Sascha Müller-Kraenner, European Representative of The Nature Conservancy
Foreign policy, European integration and environmental policy are subjects of predilection for Sascha Müller-Kraenner and questions on which he has extensively published in the past. He previously worked for the Heinrich Böll Foundation as director for Europe/North America, head of the program on foreign and security policy, and founding director for the North American office in Washington DC. He is now the European Representative of The Nature Conservancy, a leading international conservation organization with over one million members and
active in more than thirty countries. He is also a Senior Policy Advisor to Ecologic, the Berlin based institute for international and European environmental policy. In the spring of 2007 he published a book entitled "Energiesicherheit - Die neue Vermessung der Welt," which focused on energy security. An English
language version will be published by Earthscan (London) in autumn 2008.
1.
You noted in your Op-Ed on atlantic-community.org the importance of strengthening the transatlantic relationship with regard to climate change. How would you suggest going about strengthening this relationship?
The next US administration has to start its term with a clear signal that America will re-engage with the negotiations for a comprehensive global climate change agreement in the UN context. The US will have to give up side tracks, as their so called "major emitters" approach, that have deliberately tried to undermine the UN process.
Europe, on the other hand, has to make clear that a functioning transatlantic policy coordination, ranging from common market rules to the support for technological breakthroughs in areas from renewables to carbon capture and storage, remains the basis of global leadership on the climate issue. The European emission trading system (EU ETS) is a prime example of common political and intellectual leadership. The idea was conceived by the US, first implemented in the EU, and should now be expanded into the transatlantic space.
2. What are your priorities for the Nature Conservancy and Ecologic? How do these organizations contribute to the success of international summits such as Bali?
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is one of the major conservation organisations worldwide. We supportpolicy changes as well as on the ground sustainable development projects in countries ranging from the US to Brazil, and from Africa to China. Climate change has emerged as the biggest challenge both for human development and for
conservation. In the US, The Nature Conservancy supports comprehensive climate change legislation and wants to introduce a national cap and trade system that allows progressive reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and builds a functioning carbon market. Another major priority of the organisation is to use the power of carbon markets to channel funds to the urgent task of tropical forest protection and climate change adaptation in developing countries.
Ecologic is a private not-for-profit think tank for applied environmental research, policy analysis and consultancy with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Vienna and - soon - Washington
DC. An independent, non-partisan body, Ecologic is dedicated to bringing fresh ideas to environmental policies and sustainable development. Ecologic's work programme focuses on obtaining practical results. It covers the entire spectrum of environmental issues, including the integration of environmental concerns into other policy fields. Founded in 1995, Ecologic is a partner in the network of Institutes for European Environmental Policy.
3.
According to a recent survey presented by the British Council, the environment is the number one
international topic of concern in both the US and in many European countries. If this is the case, why are many governments, especially the present US administration, so hesitant to make meaningful commitments and accept responsibility for climate change?
The recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and popular works like Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" have convinced many European and American citizens of the urgency of the climate problem. They demand from their politicians to act. The Bush administration has been slower to realise this than most European governments.
However, annother inconvenient truth is, that the necessary actions to address climate change will demand a real political and financial effort, including strong market incentives as the European emission trading system, massive support for new technologies, and a move away from our car based transport system. Those measuers will all help to modernise our economies and make them even stronger. However, they will also hurt entrenched economic and interests and therefore demand strong political leadership based on conviction and a profound knowledge of the long term
effects our actions have on the climate system.
Mon, Jul 28th 2008, 21:09
Heinrich Bonnenberg, Energiewerke Nord
DGAP, Platinum Contributor (188)
A realistic solution is the use of clean electro-energy in the whole energy market, not only in the traditional market of electricity (running industrial and private machines, trains, household, lighting, information, cooling), but also in the much larger energy markets of heating houses and warming water as well as of driving cars, as even the German Green party is demanding. More electricity is needed with the consequence that we have to have more power plants producing the more of electricity. Following that intention, we all have to consider the economical as well as the technical truths. We all have to know and accept that
1. The CO2-neutral renewable energies (wind, sun etc) are given by nature in a density (Joule per m2) which is much less than the man made demand of energy, mainly in densely populated areas, in most parts of Europe. The collection and concentration of renewable energies are technically difficult and very, in some cases extremely expensive.
2. Natural gas and oil will suffer shortage and their handling and combustion increase the burden by CO2, not to mention their daily increasing prizes.
3. Coal and lignite are enough available, but their combustion produces CO2. A modern constant-load power plant fueled by coal with an output of 1,000 MW needs about 1. 7 millions tons of coal per year and produces about 5 million tons of CO2 per year. This is equivalent to approximately 2.5 billion m3 per year; in mathematical terms, this would amount to a cube measuring approximately 1.4 km x 1.4 km x 1.4 km. CO2 can be liquefied at high pressure, whereby the volume is reduced to 0.27% of the initial volume. In the example just cited, the CO2 would be reduced to a volume of 6.75 million m3, amounting to a cube measuring approximately 190 m x 190 m x 190 m. The above-ground storage of such great volumes of liquefied CO2 would not be possible, because it would require the use of gigantic pressurized containers, which are not feasible. Subterranean final storage of such huge volumes of liquefied CO2 under high pressure is needed. A very expensive high-tech solution has to developed, if at all possible, probally not.
4. Nuclear energy is highly concentrated and less expensive and the operation of the power plants as well as the handling of their spent fuel are technically feasible and proved about decades, the last mainly because of its small volumes.
In consideration of these facts, we have to accept that one essential condition for ameliorating the environmental aspects of future electricity supply is the use of nuclear energy, much more as up to now. Prolongation of operation times of nuclear power plants being already running is nowwhere near sufficient. New nuclear power plants have to be projected and built as soon as possible, instead of combustion power plants, telling the swindle of being capable to avoid the CO2 emission to the environment.
The discussion about future energy supply has to be done honestly and not ideologically. Otherwise our society is running into danger to abandom dangerous dependence of foreign powers, mainly unsecure ones, for environmetally driven esoteric despotism frightening people by telling half-truth. Let us keep fit as an open-minded, high-tech society with allegiance to the truth.