Until this broader perspective has been taken and incorporated into better policies and processes, they recommend a moratorium on new oil-sands development projects.
They call for a broader conversation in which international economic and energy security strategies are weighed against their consequences in terms of environmental preservation and justice. They observed, in the context of the development of oil-sands pipelines in Canada, that these projects are implemented by the careful steering of the developer through incremental, fragmented, and narrow decision-making regulatory processes which limit the discussion to a superficial handling of the problems associated with oil development. An example of this lack of a pervasive strategy to transform the energy supply was highlighted recently by an interdisciplinary group of scientists. Reference Friedlingstein, Andrew, Rogelj, Peters and Canadell6ĭespite the awareness of the need to respond to these urgent and overarching issues, business-as-usual carries on with incremental decisions, made in narrow frames of reference, that continue to build, and lock investments into the conventional fossil fuel infrastructure. Reference Dietz and Stern5 The carbon intensity of the global energy supply has not decreased since 1990 despite 20 years of international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In addition, economists, such as Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, have published results showing that the climate models used by the IPCC severely underestimate the economic costs of climate change because the underlying assumptions have not kept up with the science. Reference Hansen, Sato, Hearty, Ruedy, Kelley, Masson-Delmotte, Russell, Tselioudis, Cao, Rignot, Velicogna, Kandiano, von Schuckmann, Kharecha, Legrande, Bauer and Lo4 The International Panel on Climate Change Working Group III (IPCC WGIII) states that in the context of the current emissions, which are rising faster than expected, a clear break in the emissions trend is needed by 2019, or the most feasible pathway to keep global warming within 2 ☌ would be missed. 3 The Paris Agreement, which clearly expresses the intention to hold global warming well below 2 ☌, and to pursue efforts to keep it within 1.5 ☌, has absorbed the idea put forth by climate scientists that even the 2° warming limit may be highly dangerous. 1, 2 It was announced that carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas and cement production continued to climb, resulting in an emitted load of 35.9 GtCO 2 in 2014, the highest in history, and an increase of 0.6% over 2013. 13 out of the 15 highest monthly temperature departures since 1880 have occurred since February 2015. The issue of climate change has repeatedly made the news: April 2016 was the fifth consecutive month in which the global monthly temperature was more than 1.0 ☌ warmer than average with March having the most deviation (1.23 ☌) from average of any month recorded since 1880. This reflection upon the historical and present fossil fuel supply chain gives a perspective useful in avoiding limited frames of reference when addressing the consequences of the business-as-usual operation of fossil fuel supply chains. This Viewpoint article looks at fuel supply chains for oil & gas, coal, and nuclear in terms of their economics, environmental and social consequences. Fossil fuels are largely responsible for global warming (as 85% of the CO 2 emissions come from fossil fuel combustion).
Recently there have also been increased calls to incorporate the external costs of electricity generation into the price of electricity. Electricity generated from renewable energy sources is often compared to fossil fuel energy in terms of economics. The Paris Agreement signed in December 2015 has solidified agreement that the world must address climate change, and has resounded the warning that inaction on climate change carries potentially catastrophic risk for the global economy. May 2016, the warmest May on record, was the 13th consecutive record-breaking month. To more fairly compare the economic, social, and environmental aspects of renewables, such as photovoltaics, to fossil fuels, a broader view is required which needs to take into account the impacts of the fossil fuel supply chain.įebruary 2016 was the warmest February since record keeping began in 1880, and was the warmest month in recorded history (in terms of its deviation from average). The premise of this Viewpoint article is that the sustainability of the electricity supply is very often addressed in narrow frames of reference, which sets up incremental decision-making.
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