ISIS Report 04/08/08
The EU Agora on Climate Change
Sam Burcher reviews
the meeting in Brussels
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A third industrial revolution for Europe
The Citizens Agora is an annual meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels
that brings together civil society from networks, organizations and groups
from all around the European Union and beyond to contribute to the decision
making processes of the EU commissioners, on this occasion focussing on
Climate Change [1]. The Agora is a word that dates back to 900-700
BC meaning ‘a place of assembly’
in ancient Greek city-states [2]. Thankfully, at the
21st Century EU Agora many women representatives were among the 500 participants.
Gerard Onesta is one of the fourteen Vice Presidents of the EU, a French
Green Party member and the organizer of the Agora. He greeted us all in the
spacious and high roofed hemicycle, and introduced a ‘key witness’ to the
climate issue, Jeremy Rifkin, the President and
founder of the Foundation on Economic Trends. Rifkin is influential
in both US and European policy making [3] and is perhaps best known for his commitment to renewable hydrogen technology.
At the heart of his plans for Europe is the “Third Industrial Revolution”, a powerful
economic narrative that lays the groundwork for a post carbon future [4].
However, this implies that the economy is to be placed centre stage as it
was with the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, which have without doubt
contributed to climate change. So profound is the effect of post industrialism
on the planet that experts believe that changes brought about by human behavior
have ushered in a new Anthropocene era [5].
Climatologist James Hansen, head
of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says that the EU CO2
target of 550 ppm, which is already the most
stringent of any Government, must be slashed to 350 ppm if “humanity wishes
to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization has developed.”
Hansen’s report [6] shows that a rise of CO2 levels to 550ppm would
result in a rise of 6 degrees Celsius by the end of
the century, double the previous estimates that
predicted catastrophic effects for life on earth.
A new energy for Europe
Rifkin is well aware of the threat of climate change as he
sets out his stall for a “New Social Europe” to accompany his new economic
vision. He sees oil, coal and natural gas
continue to provide the lion share of the EU’s
energy well into the 21st century. But this, he says, will be
offset by a commitment to renewable energy to increase energy efficiency by
20 percent by 2020 and to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent by
2020, a strategy alliteratively known as “20/20 by 2020,” so called to encourage
a media hook.
According to Rifkin, energy efficiency can be achieved
by creating a renewable energy scenario where millions of people
can collect and produce locally generated renewable energy in their homes,
offices, factories, shopping centres and vehicles. The energy can be stored
in the form of hydrogen and the power generated can be shared across Europe-wide
using smart inter-grids technology. There is no lack of political will behind
his proposed scheme of buildings acting as renewable energy “power plants”
as well as habitats. And the money is there too. The European Investment Bank
is investing in renewable technologies at the rate of 800 million euros per
year.
Biogas not biofuels key to zero carbon initiatives
Greenpeace has confirmed the urgency of a 30 percent
reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 [7]. The EU is willing to take
on this added challenge, encouraged by the President
of the EU Commission, but is divided on the issue [8]; the strong possibility that the extra 10 percent
C02 reduction will be met by biofuels is inadvisable (See Biofuels: Biodevastation,
Hunger & False Carbon Credits [9].) A truly sustainable way of providing the extra
10 percent of both CO2 reduction and energy efficiency required
by 2020 would be to invest in zero carbon initiatives such as biogas, which
unlike biofuels (and there was confusion between the two by the translators
at the European Parliament) is an infinitely renewable energy resource made
from already existing household and farm wastes
(see How to Beat Climate Change & Post
Fossil Fuel Economy [10].)
The advantage of recycling freely
available wastes within closed energy systems is
that it meets not just the demands of sustainable living, but also
works within an ecologically efficient paradigm. Biogas production by small
to medium farming communities in developing countries (See Biogas
Bonanza for Third World Development [11]) has the potential to provide the “energy equity”
put forward by Rifkin [4]. His proposal of
hydrogen capture and storage as the main source of global energy and the rolling
out of a Third Industrial Revolution for developing countries implies a host
of cultural, social and political assumptions, not least that local, cost-effective
and resource saving solutions may be overlooked, such as anaerobic digestion
of biological wastes to produce biogas. However, Rifkin reassuringly acknowledges
the need for all governments to explore zero carbon strategies to deal with
the pressing problems of peak oil (See Which Energy? [12], and to establish new economic
models. New models for the third world can be brought
about by re-orientating development aid, leveraging small and large financing
and credit, and favoured-nation trade status to developing nations, he said
[4]. He also praised the efforts of people concerned with the protection of
forests and proposed that compensation be given to those that had not cut
down forest.
Towards the Copenhagen Climate Summit 2009
The EU President and Vice Presidents made a solemn declaration
to the Agora that they have drawn
upon the international agreements of the Kyoto Protocol, but now seek a consensus
on climate decisions for the temporary Climate Change Committee. The consensus
will be handed on to the next EU Government in 2009 and presented as a Climate
Change Package to the Copenhagen Climate
Summit in 2009, and initiated in 2012. To
that end the Agora participants were divided into five thematic groups consisting
of Resources, Techniques, Solidarities, Economies and Governance to thrash
out the working papers. I was directed to Workshop ‘A’ Resources where the
search was on for reliable indicators for protecting biodiversity.
