, China will not begin reducing emissions until as late as 2030.
While the US agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26%-28% below 2005 levels by
2025 is significant, it is not considered sufficient to reach the target of below 2 C increase in
temperature by the end of the century. There is no guarantee that President Obama's successor
who will have to implement the deal will do so.¶ Paris Climate Agreement¶ The Climate Treaty signed in Paris in December 2015 is
has contributed to extensive environmental and societal damage in poor countries.¶ Given these on-going contentions,
hailed as an historic achievement in international consensus and a turning point in climate policy. Practically all countries in the world opted to sign agreeing to hold the
increase in the global average temperature increase to 1.5 ˚C.175 countries have already signed the Agreement which will go into effect in 2020. US Secretary of State
the Paris Agreement,
detailed timetables or country-specific goals for
John Kerry signed on behalf of the United States holding his little granddaughter in his arms.¶ Symbolism and rhetoric aside,
unlike the previous Kyoto Protocol, provides no
emissions reduction. It leaves every country to decide its own cuts in pollution (so-called "Intended Nationally
Determined Contributions") according to its own criteria. It provides no clear, measurable targets, no
accountability no legal obligations. Each country that ratifies the agreement will be required to set a target for
emission reduction, but the amount will be voluntary. There will be neither a mechanism to force, a country
to set a target by a specific date nor enforcement measures if a set target is not met. ¶ The Agreement
was a victory for the United States given its opposition to mandatory emissions reduction targets and the Kyoto Protocol. It was, however, a failure for the smaller
nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which wanted to include stricter emissions targets and enforcement mechanisms. Apparently, the U.S. gained
their compliance through backdoor diplomacy and offers of international funding for climate adaptation. The United States also succeeded in ensuring that the
Agreement was not legally binding and countries were not open to litigation for non-compliance of the Agreement.¶ The Paris Agreement will not be binding on its
member states until 55 parties who produce over 55% of the world's greenhouse gases ratify it. Thus far, only 17 countries - overwhelmingly vulnerable small island
nations - have ratified the Agreement. There is doubt that given global economic competitiveness whether some countries, especially high polluters, such as, China, the
US, India, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia will do so. There is also no guarantee that the developed countries will honor the pledge to mobilize $100
billion per year for climate financing for the poor countries starting in 2020.¶
The Paris Climate Agreement does not even
mention fossil fuels let alone the need to leave 80% of it in the ground, which many experts consider a requirement to mitigate climate change. It does not
address the need to cut government fossil fuel subsidies, military expenditures, air travel, shipping, etc. as keys to global de-carbonization.¶ Hardly anyone
expects countries to do much for climate protection under this arrangement. No wonder fossil
fuel companies were the financial backers of the Paris Climate Conference, which was
dominated by market based solutions to climate change, notably emissions trading.
Big push needed to solve Warming through CCS
Cooke 14
(Kieran, Kieran Cooke is a reporter for the Climate News Network, U.S. and China Lead the Way on Carbon Capture & Storage,"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-chinacarbon-capture-storage-17790//ghs-an)
carbon capture and storage (CCS),
will come to the rescue.¶
¶
there’s been plenty of
talk about CCS and little action, with few projects being implemented on a large scale.¶
¶ The idea behind CCS is
to capture at source the carbon emissions from big polluters, such as power utilities and cement
plants, and either pipe the CO2 down into deep storage cavities below the Earth’s surface or to
recycle the emissions to be used in the production of biofuels.¶
China and
the U.S. have shown increasing willingness to co-operate when it comes to climate change
issues.¶
¶
LONDON − For years, the energy companies have been telling us not to worry. Yes, mounting carbon emissions threaten to heat up the world – but technology, particularly
China and the U.S signed a raft of agreements on tackling climate change − with half of them focusing on CCS.
The trouble is that
That could be about to
change as China and the U.S., who have been leading the way on CCS research in recent years, this month signed a raft of agreements on tackling climate change − with half of them focusing on CCS.
Despite various geopolitical rivalries and disputes over trade,
Worsening Impacts
In February this year, the two countries issued a joint statement that highlighted the urgent need for cutbacks in fossil fuel use “in light of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change and its worsening
impacts.” ¶ The agreements signed in Beijing this month establish collaborative research programs between China’s state energy firms and U.S. universities on a wide range of CCS-related technologies, including CO2 storage techniques and the combining of
The implementation of CCS projects around the world has been plagued by
various technical problems, high costs, arguments between energy companies and governments
about who pays for research and development, and by regulatory uncertainties in many
countries.¶
¶
¶
the 21 large-scale CCS projects either in construction or in operation around the
world are capable of capturing in total up to 40 million tonnes of CO2 annually – the equivalent
of taking eight million cars off the road each year.¶ While the use of CCS is expanding, it’s still not
being utilized on anything like the scale needed to result in cutbacks of global greenhouse gas
emissions.
¶
¶
if we are to meet the
generally-agreed target of limiting warming to 2˚C (4˚F) over 1990 levels by mid-century, there
has to be a big push into CCS technology.¶
captured emissions with algae to produce energy.¶
Sunset accentuates the pollution from a cement factory in Switzerland.
Credit: Stefan Wernli via Wikimedia Commons
The Global CCS Institute, an independent, not-for-profit organization based in Australia, promotes the use of
CCS technology. It says that, at present,
Most CCS projects are in the U.S., China and Canada, with Europe lagging very much behind.
Big Push Needed
Brad Page, the head of the Global CCS Institute, says that
“For this low-carbon technology to reach a scale needed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, more countries need to match progress in places like the
U.S., Canada and China, which are bringing CCS projects online at a robust pace,” he says. ¶ Page adds that CCS must be supported by clear government policies − particularly in Europe, where more flexible funding and policy arrangements are urgently needed. ¶
Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) called for the implementation of more
CCS projects
. The IEA said such projects are particularly important at a time when the use of coal – the most polluting of fuels − is increasing rapidly worldwide.
Only CCS tech solves- alt renewables fail
Biello 14
(David, David Biello is an associate editor at Scientific American, where he covers energy and the environment, “Can Carbon Capture Technology
Be Part of the Climate Solution?”, http://e360.yale.edu/feature/can_carbon_capture_technology_be_part_of_the_climate_solution/2800//ghs-an)
For more than 40 years, companies have been drilling for carbon dioxide in southwestern Colorado. Time and geology had
conspired to trap an enormous bubble of CO2 that drillers tapped, and a pipeline was built to carry the greenhouse gas all the
way to the oil fields of west Texas. When scoured with the CO2, these aged wells gush forth more oil, and much of the CO2
stays permanently trapped in its new home underneath Texas. ¶ More recently, drillers have tapped the Jackson Dome, nearly
three miles beneath Jackson, Mississippi, to get at a trapped pocket of CO2 for similar Kemper County power plant near
Meridian, Mississippi¶ Gary Tramontina/Bloomberg/Getty Images¶ This power plant being built in Kemper County,
Mississippi, would be the first in the U.S. to capture its own carbon emissions. ¶ use. It's called enhanced oil recovery. And now
there's a new source of CO2 coming online in Mississippi — a power plant that burns gasified coal in Kemper County, due to be
churning out electricity and captured CO2 by 2015 and sending it via a 60-mile pipeline to oil fields in the southern part of the
state. ¶ The Mississippi project uses emissions from burning a fossil fuel to help bring more fossil fuels out of the ground — a
less than ideal solution to the problem of climate change. But enhanced oil recovery may prove an important step in making
more widely available a technology that could be critical for combating climate change — CO2 capture and storage, or CCS. ¶
As the use of coal continues to grow globally — coal consumption is expected to double from
2000 to 2020 largely due to demand in China and India — some scientists believe the widespread
adoption of CCS technology could be key to any hope of limiting global average temperature
increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold for avoiding major climate disruption. After all, coal is the
dirtiest fossil fuel. ¶ “Fossil fuels aren’t disappearing anytime soon,” says John Thompson, director of the Fossil Fuel Transition
Project for the non-profit Clean Air Task Force. “If
we’re serious about preventing global warming, we’re
going to have to find a way to use those fuels without the carbon going into the atmosphere. It
seems inconceivable that we can do that without a significant amount of carbon capture and
storage. The question is how do we deploy it in time and in a way that’s cost-effective across
many nations?” ¶ The biggest challenge is one of scale, as the potential demand from aging oil fields for CO2 produced
from coal-fired power plants is enormous. “Why spend so much time and energy coming up with solutions that are not really
solutions?” says one critic. Thompson estimates that enhanced oil recovery could ultimately consume 33 billion metric tons of
CO2 in total, or the equivalent of all the CO2 pollution from all U.S. power plants for several decades. Thompson and other
analysts view such large-scale enhanced oil recovery as an important phase in the deployment of CCS technology while
replacements for fossil fuels are developed. ¶ "In the short term, in order to develop the technology, we probably will enable
more use of hydrocarbons, which makes environmentally conscious people uncomfortable,” says Chris Jones, a chemical
engineer working on CO2 capture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “But it’s a necessary thing we have to do to get the
technology out there and learn how to make it more efficient." ¶ At the same time, CO2 capture and storage is not as simple as
locking away carbon deep underground. As Jones notes, the process will perpetuate fossil fuel use and may prove a wash as far
as keeping global warming pollution out of the atmosphere. Then there are the risks of human-caused earthquakes as a result
of pumping high-pressure liquids underground or accidental releases as all that CO2 finds its way back to the atmosphere. ¶
"Any solution that doesn't take carbon from the air is, in principle, not sustainable," says physicist
Peter Eisenberger of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, who is working on methods to pull CO2
out of the sky rather than smokestacks. He
notes that merely avoiding CO2 pollution is not enough and
will create political powerhouses—heirs to the energy companies of today—that will entrench
such unsustainable technologies "Why spend so much time and energy and ingenuity coming up with solutions that
are not really solutions?” he adds. ¶ But the expansion of enhanced oil recovery remains the main front in an intensifying effort
to more broadly adopt CCS technology and reduce its price, which is currently the major impediment to its deployment. The
need for CO2 storage goes beyond China and the U.S., the world's two largest polluters.
