Twenty years ago, I led a trade mission to China, promoting clean coal technologies in which the UK and particularly Scotland had world-leading manufacturing companies. It taught me a few lessons that have stayed with me.
First, China would be burning coal for a long time to come. Second, it had excellent reasons of its own to reduce emissions and clean up the putrid air of its cities. Third, it made complete sense to sell them the technologies that would help them to do so.
It also raised a conundrum which I have never heard properly addressed. How effective in terms of global emissions could it be for China to burn coal more cleanly compared to everything that was being done in the world to transition away from fossil fuels?
For some, that was an uncomfortable question because it invoked issues of relativity and proportionality rather than absolutism.
The idea that there are different routes to the same end does not appeal to single-issue campaigners. Cleaning up Chinese coal generation would not have made a banner to march under.
A few years later, that trade mission would have been impossible under government auspices because of a gesture-signalling ban on promoting anything connected with fossil fuels.
That included equipment developed and manufactured in the UK which allowed other countries to go about their business in a more environmentally friendly way. How daft was that?
The implied argument inherent in the Chinese question was not, of course, against promoting renewables and other cleaner sources of energy, as we were doing very effectively at that time. It was simply to maintain a sense of proportion and resist the equation of unilateral actions with virtue regardless of global context.
I was reminded of these basic facts of life by China’s role in COP28 where it exerted considerable influence over the final wording of the declaration that emerged – a fine balancing act between offering a long-term commitment to phasing out fossil fuels and recognising the realities of the world as it is.
China is responsible for almost one-third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. It is also by far the biggest user of coal and continues to build new coal power plants like there was no tomorrow. Whatever it commits to internationally has to be reconciled with that context.
The most recent statistics on global energy consumption show that the share provided from fossil fuels continues to sit resolutely at 82 per cent which is pretty much where it was 20 years ago. The contribution of non-oil, gas or coal sources has matched the increased consumption that has arisen within that period, without denting the massive base.
So the questions of how fossil fuels are used and produced continue to be at least as important in the climate change debate as the transition away from using them, and that will continue to be the case for decades to come. Yet it is an aspect of the debate to which relatively little attention is paid.
The reason for this is not hard to find. Environmentalists, with honourable exceptions, want to present options in black and white, whereas, in terms of energy production, the world is disappointingly grey.
Progress is being made but transition on a global scale is genuinely difficult, for reasons which the statistics confirm.
Coal continues to be the dominant source of power generation, clocking up 35 per cent of the total. Renewables kick in at around 12 per cent and growing. But, 20 years on, that same enigma remains as prominent as ever.
How – not whether – coal is used continues to be probably the single biggest issue determining global emissions.
While China continues to account for half of the world’s coal consumption, it also shows the biggest increases in the deployment of solar and wind power, with massive plans for further expansion.
Again, there is no contradiction. They know what they need to do, for their own internal reasons as well as any international commitments.
No country is going to abandon the generation source on which its economy is built. And that goes a long way towards explaining why 35 per cent of the world’s power generation still comes from coal with India, as well as China, hugely dependent. And let’s not forget that the United States is still the world’s third largest coal user, with Germany the fourth.
The reason for the German statistic is, of course, that coal dependency was accepted as a price to pay for running down the nuclear power industry.
In environmental terms, that had no rationale whatsoever and was an obvious example of where single-issue campaigning leads; an example sadly followed by the UK with the same counter-productive outcomes.
My hope for 2024 is that we get better, here at home, in seeing these issues through the prism of proportionality.
There was never any sense in prematurely running down the North Sea industry while continuing to depend to such a significant extent on fossil fuels. That makes no sense in fiscal, economic or energy security terms.
The focus needs to be on ensuring that “just transition” is more than a slogan. We cannot change the world and should stop pretending otherwise.
It is enough of a challenge to deliver a competent and proportionate response to the achievable objectives which are within our power to deliver.
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