By Aaditya Varma Ruddarraju and Karan Reddy Goguri
Background
A problem the current generations have explicitly worked towards improving and implicitly worked towards depleting is climate change. With the sudden change of production dynamics during the industrial revolution hazardous emissions, toxic waste, and the depletion of the ozone layer are some of the numerous detrimental outcomes we have seen. Furthermore, the sources of energy we tend to use in today’s day and age that provide us with the most amount of energy tend to be the most harmful. Coal. Coal is arguably the most abundant source of electricity. In addition to that, coal is one source of energy that has been widely used throughout multiple industries like transportation, industrial, residential and commercial sectors.
With coal’s versatility and efficiency, there was no doubt that coal became a go-to source of energy for the world, where world leaders indulged in global trading to secure as much coal as possible. The above graph depicts global coal consumption from 1978-2020. As you can see, there has been a surge in coal consumption and countries like India, USA and China are some of the top consumers of coal. However, due to this excessive use of coal, there was a massive uprise in the amount of toxic waste and harmful emissions throughout the years. The damage done by coal has been recognized in the last few decades and there have been valiant efforts to reduce the consumption and usage of coal through means of education, policy and regulations. One important segment of these efforts was the establishment of the UN Climate Change Conference. These are a chain of conferences that occur annually, where world leaders engage in conversation to find solutions that cater to all the signatories and are as universal as possible. The COP26 is the 26th meeting of the UN Climate Change Conference. In this conference, world leaders came together to discuss the pressing issue of coal inflicted climate change. In COP26 the overarching issue was the use of coal in numerous countries which had correlative effects on an increase in average global temperatures. The majority of the countries agreed to follow the established policies, which was to work towards the “phase out” of coal. However, countries like India and China said otherwise. India and China advocated against the absolute removal of coal due to India and China being heavy users of coal. India stance was against the “phase out” of coal because coal is a cheap energy source for India and that India’s emissions per capita are “miniscule” in comparison to developed countries and that India still maintains the status of a developing country Most countries agreed to work towards the “phase out” of coal, however due to India and China advocating against the complete removal of coal due to how they operate and the value coal provides for industrial operations in both countries. Due to this, the COP26 president, Alok Sharma, had to revise the wording and make it the “phase down” of coal, which in turn will still lead to the usage and consumption of coal therefore resulting in harmful emissions and greenhouse gasses that play a significant role in overall global warming.
On the basis of COP26’s outcome and the efforts before our thesis question is: How can we make countries take responsibility for their actions?
Proposal: Technocentrism
As mentioned before, the heavy usage of coal along with various other factors has led to a detrimental outcome for the environment and life as we know it. Countless countries, governments, groups and individuals have recognized this problem and have made commendable efforts to play their part in the reduction of emissions to better secure our world. To combat carbon emissions along with other emissions there have been policies implemented and new ideas sparking innovation and technological advancements that can help in emission control.
People have attempted to use technology to find solutions to our environmental problems or at least work towards the virtue of sustainable development, known as technocentrism. An example of technology working to control and protect the environment is the usage of carbon capture. When coal is used and burnt industrially and domestically it releases a great deal of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, much more than other fossil fuels. The carbon dioxide that gets released plays a part in making the atmosphere hotter, therefore leading to an average increase in temperature i.e, global warming.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies work to trap the carbon emissions released from industrial use, therefore stopping it from entering the earth’s atmosphere and stores the carbon dioxide.
The merits of carbon capture are quite valuable when examined. Carbon capture stores more than 90% of carbon dioxide from industrial facilities. This marks the exceptional efficiency at which it functions. Due to its efficiency and function, there is less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere therefore decreasing overall emission and subsequently decreasing global temperatures (global warming).
Although carbon capture is efficient and serves its purpose it has its drawbacks. Carbon captures are expensive and can be compared to the cost of adopting renewable sources of energy. In addition to that, the rollout of more CCS plants has been quite slow [6] due to the level of complexity in making them.
Looking at the merits and demerits of CCS, it seems to be a promising solution as long as there is efficient rollout and funding provided.
Policy/ Regulations
In this modern age a few countries emit a significant amount of greenhouse gasses when compared to other countries around the world, for example the United States and China. But luckily after the COP26 some of the more developed countries decided to act on previously existing initiatives and work towards a greener tomorrow by increasing the usage of renewable energy sources and technologies as well as making plans to put this idea into effect in the near future.
A few advantages of such a notion agreed upon by countries across the world is that it boosts public morality and teamwork towards bringing about change in the aspect of a cleaner tomorrow without looking at the notion of boundaries of language and culture. Another advantage is obviously the conserving of our environment for ourselves and our kids. If we look at the triple bottom line we can see that a healthy society can only stem from a healthy environment and likewise for a healthy economy.
A disadvantage though is the unclear and opaque planning of this idea. There is not much information on the internet pertaining to the plan and thus it is either confidential for specific reasons, good or bad, or the plan is not concrete yet. And if it follows in the footsteps of previous unfinished plans in history, then the conference was ultimately a waste of time. From the generality of the information given and the opacity of the situation it can not be said there is a clear advantage or disadvantage of the notion put forward during the COP26, all can be said is that we wait for further details and push the incentives of the plan towards a more advantageous and efficient future.
In the previous years, there have been multiple efforts and promising improvements in attitudes, policies, regulations and technological advancements towards the use of renewable resource use and curbing emissions. However, if we’re looking for change, we must take responsibility. Originally, wealthier countries had come to a consensus that they would channel $100 billion to Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs). The money was meant to be in the form of grants and was supposed to aid in development without the (excessive) use of non-renewable resources. However, this failed to happen. The money was given on the basis of loans, creating more global debt and the total didn’t amount to the $100 billion. Therefore our solution revolves around a similar policy.
Recommendation
Our solution is the implementation of a new policy that revolves around imposing a levy on countries that surpass a certain threshold in emissions. This levy will be a supplemental charge to the already existing permits and taxes the (excessive) use of coal and other emissions. The sum collected would be used towards redistribution in LEDCs for the use of renewable energy that is more costly. It would also be invested in Research and Development towards technological solutions in terms of emissions and controlling the release of toxic waste, greenhouse gasses, etc…As an incentive for the application of CCS, the fee would be waived for the power stations that have CCS installed.
In addition to that, there is a principal fee that will be implemented for the basic use of coal. It will not be dependent on the amount of coal used, it would be a flat price for the use of it. The amount collected through the principal fee would also be for the LEDCs that have no alternative source of energy other than coal as a cheap source of energy. The fund could be used for the implementation of emission control techniques in the initial stages of following this policy and steadily switching to the usage of renewable energy sources.
Through this policy we hope to instill a sense of responsibility through means of financial burden on countries. In addition to that, the economic results will be beneficial. This is because the funds used towards R&D, grants, etc… will all help find better alternative sources of energy, thereby ceasing the damage being done to the environment. Also, the LEDCs will be able to slowly transition into a sustainable economic ecosystem with the affordability of clean energy as a result of the funding provided thereby giving stimuli towards economic growth and a decrease in emissions.
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