Worldwide, more than 35 billion metric tons of CO2 are being dumped into the atmosphere
annually, almost all from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. To restrain global warming to
the 2 degree C target, more than 100 CCS projects eliminating 270 million metric tons of CO2
pollution annually would have to be built by 2020, according to the International Energy Agency.
But only 60 are currently planned or proposed and just 21 of those are actually built or in
operation. ¶ Those include the Kemper facility and other coal-fired power plants, but also a CCS project under construction
at an ethanol refinery in Illinois. A group led by Royal Dutch Shell is building technology to capture the CO2 The IPCC has
suggested that CCS at power plants could prove a critical part of efforts to restrain global warming. pollution from tar sands
operations in Alberta, Canada, and in Saskatchewan, a $1.2 billion project to retrofit a large coal-fired power plant with CCS
technology is expected to open later this year. And there are 34 proposed or operating CCS projects outside of North America,
the majority in Asia and Australia. But European countries like Germany have rolled back plans to adopt CCS because of public
opposition, dropping the number of European projects from 14 planned in 2011 to just five as of 2014, according to the Global
CCS Institute. ¶ That might conflict with the European Union's avowed intention to help combat climate change. The U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested earlier this year that carbon capture and storage at power plants could
prove a critical part of any serious effort to restrain global warming. "We
depend on removing large amounts of
CO2 from the atmosphere in order to bring concentrations well below 450 [parts-per-million] in
2100," said Ottmar Edenhofer, an economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the IPCC's
third working group, which was tasked with figuring out ways to mitigate climate change. Ultimately, he said, keeping a global
temperature rise to 2 degrees without any CCS would require phasing out fossil fuels entirely within “the next few decades.” ¶
Yet, from 2007 to 2013, global coal consumption increased from 6.4 billion to 7.4 billion metric
tons, and coal use continues to rise. Although renewable energy sources like solar and wind are
growing rapidly, they are doing so from a very small base and many energy analysts argue that it
will be decades before they can supplant fossil fuels. The time and expense of building nuclear power plants
— and public opposition — has also hampered that low-carbon technology's ability to replace coal burning. And biofuels or
electric cars remain a long way from supplanting oil for transportation. ¶
US/China cooperation is necessary to promote mass integration of CCS and
combat global warming
Yang 12[Catherine T. Yang, journalist and communications strategist with strong editorial and
management skills and in-depth experience in China, business, economics, technology, and
other policy issues, “Amid U.S.-China Energy Tension, "Clean Coal" Spurs Teamwork,” National
Geographic. 2/4/12. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/12/120213-uschina-teamwork-on-clean-coal/] //Reemz
In China, coal is king. U.S. energy companies, from small start-ups to one of the nation's largest
utilities, Duke Energy, have concluded that they must work with China to keep a hand in
technology to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of coal-fired electricity: carbon capture and
storage (CCS). (Related: Out of Thin Air: Hopes for Capturing Carbon Dioxide) Although the
United States has poured billions of dollars into CCS research and development over 25 years,
progress has been halting, and several high-profile projects have been abandoned due to high
costs. The building of coal power plants has been so slowed by environmental concerns and the
rise of natural gas as an alternative that the United States has not proven to be a fertile ground
for accelerating CCS. China, on the other hand, has been building one new coal-fired plant a
week on average to stoke its growing economy. Among those who have been watching CCS
closely, there's a growing belief that the best path forward for CCS is a partnership between the
two nations that lead the world in both carbon emissions and coal reserves. China's CCS
Opportunity Electric power CCS would combine a couple of industrial processes that have been
used for decades, incorporating them to clean up the emissions of coal power plants. Factories
have long captured CO2 for industrial use, and the oil industry injects CO2 underground to
enhance recovery of petroleum. Indeed, the world's first demonstration CCS projects, ramped
up over the past decade, are oil industry facilities in the North Sea and the Algerian desert.
(Quiz: What You Don't Know About Carbon Capture) But the Holy Grail for controlling
greenhouse gas emissions is to make CCS work at power plants, because fast-developing nations
rely on cheap, abundant, and carbon-intensive coal to fuel their growing needs for electricity.
The coal power capacity that China has added in the past five years exceeds that of all the U.S.
coal power plants combined. By 2015, Chinese capacity is expected to triple that of the United
States. (Related Interactive: The Global Electricity Mix) Both China and the United States sit atop
enormous stores of coal, together amounting to about a third of the world's reserves. But
lacking the oil and natural gas resources of the United States, China leans far more heavily on
coal for energy security. Coal provides 80 percent of China's electricity, compared to 50 percent
and falling in the United States. (Related: Seeking a Pacific Northwest Gateway for U.S. Coal)
China took the lead from the United States as the world's top carbon emitter in recent years,
but China deems clean technology a national priority, spelled out in its 12th Five-Year Plan
(2011-2015). Big state-owned enterprises, such as the electric generation giant Huaneng Group
and Shenhua Group, China's largest coal-mining firm, are investing heavily in technologies,
especially coal gasification. Capturing the CO2 from gasified coal has advantages over
technologies that aim to capture CO2 after combustion from the power plant flue, where it is
mixed with other gases and contaminants. China has been working on both pre-combustion and
post-combustion carbon capture, but it's been expensive to develop. China's fast-growing coal
industry, however, has been investing the funds. "Projects of $1 to $2 billion apiece are just
noise there," says Armond Cohen, founder of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), a Boston-based
nonprofit that brokers partnerships between U.S. and Chinese clean tech companies. "In the
U.S., we could live off the fumes and table scraps" from China's megaprojects, he said. (Related:
Pictures: A Rare Look Inside China's Energy Machine) The United States also brings advantages
to the table, including a long history of research. While Chinese companies so far have focused
on carbon capture, rather than storage, the United States has developed technology for both.
Because carbon capture constitutes three-fourths of the cost of CCS, any cost reductions China
can generate would help make the technology more feasible, says Ming Sung, CATF's chief
representative for Asia and the Pacific. (Related: Seeking a Safer Future for Electricity's Coal Ash
Waste) But carbon capture alone won't protect the atmosphere, unless sequestration of the
carbon dioxide is part of the solution. That's where cooperation with the United States comes in.
"We will never get to substantial CO2 reductions until the U.S. and China work together," says S.
Julio Friedmann, carbon management program leader at the U.S. Department of Energy's
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. When it comes to energy, the U.S.-China
relationship has been far more rivalry than collaboration, most notably in the trade dispute over
China's subsidies to its burgeoning solar industry. But there may be an opening for the two
energy giants to work together on clean coal. Friedmann is now conducting a study of whether
the low costs reported at a Huaneng's post-combustion carbon capture plant outside Shanghai
could be applied to Duke Energy's largest power plant, its Gibson facility in Owensville, Indiana.
Short timeframe for action means quick solutions are key – otherwise runaway
warming will cause extinction and prevent radical changes to society
Parenti 13
(Christian, “A Radical Approach to the Climate Crisis”
[http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-radical-approach-to-the-climate-crisis] Summer
//mtc)
Several strands of green thinking maintain that capitalism is incapable of a sustainable
relationship with non-human nature because, as an economic system, capitalism has a growth
imperative while the earth is finite. One finds versions of this argument in the literature of eco-socialism,
deep ecology, eco-anarchism, and even among many mainstream greens who, though typically declining
to actually name the economic system, are fixated on the dangers of “growth.” ¶ All this may be true.
Capitalism, a system in which privately owned firms must continuously out-produce and out-sell their
competitors, may be incapable of accommodating itself to the limits of the natural world. However, that
is not the same question as whether capitalism can solve the more immediate climate crisis.¶
Because of its magnitude, the climate crisis can appear as the sum total of all environmental
problems—deforestation, over-fishing, freshwater depletion, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, chemical
contamination. But halting greenhouse gas emissions is a much more specific problem, the most
pressing subset of the larger apocalyptic panorama.¶ And the very bad news is, time has run out.
