Energy and Climate Change
Recognizing the fundamentally important contribution of energy use to the
well-being of society, both nationally and internationally, as well as its
impact on the earth’s climate, governments and industry must cooperate without
delay to develop and put into practice integrated energy and climate policies.
It is now widely recognized that
one of Nature’s most powerful systems regulates the temperature of the Earth’s
surface. The underlying phenomenon of this system is commonly referred to as the
“greenhouse effect”. Some of the “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) that are responsible
for this effect occur naturally; they are, principally, water vapour, carbon
dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. They allow highly penetrating, incoming
solar radiation to pass through the Earth’s atmosphere and to impinge upon the
Earth’s surface. However, they reflect back to the Earth most of the less
penetrating outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface and the lower
atmosphere. This natural process keeps the Earth’s surface temperature about
33ºC warmer than it would be otherwise. Additional GHGs are produced by human
(anthropogenic) activity; these include the four naturally occurring gases and
also hydrofluorocarbons, perfluoro-carbons and sulphur hexafluoride. This
additional contribution exacerbates the greenhouse effect; the full extent of
the effect is still under debate.
During the 1980s and 1990s,
national and international discussions regarding the need for the development of
sustainable energy policies were broadened to include the need for sustainable
climate policies, as a result of the global warming trend that was believed to
be occurring, together with other, sometimes severe, climate changes.
Controversy over the root causes of these phenomena and
their possible consequences arose, in part, because of an ongoing debate in
scientific circles about the relative contributions of the rapidly increasing
concentrations of greenhouse gases and other pollutants in the atmosphere from
industrial sources on the one hand and naturally occurring climate variability
on the other hand. The periodicity of glaciations and the short-term interactive
effects of the sun and of the most abundant greenhouse gas, water vapour, are
often cited as significant factors in causing naturally occurring climate
variability.
The reported increase in the frequency, magnitude and
intensity of cyclones that have occurred in both hemispheres during the past ten
years and authoritative reports by the World Meteorological Organization
and national agencies regarding peak surface temperatures around the world
provide striking evidence for the growing belief that whatever the cause,
natural or human-induced, global warming and other climate changes are matters
of serious concern. The decade of the 1990s was the warmest decade of the
millennium and 1998 was the warmest year of the decade.
It was in this context that a Working Group of Academy Fellows was established
to examine the evidence for global warming and the role of anthropogenic
activities in it, and to suggest future activities of the Academy in this area.
In March 2002, the Academy published a report entitled
Energy and Climate Change – A Canadian Engineering Perspective,
prepared by the Working Group with editorial and other assistance by interested
colleagues. [The report may be read and downloaded at
www.acad-eng-gen.ca]
The conclusions of the Working
Group report were that:
-
there is a strong correlation between the
concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the average surface
temperature of the earth as shown from the analysis of ice core samples taken
in Antarctica over the past century. (Although the concentrations of methane
and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere have also increased in parallel with that
of carbon dioxide, their absolute concentrations are less than that of carbon
dioxide by factors of 100 and 1,000 respectively. Thus, interest has centered
on carbon dioxide from industrial, commercial and private sources.)
Energy is one of the most important drivers of national
economies, and therefore of the well-being of societies. Quality-adjusted life
expectancy has increased in those societies, which have enjoyed rising incomes
and energy use, and is thus a convincing indicator of this relationship.
As Canada moves forward into the next millennium, it is
imperative that governmental and industrial initiatives be pursued in close
cooperation for the purpose of developing integrated sustainable energy and
climate policies and practices.
These policies must:
- recognize the fundamentally
important contribution of energy, both production and consumption, to the
well-being of society nationally and internationally;
-
address and examine in a
balanced, impartial, and scientifically and technically correct
manner, the entire spectrum of energy sources and currencies available to
Canada to ensure that the actions taken to achieve the objectives of the two
policies are mutually reinforcing; and
Conclusion:
The
Canadian Academy of Engineering may wish to join with other responsible
organizations, and encourage the federal government to put into place integrated
sustainable energy and climate policies. Such policies could well be a model for
other countries in both the developed and the developing world.
This is a publication of the Canadian Academy
of Engineering whose Fellows volunteer to provide
reliable and timely information to the Canadian public on issues which are important to safety, health, and public policy.
Editor: Jozinus Ploeg
Tel: (613) 745-2390
jploeg@trytel.com
Executive Director: Philip Cockshutt
180 Elgin Street, Suite 1100
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2K3
Tel: (613) 235-9056
acadeng@ccpe.ca
Engineering Issues -- No. 10, March 2003
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