In the open workshop debate I drew the attention of keynote speaker Jacqueline
McGlade, the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, to the
recently published reports by the IAAASTD [13] and ISIS’s Food Futures Now
Food Futures Now *Organic *Sustainable
*Fossil Fuel Free [14] that strongly recommends a cautious
approach to biofuels and fundamental changes in global agriculture to significantly
mitigate CO2 emissions by the regeneration of degraded soils and
desert lands through organic composting and tree-planting schemes. McGlade, who is not in favour of biofuels for road transport,
thinks that the most cost-effective way of using European biomass is for electricity
and heat. And, that feedstock should be used for the appropriate purposes,
i.e. feeding people. She said that the OECD Environmental Outlook projects food and biofuel production
together will require a 10 per cent increase in farmland worldwide by 2030
to cope with the projected increase in global food demand and agricultural
land area due to world population growth from 6.5 billion to over 8.2 billion
people in 2030 and increasing average incomes. She believes that Europe should
seek to generate as much of its bio-energy as possible domestically, while
sustaining a balance between food, fuel and fibre production, and without
compromising ecosystem services.
Agora participants against nuclear energy
By far the most hotly debated topic, and one greeted with fear
and loathing by the majority of participants at the Agora is the possibility
of nuclear energy being misconstrued as a likely candidate for renewable energy.
I pointed out that nuclear energy is not a renewable
energy and that it is an environmentally dangerous and uneconomical finite
energy source (See Energy Strategies in Global Warming:
Is Nuclear Energy the Answer? [15]). I was supported by my Agora colleagues; Michel
Mosser of SimEurope, dubbed “man in black”
by workshop moderators because of his Machiavellian
intelligence. Harry Wijnberg of LISER representing
environmental refugees from Chernobyl
and Serban Miron Copot from the NGO Generatia Verde said that the Russian
designers of the ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear power plant are presently involved in the construction of a new
nuclear power plant in Bulgaria
[16].
The cultural myth that nuclear energy provides an environmentally sustainable
and stable source of energy for Europe has been well and truly dispelled (see Which
Energy? ). However, the French
Government, who depend on nuclear for 80 percent of its electricity supply
is relentlessly promoting its nuclear agenda [17]
and underplayed the recent nuclear accident in Avignon where 8 000 gallons
of uranium contaminated solution spilled into the Gaffeire and Lauzon rivers
about 25 miles from the city of Avignon [18]. The French President Sarkozy
has stalked the African states pressing for a nuclear power plant building
programme and since the G8 meeting in Japan the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown
has approved at least eight new nuclear power stations to be built rapidly
under fast track planning procedures in the UK [19] some on coastal sites
that are vulnerable to flooding and land erosion from climate change [20].
Public and independent scientific opinion in Europe
has similarly dismissed the myth of GM crops see Keep GM Out of Europe! [21].) And the transference of industry’s hope for GM crops from food to biofuels
has also been debunked (see Food Without Fossil
Fuels Now [22], as it is clear that biofuels
are made from food crops that would otherwise feed billions of people and
the current food and fuel crisis has been precipitated by the huge divestment
of maize harvests into producing ethanol in the US.
Renewable energy is on the up
The European Institution’s solemn declarations [1] sets out
a positive agenda for sustainable policy on climate change that aims to shrink
its own carbon footprint. In an effort to lead by example the EU Parliament
itself plans to be the biggest energy self sufficient building in Europe. The EU’s climate change policy must continue to integrate research and
investment into safe and clean renewable technologies such as solar, wind
and wave power that have been poised to provide Europe’s growing energy needs for almost two decades.
Deep blue solar fields have transformed the economic landscape in Solar Valley, near Leipzig in Germany [23]. Photovoltaic sales have increased 10-fold since 2003
to 5.5 billion euros in 2007. The Germans are also the biggest users of wind
power providing 7.2 percent of electricity from wind. A total of 14.2 percent
of electricity is generated by their combined renewable energy efforts and 250 000 new jobs have
been created. But government subsidies
are already being withdrawn from this area and manufacturers fear that production
will be outsourced from Europe.
Marine power off the coast of Scotland currently contributes to 4 percent of UK total electricity consumption. It has the potential to deliver up to
20 percent of the UK’s current electricity
needs by 2020 [24]. A preference for tidal
turbines has been expressed by environmental NGO’s, but the UK Government
is not rushing to fund wave power, and this
has stymied its development. In contrast, Norway already provides 99 percent of its electricity through hydropower. Floating
wind turbines have realized the dreams of the Mayor of Utsira, Norway’s smallest island and meteorological station
[25]. The proposed zero emissions island
hopes to combat the 2 degree rise in average temperature since records began
there in 1868.
Agora produces coherent results
The Agora on climate change threw up interesting challenges
and debates between civil society, the co-moderators and the ‘redactors’
whose task was to edit the multiple source texts into a single work.
However, hard fought arguments put forward by participants in the Resources
workshop on the big issues such as renewable energy, protection of land, water
and forest resources and marine and ecosystem conservation were diffused overnight
by a change in co-moderators on the second day of the workshop. This meant
that the texts lost their power overnight, and
had to be revised and strengthened. In the general assembly that followed, the redactors
presented a coherent set of working papers
from all the workshops, and that made the intensity of the process worthwhile.
Rifkin says that the Third Industrial Revolution will require innovative
educational reforms [4]. A specific Education workshop would therefore have
been a useful addition to the Citizens Agora to examine its purpose within
a new social Europe. Current trends
in Education for Sustainability suggest that a better quality of life may
not be brought about by simply shifting from one Industrial Revolution to
another, but must involve a paradigm shift towards the importance of the organic
relationship between people and their environment. This entails responsible
co-operation with nature [26]. It is the
restoration of the organic “missing link” from the era of competitive economics
that will unleash the creative potential of the European citizen to create
a sustainable society within a secure and peaceful EU.
Overall it must be said that the Citizens Agora is a real opportunity for
civil society to have their voices heard and to make direct contributions
to the policy making decisions of the European Union. It’s a revival of a
tradition of participation that should continue
well into the future, and one that the UK Parliament would do well
to emulate, especially on the issue of nuclear energy.
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