Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
3/13/2015
Global dependence on cheap coal is a threat to climate mitigation and while carbon capture and storage technology could help, other low carbon fuel sources will be preferred in the long-run, Secretary of State John Kerry said this week at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. “In certain countries, people are going on a price basis and racing to coal. And that means we have a number of coal-fired power plants coming online in various countries at a rate that is simply destructive. And they’re not coming on with the latest technology in all cases. There is no such thing, in the end, as absolutely clean coal, and so we have a challenge with respect to what we’re going to do,” Kerry said. “There are technologies that significantly clean coal, and when put in place, that’s very helpful. And if you can do carbon sequestration and storage, which isn’t happening enough, there’s a way to use it. But it’s, in the marketplace, I think, going to be far more expensive in the end than these other technologies which are coming online to produce other things at a far better cost.”
Kerry also noted the natural gas boom, which has increased energy security and shifted some of the nation’s energy generation to a less carbon intensive source. “It’s a movement in the right direction, but in the end, we’re going to have to do all the things I just talked about, which is move to a sustainable, renewable, other kinds of energy that don’t have that problem,” he said.
The use of fossil fuels, while inexpensive at face value, are much more costly in the long run when considering the effects of climate change in terms of extreme weather events and rising sea levels, as well the negative health effects of carbon pollution, Kerry said. “Coal and oil are only cheap ways to power a nation in the very near-term. But if you look a little further down the road, you begin to see an entirely different story. When you think about the real numbers over time, the costs of those outdated energy sources actually pile up very quickly,” he said. “The bottom line is that we can’t only factor in the price of immediate energy needs; we have to include the long-term cost of carbon pollution. We have to factor in the cost of survival. And if we do, we will find that pursuing clean energy now is far more affordable than paying for the consequences of climate change later.”
No One Country Can Solve Climate Change
While noting actions the United States is taking to cut carbon emissions, Kerry stressed the importance of global action. “Even if every single American biked to work or carpooled to school or used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, every American, if we somehow eliminated all our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what? That still wouldn’t be enough to upset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world. The same would be true if China went to zero emissions but others continued with business as usual. It’s not enough for one country or even a few countries to reduce emissions if their neighbors are unwilling to do their share. So when I say we need a global solution, I mean it. Anything less won’t work,” Kerry said.
An important first step to reaching a global solution will be the development of a climate agreement at the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris being held in December. At that conference, world leaders “will see whether or not we can muster the collective political will to reach an ambitious, comprehensive agreement,” Kerry said. “Now, even those of us who are most involved in the negotiations … we know that even the agreement we’re trying to reach in Paris will not completely and totally be able to eliminate the threat,” he said. “It’s not going to, but it is an absolutely vital first step.”
