Paradox

Kurt's reference to Jevon's paradox reminds me of the paradox of carbon trading. I don't really understand carbon trading and carbon tax, etc, but working on a small hydro-electric project in Pakistan, I encountered this odd concept and began to understand something I learned a lot more about this past year. That is, how trends in development are just that and words like sustainable and low-carbon and renewable energy are often understood in very narrow or vague terms, or simply not understood at all.

Here's how I understand carbon trading in terms of renewable energy development. Industry around the world generates carbon and that carbon contributes to the stock of greenhouse gases in the environment. Say there are 100 tonnes being produced at a given time (obviously the real figure is many of orders of magnitude higher). Well, the producers of the 100 tonnes are given a choice, they can either reduce their overall output of carbon or they can pay someone else, in the form of a carbon tax, who is reducing their output of carbon, more or less. The irony of this scheme, however, is that this carbon tax can be used to fund the development of new low or zero-emissions energy generation facitilities, such as small rural hydro-electric plants in developing countries. So let's say the producers of the 100 tonnes pay $10 in carbon tax instead of reducing their outputs by 1 tonne. That $10 can be used to fund new zero emissions energy production.

But in reality, nothing is zero emissions. The development, installation and maintenance of a small hydro facility contributes to carbon emissions. So let's say the new hydro facility generates 1 tonne of carbon. The new net total production of carbon in our hypothetical world is now 101 tonnes. While this is less than if a small coal-fired plant had been built instead of the hydro facility it still represents a net increase. Not only this but the industrial producer has "offset" his carbon production not by paying for reduction somewhere else but by funding a new increase in carbon production. While I fully support the development of rural hydro electric facilities I see this aspect of the carbon tax system as illusory. It claims to do one thing but results in the opposite effect. A paradox.

While I stated in an earlier post that development studies seems to downplay issues around environmental sustainability, it does provide insight into the paradoxical nature of the climate change agenda more generally. As with so many trends in development, efforts to combat climate change often reveal an "add climate change and stir" approach. In other words it's business as usual with programs around climate change bolted on. Furthermore, mitigating against climate change is often talked about more in terms of shielding populations and geographies from the effects of climate change rather than actually taking steps to slow and ultimately reverse it.

On a personal note I should mention that I'm now living in London and have recently started a job with Crown Agents, an international development consultancy. More on that later, perhaps.

Jordan (London)

Reuse.

I want to begin by mentioning that in my last posting I specifically avoided any mention of efficiency. I find that in North America the concept of "reducing" has come to mean using things more efficiently, not to actually reduce the things we do.
In other words, when your electric utility sends out a pamphlet on reducing electricity by using CFL bulbs or turning off power bars they are saying, Please use electricity more efficiently. I'm guessing no one has ever received a brochure with the headline, "Please don't buy any more electronics", or "Do you really need that PS3, you already have a Wii!". That kind of talk is completely taboo in our culture, maybe for the same reasons that environmentalism doesn't come up in development talks.

The truth is, increases in efficiencies often lead to increases in consumption. This is called the Jevons Paradox after William Stanley Jevons who "observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries" (1). (Vaclav Smil also refers to this trend in his, "Energy: A Beginner's Guide"

But moving on, having reduced what we do and use as much as possible, then the next step is to use those items (or energy) as efficiently as possible. And this is where I will get anecdotal.
In North America we have a strong culture of preparedness. We like to have a flashlight by the bed, in the car, for camping, for the kids and a couple for random use. We have a bike for on the road, on the trails, going to work in summer, going to work in winter, cruising with the kids. I could go on and one and on.
This kind of mentality simply does not exist in much of the world. I remember realizing that the hospital across the road from us had one spare tire for multiple vehicles and that one person had a jack that was used all around town. (Sadly, when I tried to use it once I learned that it didn't really work.) Obviously when any of these items were needed it may not have been convenient (think of an ambulance having a flat while picking up a patient and the spare is 10km away) but in terms of efficiency (ie how often an item is used over it's lifetime), it's very impressive. These conditions exist for a number of reasons but most significantly because of economic reasons; people in the developing world simply do not have the economic means or buffer to afford to have resources that are rarely used.
By bringing these countries to our level of economics (I won't say whether it is bringing them up or down) we are simply enabling them to be less efficient with other resources. Cash went farther, much farther, in Tanzania than it does in North America or Europe. Taking this as an indicator of efficiency and assuming that everyone wants to use money efficiently indicates that we should be trying to emulate some of their economics. As the unsustainable nature of our developed world lifestyle becomes more and more evident we will be forced to reduce because we will not have the economic means to support the over head of resources that we are used to in our culture of preparedness.

I believe that the environment provides the foundation for our complex economic, social and political and as it crumbles away so will our systems that were built upon it. And, debt limits and Euro-zone troubles aside, I think our economic system will be the next system to drastically change (fall?), in face of fact that the earth is a zero-sum equation and things have to balance out. (For more on this read, "Energy Autonomy" by Hermann Scheer who actually takes it a step further and says that we need to start living sustainably as a means to protect our political system.)

Kurtis (in Waterloo)

Apologies for the long hiatus in postings - summer vacation was upon us! efficiency