Energy and Climate

“What is this optimism?” said Cacambo.

“Alas!” said Candide, “it is the madness of maintaining that everythingis right when it is wrong.”

--Voltaire, Candide, 1759

Introduction

● Earthlife founded in 1988, environmental justice movement

● Bookchin: All environmental problems are social problems

● Energy policy is NOT just about regulation or implementation of existing laws. In fact, the laws are largely irrelevant without correct political will and societal change

● Context and history are important: Eskom's purpose, minerals energy complex, poverty, inequality, corruption, effective one-party rule, ANC as Marxist-Leninist party with capitalist ideology

Energy and Power

● What is energy? Energy is political power (“In Servitude of Power”)● Lenin said “Communism equals electrification plus Soviet power” ● When energy is in the hands of private business, power flows to

the market. When in hands of the state, power to the centralised bureaucracy. Replicates faults of free market and planned economic allocations: eating mud in times of plenty, mismatch between supplies and needs

● People haven't had power for a very long time and even then only for brief times. Windmills vs watermills for grain milling in Medieval Europe

● Rise of states and industrialisation has meant fossil energy in the hands of state and business elites. Governance failure is failure to implement what governing classes desire, not what people require.

Climate and Africa

● Key Message 1: Climate change will amplify existing health, political and social problems.

● Key Message 2: Poverty Eradication is Number One Social Priority

● Key Message 3: Beyond a certain point, adaptation becomes impossible. World Bank says four degrees now.

● Key Message 4: Even with mitigation, working class and unemployed will face the worst impacts.

Pre-existing Social Relationships that Determine Poor Adaptive Capabilities

A) Poverty: Poor housing, inadequate food & healthcare, often live in polluted areas, over-crowding, lack of employment, low levels of industrialisation and infrastructure

B) Existing Health Status: HIV, malnutrition, cholera, malaria, other diseases, poor mental health

C) Urbanisation, Population Growth, Migration, Displacement and Conflict: These often result in low levels of access to basic services

Nine Climate Risks to Health

1) Heat Stress: Heatwaves, extreme heat, death, hospitalisation

2) Vector-borne disesases: Malaria, Lyme disease (ticks), Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever

3) Food Insecurity, Hunger, Malnutrition: Lifetime effect on the young. Increased risk of developing cancer, obesity, heart disease and diabetes at a later stage in life. Risk of starvation.

Nine Risks Continued

4) Natural Disasters (extreme weather): Floods, fires, storms, landslides, and typhoons. Death, injury, destruction of housing, migration, loss of income.

5) Air Pollution: Changing weather patterns will negatively increase concentrations of key pollutants, PM & Ozone

Nine Risks Continued

6) Communicable Diseases: Cholera, HIV/AIDS, TB, Measles

7) Non-Communicable Diseases: Heart disease, hypertension, cancer, asthma, diabetes.

8) Mental Health: Population already highly stressed. Little support currently. High levels of alcohol and drug abuse.

9) Occupational Health: Temperature rise a big factor. Outside work especially at risk. Mining and agriculture sectors at particular risk

Need for an Unprecedented Energy Transition

1) Traditional Form of Development is Cheap Coal plus Cheap Labour.

2) 4 billion Africans would require 6 to 12 new Saudi Arabia's in oil to live either like Lithuania or Sweden

3) For either climatic or resource issues Africa cannot adopt USA, European or Chinese models. Needs a drastic scaling up of renewable energy.

4) Renewables need to power large scale industry.

5) Unheard of and very challenging form of development.

6) If Africa cannot achieve this and follows China and USA, then the whole world suffers.

• The Environmental Crisis: Peak Coal

South Africa's Energy Transition

1) Almost entirely coal-based, including coal-to-liquids. High levels of pollution, vested interests, and corruption.

2) Old coal-fired plants start to be decommissioned from 2022

3) State run and regulated system. Not liberalised. One utility owned 100% (Eskom) by the state: generation, transmission and distribution. Industry and mining account for about 70% of electricity consumption.

4) Opportunity for great change but will require vast investment by both the state and the private sector: Official split 70% state, 30% private.

5) Need to shift from more coal and nuclear to large-scale renewables. Will require large state investment, technology transfer and development.