As I write this, news arrives of an ice-free arctic summer by 2050. Scientists once assumed that would not
happen for hundreds of years.¶ Dealing with climate change by first achieving radical social
transformation—be it a socialist or anarchist or deep-ecological/neo-primitive revolution, or a
nostalgia-based localista conversion back to a mythical small-town capitalism—would be a very
long and drawn-out, maybe even multigenerational, struggle. It would be marked by years of
mass education and organizing of a scale and intensity not seen in most core capitalist states
since the 1960s or even the 1930s.¶ Nor is there any guarantee that the new system would not
also degrade the soil, lay waste to the forests, despoil bodies of water, and find itself still
addicted to coal and oil. Look at the history of “actually existing socialism” before its collapse in
1991. To put it mildly, the economy was not at peace with nature. Or consider the vexing
complexities facing the left social democracies of Latin America. Bolivia, and Ecuador, states run
by socialists who are beholden to very powerful, autonomous grassroots movements, are still very
dependent on petroleum revenue.¶ A more radical approach to the crisis of climate change begins
not with a long-term vision of an alternate society but with an honest engagement with the very
compressed timeframe that current climate science implies. In the age of climate change, these are
the real parameters of politics.¶ Hard Facts¶ The scientific consensus, expressed in peer-reviewed
and professionally vetted and published scientific literature, runs as follows: For the last 650,000
years atmospheric levels of CO2—the primary heat-trapping gas—have hovered at around 280 parts per
million (ppm). At no point in the preindustrial era did CO2 concentrations go above 300 ppm. By 1959,
they had reached 316 ppm and are now over 400 ppm. And the rate of emissions is accelerating. Since
2000, the world has pumped almost 100 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere—about a quarter of
all CO2 emissions since 1750. At current rates, CO2 levels will double by mid-century.¶ Climate scientists
believe that any increase in average global temperatures beyond 2 degrees Celsius above
preindustrial levels will lead to dangerous climate change, causing large-scale desertification, crop
failure, inundation of coastal cities, mass migration to higher and cooler ground, widespread
extinctions of flora and fauna, proliferating disease, and possible social collapse. Furthermore,
scientists now understand that the earth’s climate system has not evolved in a smooth linear fashion.
Paleoclimatology has uncovered evidence of sudden shifts in the earth’s climate regimes. Ice ages have
stopped and started not in a matter of centuries, but decades. Sea levels (which are actually uneven
across the globe) have risen and fallen more rapidly than was once believed. ¶ Throughout the climate
system, there exist dangerous positive-feedback loops and tipping points. A positive-feedback loop
is a dynamic in which effects compound, accelerate, or amplify the original cause. Tipping points in
the climate system reflect the fact that causes can build up while effects lag. Then, when the effects kick
in, they do so all at once, causing the relatively sudden shift from one climate regime to
another.¶ Thus, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says rich countries like the United
States must cut emissions 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020—only seven years away—
and thereafter make precipitous cuts to 90 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. This would require global
targets of 10 percent reductions in emissions per annum, starting now. Those sorts of emissions
reductions have only occurred during economic depressions. Russia’s near total economic collapse in the
early 1990s saw a 37 percent decrease in CO2 emissions from 1990 to 1995, under conditions that nobody
wants to experience. ¶ The political implications of all this are mind-bending. As daunting as it may
sound, it means that it is this society and these institutions that must cut emissions. That means, in the
short-term, realistic climate politics are reformist politics, even if they are conceived of as part
of a longer-term anti-capitalist project of totally economic re-organization.¶ Dreaming the
Rational¶ Of course, successful reformism often involves radical means and revolutionary
demands. What other sort of political pressure would force the transnational ruling classes to see the
scientific truth of the situation? But let us assume for a second that political elites faced enough pressure
to force them to act. What would be the rational first steps to stave off climate chaos? ¶
SCIENCE DIPLOMACY (2:16)
China has leadership now
Friedman 2014
(Lauren, Lauren F. Friedman writes and edits science stories at Tech Insider and oversees the site's health coverage, “3 Charts Show That China's Scientific Dominance Over The
US Is A Done Deal” ," Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-scientific-dominance-is-a-done-deal-2014-6//ghs-an)
But China is now
poised to blow past the U.S. to become dominant in science and engineering, as it has already done in global
Anyone who watched the moon landing or uses the internet can attest to the strong tradition of scientific innovation in the United States.
trade.¶ A team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Peking University in Beijing published a study highlighting China's growing scientific dominance in a recent
Specifically, they focused on China's potential to knock
the U.S. out of its spot as the world's undisputed leader in the science, tech, engineering, and
math fields — collectively called STEM.¶ The researchers write: "Two recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy
issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.¶
of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine have raised concerns that the United States may soon lose its scientific leadership role and suffer negative economic
While China and the U.S.
currently award science and engineering degrees to an equivalent proportion of their
populations, China has sharply increased the number of graduates in these fields — and the U.S.
does not seem poised to catch up anytime soon.¶ Chinese students also receive more American
doctoral degrees in science and engineering than any other foreign students. Between 1987 and 2010, there was
a threefold increase in the number of Chinese students in these programs (from 15,000 to 43,000).¶ China's science and engineering labor
force is exploding.¶ The U.S. has a much smaller population and yet is still ahead of China in terms of how many people work in science and engineering fields.
But while the growth of the U.S.'s STEM labor force has been slow and steady, the growth of this specialized workforce in China has
exploded in the last 10 years. The paper attributes this to the expansion of higher education in China that began in 1999.¶ Chinese scientists get paid
more than American scientists.¶ People who pursue science in China have much better earning potential than
their counterparts in the U.S. Chinese scientists are paid better than their highly educated peers,
while in the U.S., the reverse is true. U.S. lawyers, for example, go to school for less time than Ph.D. scientists, but make much more money.¶
"When talented youth face alternative career options, everything else being equal, more
Chinese would be attracted to science than Americans," because of the pay the researchers write.¶ The PNAS researchers identify
consequences."¶ These three charts make their case.¶ China is churning out a staggering number of science graduates.¶
"four factors [that] favor China's continuing rise in science: a large population and human capital base, a labor market favoring academic meritocracy, a large diaspora of
Chinese-origin scientists, and a centralized government willing to invest in science."¶ Still, scientists in the United States have some serious advantages, since, as the researchers
note, "China's science faces potential difficulties due to political interference and scientific fraud."
China leadership leads to scs war-only BRF solves
Illman 7/3
(Zidny Ilman currently works in Pacivis (Global Civil Society Research Center) of University of Indonesia, 7-3-2016, "Is the South China Sea the Stage for the Next World War?,"
National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-south-china-sea-the-stage-the-next-world-war-16833?page=2//ghs-an)
Recent skirmishes in the South China Sea between the Indonesian navy and China’s coast guard
have reinvigorated public interest towards the region. Some applauded Indonesia’s resolve in defending her rightful maritime
territory. However, some are still left wondering over China’s motives in provoking such regional conflict—including with Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. How can one
explain why China risks a major war that could potentially drag the United States in for a bunch of uninhabited rocks?¶ Some say they are fighting for control over major oil and
gas reserves in those seas. But this seems not to be the case. After all, great powers have rarely fought one another in a major war over economic resources in modern history, if
at all. Or is it because of China’s nine-dash line? For sure, one needs to differentiate the means, ways and ends of phenomena. The nine-dash line is a means that China uses to
justify its policy ends. But it does not explain the endgame it wants to achieve—therefore, it cannot be used to explain its motives in the South China Sea.¶ Let’s take a look back
at the twentieth century. World War I started when Austria-Hungary declared war on and attacked Serbia. So, does it mean that World War I was caused by Austria-Hungary’s
invasion? No. Austria-Hungary did start the war, but it was certainly not caused by it. The cause of the war was the great powers’ concern about the prevalent regional order in
Europe—and their wish to alter it.¶ The Germans (together with Austria-Hungary) looked uncomfortably at the shifting balance of power towards the Franco-Russian (and
possibly British) alliance. They saw the erosion of Germany’s dominance over the European order while looking for a way to reverse the trend. The French and the Russians,
boosted by newly gained power, had been humiliated during the German-led political order before and were also looking for a way to punish Germany along with her allies.¶
Similar to World War I, World War II started with an invasion, when Hitler invaded Poland. However, Poland was not the cause of the Anglo-French and German rivalry escalating
to a war in 1939. Instead, the Anglo-French were concerned over the shifting balance of power towards Germany’s favor and sought to prevent it from going further in that
direction. That determination finally led to war over Poland’s survival.¶ Put simply, what Serbia and Poland have in common with the South and East China Seas is that they
served as a venue of great-power rivalry. But they are definitely not the cause of that rivalry.¶
To understand the cause of the current U.S.-
China rivalry, one needs to see the history and strategic picture of the Asian region. Put simply, one
needs to see beyond the South China Sea. Following the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II, the United States has
been the sole great power that can project its power throughout the region. Since that day, the
region has come under American-led regional order. Having only a fraction of the United States’
power, other states in the region accepted American primacy.¶ What is happening today is that
China has gathered enough power and is becoming powerful enough to match (or even surpass)
America’s ability to project power throughout much of Asia. Power means leadership
throughout history and with its newly gained power, China wants a bigger role in regional
leadership. For sure, though it seems weird for most people, anyone who carefully study history will concede that this is a normal—though arguably regrettable—state
behavior.¶ One might point a finger towards Japan and Germany as comparisons—both of whose rise of power in recent times does not correspond with a regional crisis that
risks regional war—and, therefore, accuse China’s behavior as not normal. However, history once again shows that both states are the anomaly—not China.¶ As Singaporean
leader Lee Kuan Yew once remarked, “Unlike other emergent countries, China wants to be China and accepted as such, not as an honorary member of the West.” It is clear from
China has set its sights on displacing the United States as the dominant power that
will dictate the regional order in the Asia region. This is not to say that we must agree with or accept all China
wants to do. We may dislike how our rival thinks and behaves, but we have to understand them. Without understanding
how China thinks, a plausible solution to the current conflict will be hard to devise.¶ China’s
aspiration for greater regional leadership is unfortunately met with fierce challenges from the
United States as well as other regional great powers such as Japan and India. Following the rise of China’s assertiveness, the
his observation that
United States introduced the term “pivot” (later rebranded as “rebalancing”) while her ally, Japan, has reinterpreted her
constitution, allowing Tokyo to be more active both politically and militarily abroad. India, for her part, introduced an eastwardfacing policy while trying to strengthen her maritime power to prevent Chinese incursion into the Indian Ocean. ¶ Facing the prospect
of containment (instead of accommodation), the
question of paramount importance for China’s leaders is:
how can China displace the United States (and, therefore, U.S.-led regional order) from Asia?¶ China seems to
believe that the U.S.-led regional order is based on the U.S.-led political security regional order.
