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		<title>How would you shape the post-carbon economy?</title>
		<description>Discuss How would you shape the post-carbon economy?</description>
		<link>http://www.cbnex.com/questions-answers/how-would-you-shape-the-post-carbon-economy.html</link>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:16:00 +0100</lastBuildDate>
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			<title>AnaDP says:</title>
			<link>http://www.cbnex.com/questions-answers/how-would-you-shape-the-post-carbon-economy.html#comment-107</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I found this by Eric D. Beinhocker and Jeremy Oppenheim, I think it´s very interesting and I have now a better idea of the Postcarbon economy.
There are five components in the transition to a postcarbon economy. The first is improving energy efficiency—the low-hanging fruit of the Clean Energy Revolution. Work by the McKinsey Global Institute shows that by investing in such priorities as better building efficiency, low-energy lighting, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and best-practice industrial processes, world energy demand growth can be cut by more than 64 million barrels of oil per day—a savings that’s equal to one-and-a-half times current US energy consumption. Tightening up on today’s energy inefficiency would more than pay for itself: while it would require an additional $170 billion per year over the next 13 years, that investment would generate an economy-wide return of more than $900 billion per year by 2020, simply through reduced energy use. With an average annual rate of return of 17 percent or more, this would clearly be a good investment both for energy security and for the economy.
Second is decarbonizing the energy supply. There is no one technology that is the answer—no silver bullet. Rather we have a broad set of technologies, ranging from wind to solar, geothermal, biomass, small-scale hydro, and others that are in a race to become cost competitive with traditional fossil fuel sources. Such competition across technologies is good as it is driving significant innovation. While renewables have the potential to play a major role, countries such as China, India, and the United States will likely still have lots of coal—the highest-emitting energy source—in their energy mix for a variety of reasons. This makes carbon capture and storage technology critical. CCS captures carbon emissions from the power generation process and stores the gases in geological formations (for example, empty natural-gas reservoirs) deep underground or beneath the ocean floor. This technology has been proven in the oil and gas sector but needs to be proven at scale in the power sector.
Third, in transport there is a similar technology and innovation race. The competitors range from advanced internal-combustion engines that sip fuel; to new hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric-vehicle designs; to next-generation biofuels that are both more environmentally sustainable and offer a greater energy punch than the current generation does.
Fourth, we need to save and expand the world’s forests. Forests are the world’s lungs, inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen. Logging, farming, and other human activity has caused a massive and accelerating loss in forest cover over the past decades. Keeping trees standing is one of the cheapest ways to address climate change. And if we let them go, there is almost no hope of avoiding very negative climate impacts.
Last is behavior. Managers and consumers make scores of decisions on a daily basis that drive energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. If those decisions were to be deflected in a low-carbon direction through a combination of economic incentives (for example, a price on carbon) and a shift in values and attitudes (for instance, just as attitudes towards smoking have changed), the impact would be hard to quantify but potentially massive.
Just one small example: Wal-Mart Stores made a commitment through the Clinton Global Initiative to sell only concentrated laundry detergents, which it estimates will save 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic, and 125 million pounds of cardboard, not to mention the energy and carbon emissions to manufacture and transport this unnecessary material. Independent studies show that concentrated detergents have 20 percent lower carbon emissions through their life cycles than do traditional products. This involved no loss of convenience to consumers, but by taking the carbon into account in the product and packaging design, the managers of Wal-Mart and their suppliers cut emissions.
While some of these changes might occur naturally as the economy evolves, the degree of change required to deliver a tenfold increase in carbon productivity within the time frame required will not happen on its own. At the present rate of improvement, achieving such a rise would take almost 200 years. To achieve the structural changes that the global economy requires, enacting new incentives and policies—most urgently, putting a price on the carbon we emit either through a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax—is indispensable on both the national and global levels. Stronger energy-efficiency standards, transition incentives for renewables, expanded funding for research and development, and strong steps toward valuing and protecting the world’s carbon-absorbing forests will all be critical steps. It will also be important to provide support to developing countries. They have the least historical responsibility for the emissions currently in the atmosphere, will be among the worst affected by climate impacts, and have the fewest resources to mitigate emissions and adapt to climate change.
We have no choice but to put the world on the path to a low-carbon economy within the next decade, or face unacceptable risks to our future. But we must also continue to seek opportunities for economic growth worldwide to create opportunity in the developed world and to enable the citizens of the developing world to make their escape from poverty. The challenge is to do both—and carbon productivity is the yardstick by which we can measure our progress on that journey. Through policies that mobilize the creativity and innovation of the private sector, we can unleash a Clean Energy Revolution that will remake the unsustainable energy system that was created during the Industrial Revolution. It is time to begin creating the postcarbon world.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>AnaDP</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:30:35 +0100</pubDate>
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