A few days in China acts as a great corrective to all assumptions about energy policy and priorities, both domestically and globally.
Put simply – no matter how noble our aspirations here at home, are we doing any more than nibbling at the edges of the world’s environmental challenges when, at the same time, China and other rapidly developing countries are negating these efforts a thousand-fold, and probably a lot more?
It is both an economic and ethical dilemma. Everyone agrees we should do our bit. But should we shackle UK or Scottish industry and add to the burdens of hard-pressed consumers in the name of green measures, in the knowledge that, overwhelmingly, the real problem lies elsewhere?
As in most matters, I don’t have the answer – other than to plead for a sense of proportion.
I am in favour of carbon reduction measures and have helped to encourage them. But I am also aware that if global warming is the problem, then only globally-applied solutions will make a serious difference.
There is a case for leading by example – but maybe not to an extent that helps lead households into fuel poverty and businesses into bankruptcy.
Without abandoning environmentally-friendly policies, we need to look constantly at what we – or, more important, the environment – are actually getting out of them?
But back to China and at one level, it is like a throwback to the 1950s. The stench of pollution is omnipresent and the smogs that pervade over cities varies only in intensity, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
Heaven knows what the impact must be in terms of health statistics if these were available. But the certainty is that the impact on quality of life is increasingly controversial in a society where expectations and aspirations are rising by the day.
In Beijing, I was told that things have actually got worse as a result of the Olympic Games.
Heavily-polluting industries were forced out of the city in the interests of short-term improvement. However, they are now beyond the reach of the city’s regulators – while the same emissions are blown back into the metropolis.
I was speaking at an event in Wuhan organised by UK Trade International in support of British companies and institutions which can contribute to the urgent Chinese need for products, technologies and partnerships which can help them meet their environmental challenges. And maybe this is where our ethical circle can be squared.
Our biggest contribution towards reducing carbon emissions might not come from renewables or even nuclear power, though the Chinese are trying to expand both on a major scale.
The brutal reality is that they will continue to burn coal, from which they currently obtain 80% of their electricity generation.
So the biggest environmental question in the world is not whether China and kindred countries like Indonesia and Malaysia will continue to burn coal on a massive scale – it is how they will burn it?
And maybe that is where more of the focus should go if we want tangible results rather than mere rhetoric.
There is not much sign of the clean coal elixir – carbon capture and storage – actually approaching reality.
But the best need not be the enemy of the good. There are many interim stages, as we know from our own power stations, between catastrophic pollution and acceptable impacts.
We have excellent companies which can contribute towards that transition and they should be supported.
As it happens, this was a debate which dominated the UN’s 19th Climate Change conference held recently in Warsaw and involving 190 countries.
It seems to have yielded very little largely because the rapidly developing economies – including China, India, Brazil and South Africa – insisted that cuts in carbon emissions had to come from developed countries, rather than from them.
Whatever the finer points of that debate, it is not difficult to sympathise with the principle these countries are advancing.
China, for example, has only now reached the stage of urbanisation that Britain was at in the mid-19th century.
It is both pious and useless to insist that they should commit to reducing carbon emissions while continuing to urbanise and industrialise.
There was a lot of controversy in Warsaw about the presence of the coal lobby, insisting that it can be part of the solution rather than the problem.
In prosperous countries like Australia, where the newly-elected Conservative government is undoing all its predecessors moves away from coal dependency, that stance is retrograde and irresponsible.
But China is different. No matter how hard it runs on other technologies, it is not going to keep up with the demands of industrialisation for energy.
So coal will continue to represent the default position – even though everyone knows the downsides from daily experience. If we can help them out of that dilemma, while boosting trade at the same time, then we should do so.
And then we come back to the question of perspective. Quite frankly, Scotland’s “100% renewables” pledge is not going to make very much difference on the global scale, even if it proves to be credible – which is itself extremely doubtful.
Does Scotland’s population of 5million versus 1.4billion in China help explain my point?
We might be much better maintaining a balanced energy policy at home – and making our major contribution to the fight against global warming through our technologies and industries, rather than depending on the somewhat vacuous business of headline-grabbing targets.
