Energy efficiency and systems growth

How can we live better and look after the place? Books: 'There is No Planet B', 'How Bad are Bananas?', 'The Burning Question'. Mike Berners-Lee

Replying to @DrSimEvans @FT and @IEA

I think the flaw in this is that efficiency usually leads to an even greater increase in output and hence an overall inputs of up not down. That’s the dynamics of systems growth. So, sadly, efficiency does more harm than good until we constrain the carbon.

Roger Harrabin responded: This is the Jevons paradox. I quote wiki:perhaps the most widely known paradox in environmental economics. However, governments and environmentalists generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption, ignoring the possibility of the paradox arising.

Keyne Enys Rowe

@keyne_unable

·

Dec 7

Efficiency *alone* is not enough, but nobody ever said it would be so this talking point feels like a red herring. We have to go bigger in terms of the interventions we will consider and orient them around the desired outcome, dissolving the idea that any one thing will do it.

Peter Myers

@gingamyers

·

Dec 7

Replying to

@RHarrabin

exactly - projects like HS2 enable growth (previous logo below), whether in the form of increased haulage or delivering more passengers for international flights ... ultimately, it's all more damaging activity and is just growing the system at huge economic and environmental cost.

Graph from Global Commission for Urgent Action on Energy Efficiency

from 'Green Jobs'

Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark, 'What's the carbon footprint of ... a new car?'

The Guardian, 23 September 2010. 

This provides the following data for the embodied emissions of manufacturing a new car: 

Citroen C1, 6t CO2e 

Ford Mondeo, 17t CO2e 

Land Rover Discovery, 35t CO2e 

Electric buses are, of course, larger than these but require fewer component parts than fossil fuel equivalents, so we have assumed a broad similarity between a bus and a conventional (petrol-burning) Land Rover, i.e. 35t CO2e per bus. Given an existing bus population of around 39,000 to be converted and the same number of new buses to be manufactured gives a total of 2.76Mt CO2e.

Instead, a radical transformation of society is required which will include our transport system. Now guess where this quote comes from:

“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Without global action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the climate will change catastrophically with almost unimaginable consequences for societies across the world.” 

FROM  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-review-interim-report 

Another apocalyptic warning from climate activists? No, it is the opening statement of an interim report on achieving net zero by 2050 from the ultra-conservative UK Treasury! The unthinkable is becoming thinkable. 

Here we tackle another unthinkable – the abolition of the private car as we transition to a net zero world. Can we live without the private car and, if so, what are the implications for jobs?