Intense Deception in Carbon Emissions

There's little secret that last year's meeting to address climate change in Copenhagen was a poorly organized, dismal failure. The participants have now, however, all submitted their plans as required to reduce their impact on the global climate. The delusion and deception continued.

In the deception column put China's statement that it will cut carbon intensity by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, pretty good anyway. Science tells us that we need an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050 to stave off the worst of climate change. But, still, China's got an ambitious goal.

Does it? What's this "intensity" stuff?

China seems to be promising (actually "voluntarily committing") to cut its carbon emissions. But the carbon intensity has a very specific meaning. It is the amount of carbon emissions produced per unit of output, in this case Gross Domestic Product. Taken that way, these goals suddenly become easier to achieve.

Take a look at the graph (supplied by the New York Times). China has undertaken only minimal carbon reduction efforts since 1990, and those mostly in recent years. And yet China's carbon intensity has dropped like a rock, losing almost half its value between 1990 and 2000 when China did nothing at all to reduce emissions. What DID they do? Well, they grew their economy at a prodigious rate. Other economies with a more staid growth rate, such as the US, maintained a more even carbon intensity even though the US was for the majority of this time the largest carbon emitter in the world. Nations with deteriorating economies, such as Iran, had rising carbon intensity as their economies shrank.

So carbon intensity sounds like a good thing. But the problem is that the earth doesn't care about your intensity. It cares about the absolute amount of carbon. And experts believe that China can achieve its 'voluntary' carbon intensity goals, but still increase carbon emissions by 90% over the coming decade.

To be fair, the Bush Administration hid behind this carbon intensity deception as well. Fortunately, the current Administration is more pragmatic in its assessment of what needs to be done, and has now committed to a 17% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. Not so great, but at least it's an actual reduction.

Let's not let anyone get away with a deceptive carbon intensity goal. It's better to have no goals and let the pressure build than to have deceptive goals and have everyone think that something is actually being accomplished.

Paul Birkeland develops Strategic Energy Management Systems for commercial and industrial concerns at Integrated Renewable Energy.