This political security order in turn is based on the U.S. regional alliance system, which is known as hub-and-spoke system,
encompassing Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand. This
alliance system grants the United
States access to forward bases that ensures her ability to rapidly project her power throughout
the region whenever crisis erupts.¶ Without such bases, the United States won’t be able to effectively project forces
and, therefore, will have only marginal influence in a crisis. Thus, curtailing the United States’ capability to
respond to a regional crisis means much less U.S. influence upon regional order.¶ So, as the logic goes,
breaking this alliance system will lead to a breakup of the U.S.-led regional order. Thus, the question now becomes: how can China
break up the U.S. alliance system?¶ Alliance, by its nature, means an insurant. By inking an alliance, the United States has assured
her allies that she will help defend them in times of crisis. Just like a commercial insurance company, the success of the business
rests on the insurer’s credibility. As long as U.S. allies believe that Washington will fulfill her words, the alliance system will hold up.
However, if U.S. allies do not believe her words—thereby doubting the credibility of her words—the alliance system will unravel.¶ A
new question emerges as a consequence: how can China damage U.S. credibility so much that it will lead to the unraveling of its
regional alliance system? For sure, there is no better way to damage one’s credibility than proving that one is unable to fulfill one’s
words. Put it another way, China must show U.S. allies that the United States will not come by their side when they need her. That
means instigating a conflict with U.S. allies, making sure they will call for U.S. assistance and, at the same time, making sure that the
United States will not fulfill her insurance policy.¶ It is a dangerous game to play for sure. Beijing must do its best to make sure the
United States will not come by her allies’ side or else it will face a war with the United States—a grim possibility given both sides’
possession of nuclear weapons.¶ In order to succeed, China
must be sure that the conflict she is instigating is
important enough for U.S. allies that they will call for U.S. assistance, but that the conflict per se is not
important enough from the U.S. perspective, making it highly unlikely for her to fulfill her insurance. Put it simply, China must
make sure that the conflict per se represents high stakes from U.S. allies’ perspectives while a
negligible one from the U.S. perspective.¶ A bunch of uninhabited rocks in the South China Sea
(and East China Sea) will do just fine. It is a matter of sovereignty and territorial integrity—which can hardly
be compromised—from the perspective of U.S. allies. While from the U.S. perspective, those rocks represent no more than what
they are; that is, rocks. Those rocks have little strategic value and, thus, in themselves have little relevance for U.S. national
interests.¶ Entering the fourth year of China’s surge of assertiveness, it seems that China’s strategy has achieved some success. In
South China Sea, U.S. responses are lackluster while showing a degree of indecisiveness. Arguably, the most infamous among those
is the United States’ failure to properly assist the Philippines in protecting its sovereignty in Scarborough Shoal. However, responding
to such a crisis with more resolve entails more risks. For
sure, a lower-risk option is available in the form of
accommodating China’s aspiration by trying to develop some form of joint leadership in the
Asian region. While it is not too late for the United States to reverse the negative trend, she surely
has much to do.
South China Sea conflict causes extinction
Wittner 11, Professor of History at SUNY Albany
(Is a Nuclear War With China Possible?, www.huntingtonnews.net/14446)
While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used. After all, for
centuries national conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest
weapons. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up
providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon. The gathering tension
between the United States and China is clear enough. Disturbed by China’s growing
economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently challenged China’s
claims in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and deepened
U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the
United States was “asserting our own position as a Pacific power.” But need this lead to nuclear war Not necessarily.
And yet there are signs that it could . After all, both the United States and China possess
large numbers of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government threatened to attack China
with nuclear weapons during the Korean War and, later, during the conflict over the
future of China’s offshore islands, Quemoy and Matsu. In the midst of the latter confrontation, President Dwight
?
,
Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S. nuclear weapons would “be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” Of course, China
didn’t have nuclear weapons then. Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and
Soviet government officials during the Cold War, when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised, nuclear
Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between
nuclear-armed nations; and, admittedly, there haven’t been very many—at least not yet. But the Kargil War of
1999, between nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan, should convince us that such wars
can occur. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a nuclear war. Pakistan’s foreign
saber-rattling persists.
secretary threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use “any weapon” in its arsenal. During the conflict, Pakistan did move nuclear weapons
don’t nuclear
weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didn’t feel deterred,
for, throughout the Cold War, NATO’s strategy was to respond to a Soviet
conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear
attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Furthermore, if U.S. government officials really
believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to
championing “Star Wars” and its modern variant, national missile defense. Why are these vastly expensive—
and probably unworkable—military defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred
from attacking by U.S. nuclear might? Of course, the bottom line for those Americans
convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack
toward its border, while India, it is claimed, readied its own nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan. At the least, though,
might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese
counterpart. Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over five thousand nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total
inventory of roughly three hundred. Moreover, only about forty of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States would
A nuclear attack by China would immediately
slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of
sickness and radiation poisoning. The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher. Both
nations would be reduced to smoldering,radioactive wastelands. Also, radioactive debris
sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a “nuclear
winter ” around the globe—destroying agriculture, creating worldwide famine, and
generating chaos and destruction. Moreover, in another decade the extent of this catastrophe would be far worse. The
Chinese government is currently expanding its nuclear arsenal, and by the year 2020
it is expected to more than double its number of nuclear weapons that can hit the
United States. The U.S. government, in turn, has plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
“modernizing” its nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities over the next decade. To avert the
enormous disaster of a U.S.-China nuclear war, there are two obvious actions that can be taken. The first is to get rid of
“win” any nuclear war with China. But what would that “victory” entail?
nuclear weapons, as the nuclear powers have agreed to do but thus far have resisted doing. The second, conducted while the nuclear disarmament process is
improve U.S.-China relations. If the American and Chinese people are
interested in ensuring their survival and that of the world, they should be working to
encourage these policies.
occurring, is to
Science diplomacy key to multilateralism
Turekian 2012
(Vaughan, Vaughan Turekian assumed his role as the fifth Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State on September 8, 2015, “Building a National Science
Diplomacy System,” Science &¶ Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 4 (December 2012).¶ http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/editorial/2012/building-national-science-diplomacysystem//ghs-an)
SCIENCE-BASED issues are becoming more important to the conduct of foreign¶ policy, increasing the need
for policy makers to develop and implement science¶ diplomacy strategies. In fact, increased use
of the term “science diplomacy”¶ represents a sea change in how the foreign policy community
is looking at¶ expanding its focus on and use of science. Over the course of the past year, the¶ pages of this quarterly have been filled with expert
articles on different approaches¶ to science diplomacy and specific issues that provide opportunities for practitioners¶ in science and foreign policy to work more closely together. However, as more ¶ countries
begin to experiment with science diplomacy, an often-asked question is,¶ what steps are needed to develop and implement a science diplomacy strategy?¶ When answering this question, it is important to
science and¶ technology-based issues, such as climate change and global health, are
growing¶ more important in the conduct and execution of a robust policy in an increasingly¶
connected and less polarized world. At the same time, nations are competing to¶ attract the best talent
from around the world in an attempt to catalyze economic¶ growth and innovation. The result is greater
emphasis for science and science¶ cooperation in a comprehensive foreign policy. Nations are looking to science¶ to achieve some or all of
the three Es of science diplomacy: expressing national¶ power or influence, equipping decision
makers with information to support policy, and¶ enhancing bilateral and multilateral relations.