Note: See Dick Winchester’s commentary on the parlous state of research and development support in the UK on Page 8.
A few days in China acts as a great corrective to all assumptions about energy policy and priorities, both domestically and globally.
Put simply – no matter how noble our aspirations here at home, are we doing any more than nibbling at the edges of the world’s environmental challenges when, at the same time, China and other rapidly developing countries are negating these efforts a thousand-fold, and probably a lot more?
It is both an economic and ethical dilemma. Everyone agrees we should do our bit. But should we shackle UK or Scottish industry and add to the burdens of hard-pressed consumers in the name of green measures, in the knowledge that, overwhelmingly, the real problem lies elsewhere?
As in most matters, I don’t have the answer – other than to plead for a sense of proportion.
I am in favour of carbon reduction measures and have helped to encourage them. But I am also aware that if global warming is the problem, then only globally-applied solutions will make a serious difference.
There is a case for leading by example – but maybe not to an extent that helps lead households into fuel poverty and businesses into bankruptcy.
Without abandoning environmentally-friendly policies, we need to look constantly at what we – or, more important, the environment – are actually getting out of them?
But back to China and at one level, it is like a throwback to the 1950s. The stench of pollution is omnipresent and the smogs that pervade over cities varies only in intensity, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
Heaven knows what the impact must be in terms of health statistics if these were available. But the certainty is that the impact on quality of life is increasingly controversial in a society where expectations and aspirations are rising by the day.
In Beijing, I was told that things have actually got worse as a result of the Olympic Games.
Heavily-polluting industries were forced out of the city in the interests of short-term improvement. However, they are now beyond the reach of the city’s regulators – while the same emissions are blown back into the metropolis.
I was speaking at an event in Wuhan organised by UK Trade International in support of British companies and institutions which can contribute to the urgent Chinese need for products, technologies and partnerships which can help them meet their environmental challenges. And maybe this is where our ethical circle can be squared.
Our biggest contribution towards reducing carbon emissions might not come from renewables or even nuclear power, though the Chinese are trying to expand both on a major scale.
The brutal reality is that they will continue to burn coal, from which they currently obtain 80% of their electricity generation.
So the biggest environmental question in the world is not whether China and kindred countries like Indonesia and Malaysia will continue to burn coal on a massive scale – it is how they will burn it?
And maybe that is where more of the focus should go if we want tangible results rather than mere rhetoric.
There is not much sign of the clean coal elixir – carbon capture and storage – actually approaching reality.
But the best need not be the enemy of the good. There are many interim stages, as we know from our own power stations, between catastrophic pollution and acceptable impacts.
We have excellent companies which can contribute towards that transition and they should be supported.
As it happens, this was a debate which dominated the UN’s 19th Climate Change conference held recently in Warsaw and involving 190 countries.
It seems to have yielded very little largely because the rapidly developing economies – including China, India, Brazil and South Africa – insisted that cuts in carbon emissions had to come from developed countries, rather than from them.
Whatever the finer points of that debate, it is not difficult to sympathise with the principle these countries are advancing.
China, for example, has only now reached the stage of urbanisation that Britain was at in the mid-19th century.
It is both pious and useless to insist that they should commit to reducing carbon emissions while continuing to urbanise and industrialise.
There was a lot of controversy in Warsaw about the presence of the coal lobby, insisting that it can be part of the solution rather than the problem.
In prosperous countries like Australia, where the newly-elected Conservative government is undoing all its predecessors moves away from coal dependency, that stance is retrograde and irresponsible.
But China is different. No matter how hard it runs on other technologies, it is not going to keep up with the demands of industrialisation for energy.
So coal will continue to represent the default position – even though everyone knows the downsides from daily experience. If we can help them out of that dilemma, while boosting trade at the same time, then we should do so.
And then we come back to the question of perspective. Quite frankly, Scotland’s “100% renewables” pledge is not going to make very much difference on the global scale, even if it proves to be credible – which is itself extremely doubtful.
Does Scotland’s population of 5million versus 1.4billion in China help explain my point?
We might be much better maintaining a balanced energy policy at home – and making our major contribution to the fight against global warming through our technologies and industries, rather than depending on the somewhat vacuous business of headline-grabbing targets.
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