Energy Policy Political Foundations

● Eskom Current status: State-owned but given corporate structure, legislated to get positive rate of return, state-backed monopoly

● First order decision: Liberalised energy market, regulated system, or development agenda. Governance & policy follows from this

● We are confused on this issue. Government swings back and forth: National Party used Eskom to prop up Apartheid development, Mbeki headed towards liberalisation, Zuma willing to sacrifice governance for own ends: energy governance is what the party says. A lot of our problems stem from this political and ideological confusion.

● Gwede Mantashe and Alcan smelter example. Chancellor House & Hitachi

South Africa's Nuclear Dystopia

“If you were a utility CEO and looked at your world today, you would just do gas

and wind...You would say [they are] easier to site, digestible today [and] I

don’t have to bet my company on any of this stuff. You would never do nuclear.

The economics are overwhelming.”

South Africa's Nuclear Dystopia

Source: Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, US Nuclear Vendor, Financial Times, Nov.

2007

South Africa's Nuclear Dystopia

● IRP2010 aims for 9600MW nukes ● PBMR: Risen from R2 billion (1999) to R14

billion.● New light water reactors: Over R1 trillion price

tag. ● Decommissioning costs and waste storage

costs not known● Russia likely vendor● Current subsidy to nuclear programme, R600

million a year● Most of subsidy to NECSA, which loses about

R520 million a year.

Conventional energy technologies

Direct jobs per Renewable energy technologies

Direct jobs per

MW capacity

GWh generated

MW capacity

GWh generated

Coal (current) 1.7 0.3 Solar Thermal 5.9 10.4

Coal (future) 3 0.7 Solar PV 35.4 62

Nuclear 0.5 0.1 Wind 4.8 12.6

Nuclear PBMR 1.3 0.2 Biomass 1 5.6

Gas 1.2 0.1 Landfills 6.0 23

Localisation

Policy Engagement

● Policy is an ideological conflict. Private wills vs the general will

● This ideological conflict is an expression of political & economic power: Government, labour, business, civil society are in low-level kind of “long war”

● Two types of policy engagement: Negative and Positive● Most policy engagement takes negative approach.

Prevention of government policy being realised.● A negative strategy is highly effective. It neuters

policies (good or bad), often done behind closed doors, courts as last resort. Favours the status quo.

Policy Engagement

● Positive engagement is much harder, if for no other reason that politicians have to agree

● The attempt to get an idea into policy that changes the status quo and does so meaningfully

● Rational argument is not enough, broad social mobilisation is required

● People, media, intellectuals and power bases like religions need to be able to overwhelm the negative approach of those that oppose

● The more fundamental the change required by the policy, the greater the societal pressure needs to be

Climate & Energy Governance Policy Challenges

●Forward looking: Politicians have short-term priorities●Lengthy processes: Facts move faster than policy, our carbon emissions higher than expected during policy formulation

●Significant opposition: Mining companies, oil, coal % gas companies, electricity utilities, deep vested interests

●Resource inequality: Organisations and industries contrary to climate action tend to be well-resourced.

●International negotiations: Continued and likely failure.●Scope: Overturning Industrial Revolution

“The triumph of an economic system founded on separation leads to the proletarianization of the world.”--Guy Debord

"[S]urplus capital will never be utilized for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists..."--V.I. Lenin

Failure of Liberalism?

Climate change is a test of not only the world's political and social systems but also of the political philosophy that underlies those systems. Basically, as climate change is a clear and present threat to our welfare and civilisation, and as the current political and moral systems have failed to address this system, we have a fundamental failing of political and moral philosophy, namely that it is inadequate to deal with problems like climate change.

Four Examples of Energy Policy

● Example 1: US Clean Air Act of 1970 and Changing Political Values

● Example 2: South Africa's Air Quality Legislation and Minimum Emissions Standards: Eskom screws the Constitution. Profound governance failure

● Example 3: Carbon Taxation, How Treasury is Undermining its Own Policy opposed to the Australian Scorched Earth Culture War

● Example 4: IRP2010 update and nuclear power. Profound short cutting of governance

Successful Energy & Climate Policy?

● Prolonged engagement by society: academia, professional, unions,

● Building on existing legislation● Incorporation of economic, trade, and science

policy into energy policy. Energy is not a single issue

● Societal change via culture war● Successful conflict that overturns power of

vested interests● Increased democracy and democratic values

Thank you.

www.earthlife.org.za