consider that
While larger, scientifically advanced ¶ Science & Diplomacy, December 2012 www.ScienceDiplomacy.org¶ Building a National Science Diplomacy System Vaughan C. Turekian¶ countries have been active in this
arena for decades, now countries large and small,¶ developed and developing, are expressing greater interest in implementing science¶ diplomacy.¶ As more countries begin to look at incorporating science into
Effective use of science diplomacy
requires a coherent strategy. For example,¶ policy makers should consider the question of focus
for efforts. Ultimately, any¶ science diplomacy effort will need to be couched in national priorities—namely,¶ which of the three Es is the most important. While policy makers can and should¶ make
diplomacy, a few¶ steps can be taken to ensure greater success:¶ Develop a Strategic Approach to Science Diplomacy¶
such a determination, they would benefit from external thinking about such¶ approaches by national organizations outside of government, such as think tanks,¶ associations, and academies of science. Therefore,
Establish Mechanisms to Increase
Interaction Between Science and Foreign¶ Policy Communities¶ Inside of government, increasing interaction
between the science and foreign¶ policy communities would point to the creation of inter-ministerial working¶ groups that bring together research and foreign ministries. In many countries,¶ the
science or research ministries have the lead in international science efforts.¶ Better linking such efforts to the foreign
encouraging such civil society¶ development and focus on science diplomacy activities is a critical first step to any ¶ such activity.¶
ministries can increase the potential¶ for science to be coupled to broader foreign policy objectives. In the United ¶ States, there is no centralized ministry in charge of science. Instead, many of its¶ international
science arrangements are made through the Department of State,¶ which has benefited from having a dedicated science advisor for almost a decade¶ and a half. The advisor serves as a central node for engaging
the scientific and¶ research communities in support of diplomacy. This position has been central to¶ efforts to engage the science community on issues important to the foreign policy ¶ community, including
weapons of mass destruction, cybersecurity, and other¶ topics with direct national security implications. This position, combined with¶ an effective line office dedicated to broader science-related issues (the
increases the influence of science issues
within foreign¶ policy making. Linking the foreign policy and science communities is also an area¶
where nations benefit from having robust nongovernmental science organizations,¶ such as associations and
Bureau of¶ Oceans and International Environmental and Science Affairs, in the case of the ¶ Department of State)
academies, that have experience and mandates to bring¶ together the different elements of society—especially science and policy makers. ¶ Science & Diplomacy, December 2012 www.ScienceDiplomacy.org ¶
Building a National Science Diplomacy System Vaughan C. Turekian¶ Increase the Capacity of Foreign Ministries to Pursue Science Issues¶ One of the first ways to increase the capacity of foreign ministers to
pursue¶ science matters is to train diplomats in issues related to science. The U.S. Department ¶ of State does this through a course in its Foreign Service Institute that is especially¶ designed for foreign service
officers assigned to environmental, scientific, and¶ health portfolios. In addition, foreign policy schools, which are training the next ¶ generation of diplomats, could incorporate some courses in science and
A number of U.S. foreign policy schools already
offer courses dedicated¶ to specific science-based issues, such as climate change, global health,
and nuclear¶ security. Building on these, foreign policy schools could attempt to work across¶ the
university by creating links between science departments and international¶ relations. Just as there are joint
technology¶ into their curriculum to acquaint students with some of the important issues and¶ concepts.
programs in law and international affairs, so too¶ might there be a benefit in joint degree programs between science and foreign ¶ policy disciplines.¶ Finally, increasing the number of short-term scientists in the
foreign ministry,¶ through rotations or fellowships, holds great potential to tapping into expertise¶ while also familiarizing the science community with important foreign policy ¶ considerations. Programs such as
the American Association for the Advancement¶ of Science (publisher of Science & Diplomacy) policy fellowships and the Jefferson¶ Science Fellowships in the U.S. Department of State have increased the literacy
of¶ the foreign ministry in science and technology issues while also cross-fertilizing¶ the foreign policy and science communities to positive effect.¶ The fundamentals of foreign policy continue to change.
foreign policy¶
makers benefit from adaptive tools that address core challenges at global, regional,¶ and
bilateral scales. Into this world, scientists and science (and its applications) are¶ becoming ever
more relevant to diplomacy. Individual countries can determine¶ the best way to achieve their own strategic objectives. As national leaders begin¶ grappling with these realities,
Technology revolutions¶ and the emergence of more civil society groups in international relations make ¶ diplomacy more dynamic and decentralized. The result is that
science diplomacy will become an increasingly large¶ part of the diplomacy tool kit, requiring new approaches.¶
BILATERAL FRAMEWORK ON CCS PUTS US BACK ON TOP
Chang et al. 2009
(Albert, Albert G. Chang is a fellow at the Initiative for U.s. – China Cooperation on Energy and Climate, “A Roadmap for¶ U.S.-China Collaboration on¶ Carbon Capture and
Sequestration”, https://asiasociety.org/files/pdf/AS_CCS_TaskForceReport.pdf//ghs-an)
The world has long needed the United States to demonstrate bold leadership on anthropogenic¶
climate change. This report seeks to illuminate one pathway to catalyze United States leadership¶ through a
bilateral framework. The simple reality is that for any remedy for global climate¶ change to be meaningful, the United States and China—the
world’s two largest emitters of¶ greenhouse gasses—must find a way to stand together,
collaboratively, at the center of a global¶ effort. As previous reports from both the Asia Society
and Center for American Progress have¶ articulated, elevating energy and climate in the U.S.China agenda would not only demonstrate¶ leadership in addressing the climate imperative, but
has the potential to fundamentally reshape¶ the dynamics between the two countries in a
positive and comprehensive way.¶ 12¶ Yet these two countries still find themselves in a state of paralysis on this critical issue.¶ Many U.S. stakeholders worry that the
United States will be at a disadvantage if it signs¶ any domestic legislation or international agreements committing to limits on greenhouse ¶ gas emissions unless developing countries such as China agree to
similar measures. The¶ Chinese government, on the other hand, firmly opposes placing an absolute limit on its¶ own emissions, pointing to developed countries’ responsibility to remedy the effects of their ¶
historic cumulative emissions that have led to global warming. ¶ Meanwhile, the United States and China continue to rely heavily on coal to produce¶ energy; it accounts for 50 percent and 80 percent of current
electricity generation,¶ respectively. If these two countries cannot find a way to come together to jointly address the ¶ problems caused by these emissions, it is highly unlikely that the world will be able to
cooperation
between the United States and China is a critical and requisite¶ step to gain the kind of
confidence and trust needed to spearhead progress toward an¶ effective global solution. Fortunately, with
agree¶ on a strategy for effective mitigation any time soon or that the UNFCCC negotiations in ¶ Copenhagen this December will arrive at any meaningful outcome. ¶ Thus,
a new U.S. presidential administration and an¶ increasingly environmentally-conscious Chinese government, this moment is replete with¶ possibility for these two countries to jointly alter the current state of
reluctance that has¶ prevailed until now.
PLAN TEXT
The United States federal government should create a bilateral regulatory
framework with China on green technology.
SOLVENCY (2:08)
The plan establishes a regulatory framework to solve green tech
World Investment Report 2010
(“Investing in a Low Carbon Economy”)
low-carbon foreign investment but this is not straightforward, especially since most developing countries have little experience in
this area. In addition, national strategies to promote low-carbon foreign investment and related technology dissemination need to
be synergized with climate change and investment policies at the international level. However, many developing countries lack
financial resources and institutional capabilities to do this effectively. An international supporting structure is thus essential. Against
this background, cognisant of the manifold challenges of climate change, and the opportunity to harness TNCs for development in
the process of meeting them, UNCTAD
proposes a global partnership to synergize investment and
climate change policies to promote low-carbon foreign investment (fig. IV.7). The key elements of the
partnership would include: • Establishing clean-investment promotion strategies. This includes
developing conducive host-country policy frameworks including market-creation mechanisms
and implementing promotion programmes to attract low-carbon investment with key functions
being investor targeting, fostering linkages and investment ¶ aftercare. International financial institutions
and home countries need to support low-carbon investment promotion strategies, including through outward investment
promotion, investment guarantees and credit risk guarantees. • Enabling
the dissemination of clean technology.
This involves putting in place an enabling framework to facilitate cross-border technology flows,
fostering linkages between TNCs and local firms to maximize spillover effects, enhancing local firms' capacities to be
part of global value chains, strengthening developing countries' absorptive capacity for clean
technology, and encouraging partnership programmes for technology generation and
dissemination between countries. • Securing Ms' contribution to climate change mitigation. This
includes introducing climate-friendly provisions (e.g. low-carbon investment promotion elements, environmental
exceptions) into future IIAs, and a multilateral understanding to ensure the coherence of existing IIAs with global and national policy
developments related to climate change. • Harmonizing corporate GHG emissions disclosure. This ¶ involves creating a single global
standard for corporate greenhouse gas emissions disclosure, improving the disclosure of foreign operations and activities within
value chains, and mainstreaming best practices in emissions disclosure via existing corporate governance regulatory mechanisms
(such as stock-listing requirements). • Setting
up an international low-carbon technical assistance centre
(L-TAC). L-TAC could support developing countries, especially LDCs, in formulating and
implementing national climate change mitigation strategies and action plans. The centre would help
beneficiaries meet their development challenges and aspirations, including by benefiting from low-carbon foreign investment and
associated technologies. Among others,
L-TAC would leverage expertise via existing and novel channels,
including multilateral agencies, and engage in capacity and institution building. ¶
Multilateral cooperation key to success of green tech
Woetzel 2009
(Jonathan, Jonathan Woetzel, based in China, has led research on urbanization, the global economy, sustainability, and productivity, “China and the US: The potential of a cleantech partnership”, http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/china-and-the-us-the-potential-of-a-clean-techpartnership//ghs-an)
China and the United States, the world’s dominant producers of carbon emissions, have adopted aggressive
programs to reduce oil imports, create new clean-energy industries and jobs, and generally improve the environment. But
the environment that will be most critical to making or breaking the two countries’ efforts to curb
the dangers of global warming could well be the market that they jointly create in pursuit of
their aims. Unless the two work together to provide the scale, standards, and technology
transfer necessary to make a handful of promising but expensive new clean-energy technologies
successful, momentum to curb global warming could stall and neither country will maximize its
gains in terms of green jobs, new companies, and energy security.¶ The risk is real. Electrified vehicles, carbon
capture and storage (CCS), and concentrated solar power, among other emerging “ green tech” sectors, will need massive
investment, infrastructure, and research to get off the ground. While the Chinese and US governments, along with
private investors, are pursuing all of these technologies, they cannot achieve separately what they could jointly.¶ For a
more in-depth look at these three clean-energy technologies and how China–US cooperation could make them economically feasible, launch this
interactive exhibit, a collaboration between McKinsey and frog design. ¶ Interactive¶ China and the US: The
potential of a clean-tech
partnership¶ Cooperation between China and the United States could make clean technology
feasible.¶ Open interactive popup China and the US: The potential of a clean-tech partnership¶ Whether collaborating formally or informally,
China and the United States working as a group of two (or G-2) dedicated to climate change
would boost these technologies and deliver benefits that would accrue to all nations. Clean-energy
solutions are critical for reducing the amount of harmful greenhouse gases produced not only by the two highest-emitting nations but also by countries
worldwide. For instance, if the majority of vehicles on the world’s roads by 2030 were hybrids and battery-powered vehicles, they would generate 42
percent fewer emissions than if all cars continued to run on today’s gas and diesel engines.1 But such
reductions won’t occur—
won’t even come close to happening—unless China and the United States lay the groundwork to
make it so.¶ A global electric-car sector must start in China and the United States, and it must begin with the two countries jointly creating an
environment for automotive investors to scale their bets across both nations. Private companies in China and the United States will most certainly
compete to make the products, including electric-drive (or hybrid) vehicles, batteries, charging stations, and so on. But the
two
governments can no doubt create the conditions for both of them to succeed—for example, by
setting coordinated product and safety standards across the two markets, funding the rollout of
infrastructure, sponsoring joint R&D initiatives in select areas (such as new materials for car
parts), ensuring that trade policies support rather than hinder the development of a global
supply chain for the sector, and providing consumers with financial incentives to buy the new
models. More immediately, the two governments could pick matching cities in China and the United States for electrified-vehicle pilots that could
be used to collect standardized data on real electrified-vehicle consumer adoption, infrastructure costs, and driving conditions that could then be
shared with companies in both nations. ¶ This new sector will require scale to succeed—more scale than could be found any time soon in either country
alone. Electrified vehicles may one day become a viable market within both nations, but that day will arrive much more quickly if the two countries
collaborate to create a market that is bigger and more attractive. In building this market, China and the United States would also ensure that the
companies and jobs associated with it would be created in both countries sooner. Oil consumption will fall more quickly as well: today, about 50
percent of China’s oil imports—and 80 percent of America’s—are used to fuel vehicles. In other words, one plus one would equal three. Such
momentum would also likely spark Europe into competing in a global electrified-vehicle industry faster.¶ CCS is another technology whose success
needs the scale that only China and the United States can create together. Adapting CCS technology to coal-fired plants to capture the emitted
greenhouse gases is expensive. CCS technology also uses a lot of energy to capture the emissions, thereby making plants less efficient. And
fundamental questions about how the captured emissions are to be stored still need addressing. Neither nation is pursuing this expensive, uncertain
emissions reduction technology quickly, but they would improve their chances and their options if they pooled costs and knowledge.¶ Together, the
two governments could fund demonstration plants in China and the United States, jointly evaluate technologies available from vendors, set standards,
and drive down costs. By
using the pilot plants as research labs to learn more about the challenges CCS
faces and how to overcome them, the governments could share the information with companies
entering the CCS business, advancing learning in this industry at a quicker pace. Assuming engineers find
solutions to the technical and storage hurdles, we estimate that by 2030 this technology could “clean” 17 percent of coal power in the United States
and 30 percent of China’s coal power, reducing total combined emissions by as much as 7 percent—a significant benefit to both nations and to the
world.¶ Concentrated solar power (CSP) might not even have a future without joint action by China and the United States. As an emerging technology,
CSP requires both technical progress and massive investments that only the largest economies can support. CSP technology uses sunlight to create and
store steam power to drive turbines that transmit electricity on a larger scale more easily than they could using photovoltaic technology (which uses
flat-screen receptors that turn sunlight into power). If clean concentrated solar power is scaled to generate 22 percent of total power in China and the
United States by 2030, it could create over half a million jobs in each country. Setting
common standards, coinvesting in pilot
projects and R&D, and undertaking other joint initiatives are the way to get this started.¶ There are
other benefits to joint action on clean energy besides reducing oil imports, cleaning up the air, and creating jobs. Cooperation on tangible
actions that result in positive improvements for each country could help to foster trust between
governments that have real differences on other political and economic issues. In addition, meaningful
reductions in oil consumption by the world’s two largest importers of oil could ease pressure on future global supply and demand imbalances of the
fossil fuel.¶ It won’t be easy for countries and companies to work in common to make these technologies real. The challenges to cooperation are
numerous. Companies in both nations will be wary about what information they share with partners and competitors. Real
cooperation
between the two countries on technology initiatives is limited, so both sides will have to work
hard to build relationships. In addition, they will need to create institutional frameworks for implementing and managing projects, as
well as cofinancing mechanisms, partnership rules, and governance models. US companies will be concerned about protecting the intellectual property
(IP) technologies that they use in pilot projects in China. The two governments will need to cleanly separate bilateral initiatives on clean-energy
development from broader, multilateral agreements on emissions reductions. The list goes on. ¶ But none of these challenges are showstoppers.
Negotiations between the two countries could address nearly all these issues comprehensively. Even the thorniest—IP protection—is manageable.
Because companies from many nations would contribute to making these three big technologies a success, IP agreements should be international. On
that front, China will need to improve its ability to enforce global IP rules. Most critical, however, is the leadership that will be needed to surmount
these obstacles. A commitment at the top levels of both governments to set a joint course for making these technologies real would be the signal of a
real beginning. From there the impulse for collaboration may well filter down through the public and private sectors in the two countries to make
research, investment, and policy a cooperative agenda.
Only a regulatory framework solves
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions 2013
(the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions – an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to advance strong policy and action to address our climate and
energy challenges, “CARBON CAPTURE USE AND STORAGE”, http://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/CCS//ghs-an)
Carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS)
technologies can capture up to 90 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions from a power plant or industrial facility and store them in underground geologic
formations.¶ Carbon capture has been established for some industrial processes, but it is still a relatively expensive technology that is just
reaching maturity for power generation and other industrial processes. ¶ There are fifteen active commercial-scale CCUS
projects at industrial facilities around the world (eight of those projects are in the U.S.), and
approximately 45 additional projects are in various stages of development around the world
(Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute project list). ¶ The world’s first commercial-scale CCUS power plant, SaskPower's Boundary Dam Power
Station in Saskatchewan, Canada, became operational in October 2014. Two additional CCUS power plants are under construction in the United States Southern Company’s Kemper County Energy Facility in Mississippi and NRG's Petra Nova project in Texas. ¶ There
is a growing market
for utilizing captured CO2, primarily in enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). Selling captured CO2
provides a valuable revenue source to help overcome the high costs and financial risks of initial
CCUS projects. ¶ The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that CCUS can achieve 14 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions
reductions needed by 2050 to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (IEA CCS Roadmap). ¶ CCUS can allow fossil fuels, such as
coal and natural gas, to remain part of our energy mix, by limiting the emissions from their use.¶
Background¶ Electricity generation and industrial processes release large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary greenhouse gas (GHG). In 2011,
coal- and natural gas-fueled electricity generation accounted for approximately 80 percent and 19 percent, respectively, of CO2 emissions from the U.S.
electricity sector; together, they accounted for almost 32 percent of all U.S. GHG emissions.[1] Not including its electricity use, the industrial sector’s
CO2 emissions accounted for an additional 15 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions.[2] The combustion of fossil fuels accounted for approximately 79
percent of the industrial sector’s CO2 emissions, while industrial processes accounted for approximately 21 percent.[3] ¶ Going forward, coal and
natural gas will remain major sources of energy for the U.S. and global power and industrial sectors. In the United States, both coal and natural gas are
in relatively abundant supply and are relatively inexpensive electricity generation sources.[4],[5] In 2011, the United States generated approximately 42
percent of its electricity from coal and 25 percent from natural gas.[6] Globally, coal
and natural gas will continue to meet
growing energy demand, particularly in emerging market counties, such as China and India. From
2008 to 2012, China’s total coal consumption increased by nearly 35 percent, while India’s increased by 25 percent. During that same time period,
China’s total natural gas consumption increased by more than 89 percent, while India’s increased by nearly 37 percent.[7] ¶ CCUS
technology
has the potential to yield dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions from the power and industrial
sectors by capturing and storing anthropogenic CO2 in underground geological formations.
Given the magnitude of CO2 emissions from coal and natural gas-fired electricity generation, the
greatest potential for CCUS is in the power sector. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that natural
gas, when used in an efficient combined cycle plant, emits less than half as much CO2 as coal.[8] The deployment of CCUS with coal
generation is necessary to reduce coal’s release of global CO2 emissions relative to natural gas,
but CCUS also can be combined with natural gas generation to limit the impact of natural gas
electricity generation on global CO2 emissions.¶ In the industrial sector, CO2 can be captured from a number of industrial
processes, including natural gas processing; ethanol fermentation; fertilizer, industrial gas, and chemicals production; the gasification of various
feedstocks; and the manufacture of cement and steel.[9] ¶ Description¶ CCUS
uses a combination of technologies to
capture the CO2 released by fossil fuel combustion or an industrial process, transport it to a
suitable storage location, and finally store it (typically deep underground) where it cannot enter
the atmosphere and thus contribute to climate change. CO2 geologic storage options include saline formations and
depleted oil reservoirs, where captured CO2 can be utilized in enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR).¶ Currently, CCUS has been deployed at commercialscale natural gas processing, fertilizer production, synfuel production, and hydrogren production facilities. The first commercial-scale coal-fired power
plant with CCUS (Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan) will become operational in October 2014. Two additional commercial power plants are alose under
construction.[10]¶ The
various technologies used for CCUS are described below.¶ CO2 Capture¶ Good candidates for
early commercial CCUS adoption are certain industrial processes, where it is relatively easy to capture CO2.[11] As a part of normal operations, these
processes remove CO2 in high-purity, concentrated streams. Equipment
can be used to capture CO2 from these
streams, instead of otherwise being emitted.¶ Figure 1: How CCUS Works¶
http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/sites/default/files/pages/16017/ccs-cycle-animation.gif¶ Source: Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.
2012. “How CCS Works.” http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/ccs/how-ccs-works¶ For other industrial processes and electricity generation, carbon
capture is more difficult. Current processes must be reengineered or redesigned to process CO2 and concentrate it for capture and transportation.
There are three primary methods for CO2 capture from these other industrial processes and electricity generation: ¶ Pre-Combustion
Carbon Capture¶ Fuel is gasified (rather than combusted) to produce a synthesis gas, or syngas,
consisting mainly of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2). A subsequent shift reaction converts the CO to CO2,
and then a physical solvent typically separates the CO2 from H2.¶ For power generation, pre-combustion carbon capture can be
combined with an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant that burns the H2
in a combustion turbine and uses the exhaust heat to power a steam turbine.¶ Post-Combustion Carbon
Capture¶ Post-combustion capture typically uses chemical solvents to separate CO2 out of the flue
gas from fossil fuel combustion. Retrofitting existing power plants for carbon capture is likely to
use this method.¶ Oxyfuel Carbon Capture¶ Oxyfuel capture requires fossil fuel combustion in pure oxygen (rather than air) so that the
exhaust gas is CO2-rich, which facilitates capture.¶ CO2 Transportation¶ Once captured, CO2 must be transported from its
source to a storage site. Pipelines like those used for natural gas present the best option for
terrestrial CO2 transport. As of 2009, there were approximately 3,900 miles of pipelines for transporting CO2 in the United States for use
in enhanced oil recovery.[12]¶ CO2 Storage¶ The primary option for storing captured CO2 is injecting it into geological formations deep underground.
The United States has geological formations with sufficient capacity to store CO2 emissions from centuries of continued fossil fuel use based on 2011
emissions.[13]¶ A
combination of regulations and technology can provide a high level of confidence
that CO2 will be safely and permanently stored underground. In the United States, federal and state regulations
cover CO2 storage site selection and injection. In addition, CO2 storage technologies for measurement, monitoring,
verification, accounting, and risk assessment can minimize or mitigate the potential of stored
CO2 to pose risks to humans and the environment.[14] Options for CO2 geologic storage options include:¶ Deep Saline
Formations¶ The largest potential for geologic storage in the United States is in deep saline formations, which are underground porous rock formations
infused with brine. Deep saline formations are found in many locations across the country, but less is known about their storage potential because they
have not been examined as extensively as oil and gas reservoirs.[15] ¶ Oil and Gas Reservoirs (Enhanced Oil Recovery with Carbon Dioxide, CO2-EOR)¶
Oil and gas reservoirs offer geologic storage potential as well as economic opportunity through CO2-EOR. CO2-EOR is a tertiary[16] oil production
process which injects CO2 into oil wells to extract the oil remaining after primary production methods. Oil and gas reservoirs are thought to be suitable
candidates for the geologic storage of CO2 given that they have held oil and gas resources in place for millions of years, and previous fossil fuel
exploration has yielded valuable data on subsurface areas that could help to ensure permanent CO2 geologic storage. CO2-EOR operations have been
operating in West Texas for over 30 years. Moreover, revenue from selling captured CO2 to EOR operators could help defray the cost of CCUS at power
plants and industrial facilities that adopt the technology.[17] ¶ Unminable Coal Beds¶ Coal beds that are too deep or too thin to be economically mined
could offer CO2 storage potential. Captured CO2 can also be used in enhanced coalbed methane recovery (ECBM) to extract methane gas.[18]¶ Basalt
formations and shale basins are also considered potential future geologic storage locations.[19]¶ Figure 2: Map of North American Sedimentary Basins
for CO2 Storage¶ http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/natcarb/images/sedimentary_lg.jpg ¶ Source: National Energy Technology
Laboratory. “NATCARB CO2 Storage Formations.” http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/natcarb/storage.html. ¶ Environmental Benefit /
Emission Reduction Potential¶ CCUS technology has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions from a coal or natural gas-fueled power plant by as much as
90 percent.[20] CCUS could provide significant economy-wide CO2 emission reductions:¶ The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) modeling
analysis of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 projected that, under the proposed cap-and-trade program, coal
power plants with CCUS could provide 11 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, and that new coal power plants with CCUS could account for 28 percent of
new generating capacity. In contrast, under a business-as-usual scenario and without legislation, new coal power plants would account only for 11
percent of new generating capacity.[21]¶ Due
to rising global demand for energy, the consumption of fossil
fuels is expected to rise through 2035, leading to greater CO2 emissions.[22] CCUS technology
offers the opportunity to reduce emissions while maintaining a role for fossil fuels in national
energy portfolios.¶ Under its 2 °C Scenario (2DS), the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that CCUS will provide 14 percent of
cumulative emissions reductions between 2015 and 2050 compared to a business as usual scenario. Under the same scenario, CCUS provides one-sixth
of required emissions reductions in 2050.[23] ¶ Oil produced by CO2-EOR projects can be considered relatively lower-carbon than oil produced by other
techniques. For example, the carbon stored by the Weyburn EOR project can offset approximately 40 percent of the combustion emissions resulting
from the oil it produces, not including emissions from electricity use due to compression, lifting, and refining.[24] ¶ Cost¶ The implementation of CCUS
technology raises the investment costs for power and industrial projects. New
power plants and industrial facilities can be
designed to incorporate CCUS from their inception, or the technology can be retrofitted to
existing sources of CO2 emissions. Overall, the cost of each project can vary considerably. The
incremental cost of CCUS varies depending on parameters such as the choice of capture technology, the percentage of CO2 captured, the type of fossil
fuel used, and the distance to and type of geologic storage location. Overall, as with other new technologies, the
cost of CCUS is
expected to be higher for the first CCUS projects and decline thereafter as the technology moves
along its “learning curve.”[25],[26]¶ Selling captured CO2 as a commodity is one option for mitigating the higher upfront costs and risks
of investing in CCUS. Enhanced oil recovery is an emerging opportunity for utilizing captured CO2. In the United States, CO2-EOR already accounts for 6
percent of domestic oil production, and the industry could take advantage of enormous oil reserves if more CO2 is captured and utilized.[27] 26.9 to
61.5 billion barrels could be extracted with “state of the art” CO2-EOR technology, while 67.2 to 136.6 billion barrels could be extracted with “next
generation” CO2-EOR technology. [28]¶ Power Plant Capture Costs¶ Carbon capture raises power plant costs by requiring capital investment in carbon
capture equipment and by reducing the quantity of useful electricity. Additional generation capacity is needed at a power plant to power capture
equipment,[29] and incorporating CCUS at a power plant could decrease its net power output by as much 30 percent.[30] Overall, in 2010, the U.S.
Department of Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory estimated that “CCS technologies would add around 80 percent to the cost of
electricity for a new pulverized coal plant, and around 35 percent to the cost of electricity for a new advanced gasification-based plant.”[31]¶ In 2010,
the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) released a report on CCUS costs for new integrated combined cycle (IGCC), pulverized coal (PC), and
natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants. The study compared the levelized costs of electricity for individual power plant configurations with
and without CO2 capture.[32] For each power plant type, the average levelized cost of electricity with and without CCUS was estimated to be:¶ Table 1:
Levelized Cost of Electricity for New-Build Power Plants with and without CCUS ¶ Power Plant Type¶ (new-build)¶ Average LCOE without CCUS¶
($/MWH)¶ Average LCOE with CCUS¶ ($/MWh)¶ IGCC¶ 97.8¶ 141.7¶ PC¶ 75.0¶ 137.1¶ NGCC¶ 74.7¶ 108.9¶ Retrofitting existing plants for CCUS is
expected to be more expensive and reduce a plant’s overall efficiency when compared to building a new plant that incorporates CCUS from the
start.[33] In addition, retrofitting CCUS on existing power plants faces additional constraints: insufficient land and space for capture equipment; a
shorter expected plant life than a new plant, which limits the window in which to repay the investment in CCUS equipment; and the tendency of
existing plants to have lower efficiency, which consequently means that CCUS will have a proportionally greater impact on net output than it would
have in new plants.[34] New power plants without CCUS can be designed to be “CCUS-ready” so that the cost of later retrofitting the plant for CCUS will
be lower.[35]¶ Industrial Facility Capture Costs¶ The cost of capturing carbon from different industrial processes varies considerably. This variation
results from the relative ease of capturing CO2 from certain industrial processes and the level of maturation for capture technologies. Carbon capture is
easier when CO2 is produced in high purity and high concentration streams as the byproduct of certain industrial processes, such as natural gas
processing, hydrogen production, and synthetic fuel production.[36] In contrast, it is relatively more difficult to capture CO2 from flue gas emissions,
which may require “the reengineering of certain established and reliable production techniques.”[37] Similar to power plants, industrial processes that
produce carbon via flue gas are cement production, iron and steel manufacturing, and refining. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated
industrial carbon capture and CO2 transportation costs for the following industrial processes:[38]¶ Table 2: Cost of CO2 Capture and Transportation for
Various Industrial CO2 Sources¶ Industrial CO2 Source¶ Cost of CO2 Capture and Transp. ($/Metric ton) ¶ Coal and biomass-to-liquids¶ 36.10¶ Natural
gas processing¶ 36.29¶ Hydrogen plants¶ 36.67 to 46.12¶ Refineries (Hydrogen)¶ 36.67 to 46.12¶ Ammonia plants¶ 39.69¶ Ethanol plants¶ 42.15¶
Cement plants¶ 81.08¶ CO2 Transportation and Storage Costs¶ Transportation and storage costs will vary by CO2 capture project and the proximity and
availability of pipeline networks and injection sites. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the long-term average cost for CO2
transportation and storage is approximately $15 per metric ton of CO2.[39] ¶ Current Status of CCUS¶ Currently, CCUS has been deployed at
commercial-scale industrial facilities, and the first commercial-scale power plants with CCUS are under construction. As of 2016, the Global Carbon
Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) listed fifteen commercial-scale CCUS projects in operation and around 45 additional projects in various stages of
development around the world. Around 20 of these projects are located in the United States (see the Global Carbon Capture Institute’s large-scale
integrated CCS project database). The
International Energy Agency (IEA) labels CCUS as a critical technology
for limiting the rise in global temperature to 2° Celsius (3.6° F) by 2050 and calls for 38 power
and 82 industrial large-scale integrated CCUS projects to be in place by 2020 to meet this
objective.[40] Given that only around 20 large-scale integrated CCUS projects are estimated to
be in operation by the mid-2010s, the IEA has labeled the status of CCUS as “not on track.”[41]¶ The
status of the component technologies of CCUS is reviewed below. ¶ CO2 Capture¶ Carbon capture technologies have long been used for industrial
processes like natural gas processing and CO2 generation for the food and beverage industry. Currently, in the United States, commercial-scale CCUS
projects include four natural gas processing facilities, two fertilizer plants, a synfuel plant, and a hydrogen plant that capture CO2 and transport it for
use in enhanced oil recovery.[42] In the power sector, the first commercial-scale power plant, SaskPower's Boundary Dam project in Saskatchewan,
became the world's first operational commercial-scale project with CCUS in 2014. Additional power plants and industrial facilities with CCUS are under
construction or in design stages.[43] Few or no commercial-scale projects have been proposed for other high-emitting CO2 sources, such as iron and
steel, cement, and pulp and paper production.[44] ¶ CO2 Transport¶ The United States already has approximately 4,500 miles of CO2 pipelines used to
transport CO2 for EOR.[45] CO2 pipeline transport is commercially proven.¶ CO2 Storage¶ Globally, there is much research and policy activity regarding
CO2 storage. Many countries are setting up legal and regulatory frameworks for CO2 injection and long-term monitoring and verification, while
mapping geologic formations for CO2 storage potential.[46] Technologies are available to minimize or mitigate the risks of geologically stored CO2 to
humans and the environment,[47] but policies are needed to ensure that these technologies are deployed effectively. CO2 can be monitored and
accounted for once injected underground, while risk assessment tools can determine the suitability of sites for CO2 storage. CO2 injection in EOR wells
is commercially proven and has a history of safely storing CO2 underground. Research by the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology found no
evidence of leakage from the SACROC oil field where CO2-EOR has been performed since the 1970s.[48]¶
A well-developed regulatory
framework for CO2 injection and geologic storage is also essential to protect human health and
the environment. In the United States, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the EPA’s Underground Injection Control Program impose safety
requirements on CO2 injection.[49] In addition, the Clean Air Act and the EPA’s GHG Emissions Program require project operators to report data on
CO2 injections and to submit monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) plans if CO2 is injected for geologic storage. U.S.
state
regulations can include additional requirements. In addition, the Underground Injection Control Program requires previous
seismic history to be considered when selecting geologic CO2 sequestration sites. Large faults should be avoided entirely. In
addition, the risk of small earthquakes causing CO2 leakage to the surface is mitigated by multiple layers of rock that prevent CO2 from reaching the
surface even if they migrate from an injection zone.[50] ¶ Finally, there is on-going work to determine the size of CO2 sequestration resources and the
suitability of individual sites for CO2 injection. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NETL released The North American Carbon Storage
Atlas, in conjunction with partner agencies from Canada and Mexico. Also, since 2003, DOE has supported Regional Partnerships focused on geologic
CO2 storage.[51] The partnerships are initiating large-scale tests to determine how storage reservoirs and their surroundings respond to large amounts
of injected CO2 in a variety of geologic formations and regions across the United States. Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,
DOE and the Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) are sharing the investment costs of capturing one million tons of CO2 per year from ADM’s
ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois and injecting it in a nearby reservoir.[52] The Midwest Geologic Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) has begun to inject
and store CO2 from the facility.[53]¶ Obstacles to Further Development or Deployment of CCUS ¶ High Cost¶ Deploying CCUS requires large incremental
investments in capital equipment and higher operating costs.¶ Lack of a Price on Carbon, GHG Emissions Performance Standards, or CCUS incentives ¶
Policies that place a financial cost on or otherwise limit GHG emissions, or subsidize CCUS, are crucial for incentivizing investments in CCUS.¶ Need for
Faster Commercial-Scale CCUS Project Development¶ The first commercial-scale CCUS projects integrated with power plants and certain industrial
facilities will generate valuable information on the actual cost and performance of CCUS as well as the optimal configuration of the technologies. These
projects also will provide much-needed data to guide firms’ investments and will lead to cost reductions via technology improvements. ¶ Uncertainty in
CO2 Storage Regulations¶ CO2 injection in geologic formations is regulated at the federal level by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Underground
Injection Control (UIC) program,[54] and the quantity of injected CO2 must be reported under the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule.[55]
Additional regulations at federal, state, and local levels are being developed to specify site selection criteria; well, injection, and closure operational
requirements; long-term monitoring and verification requirements; and long-term liability. Without a clear regulatory or legal framework in place,
investment in CCUS may be hindered.¶ Policy Options to Help Promote CCUS¶ Price on Carbon¶ Policies that place a price on GHG emissions, such as
cap and trade, would discourage investments in traditional fossil-fuel use and spur investments in a range of clean energy technologies, including
CCUS.¶ Including CCUS in Clean Energy Standards¶ A clean energy standard is a policy that requires electric utilities to provide a certain percentage of
electricity from designated low carbon dioxide-emitting sources. CCUS has been included in state-level clean energy standards[56] and under a
proposed federal clean energy standard.[57]¶ Funding for Continued CCUS Research, Development, and Demonstration ¶ Globally, approximately $23.5
billion in public support has been made available for CCUS demonstration, with much of this amount coming through recent economic stimulus
packages.[58] By the end of 2010, public institutions had distributed only 55 percent of the available public support for CCUS to actual CCUS
projects.[59] The United States has spent approximately $6.1 billion of the available $7.4 billion in public funding designated for CCUS.[60] Under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy received $3.4 billion to support clean coal
and other aspects of CCUS development.[61]¶ Incentivizing CCUS and CO2-EOR¶ Federal and state-level incentives can foster the initial, large-scale
CCUS projects that are needed to fully demonstrate the technology. At the federal level, Section 45Q tax credits provide $10 per metric ton of CO2
stored through enhanced oil recovery and $20 per metric ton of CO2 stored through deep saline formations. The National Enhanced Oil Recovery
Initiative recommends an expansion of the existing 45Q tax credit for capturing carbon dioxide for use in EOR, as well as modifications to improve the
functionality and financial certainty of 45Q tax credits. The Initiative also recommends U.S. states to consider incentives such as allowing cost recovery
through the electricity rate base for CCUS power projects; including CCUS under electricity portfolio standards; offering long-term off-take agreements
for the products of a CCUS project; and providing supportive tax policy for CCUS or CO2-EOR projects.[62]¶ Setting GHG Emissions Rates¶ Policymakers
can enact regulations that require CCUS via a new source performance standard for power plants or a low-carbon performance standard (similar to the
renewable portfolio standards that many states already have). In 2013, the EPA proposed new greenhouse gas emissions standards for new power
plants, which would likely require new coal-fired power plants to meet emissions standards by including CCUS technology.[63] ¶ Defining a CO2 Storage
Regulatory Framework¶ Uncertainty
regarding the regulatory or legal framework governing CO2 storage
may hinder investment in CCUS. Determining regulatory authorities and legal requirements for
CO2 storage will provide additional certainty for project developers and operators.¶