Transforming the Global Economy Through 80% Improvements in Resource Productivity: How to Do It Prof. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker Co-Chairman Towards a Circular Economy: Driving Forces and Obstacles –What Are the Policy Challenges? Stockholm, Kulturhuset, 16 April, 2012
A presentation held by prof Ernst von Weizsäcker at the seminar "Towards a circular economy" arranged by Swedish think tank Global Utmaning and Stockholm Resilience Centre at Galleri 3, Kulturhuset, Stockholm.
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Transforming the Global Economy Through 80%
Improvements in Resource Productivity: How to Do It
Prof. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker Co-Chairman
Towards a Circular Economy: Driving Forces
and Obstacles –What Are the Policy Challenges?
Stockholm, Kulturhuset, 16 April, 2012
What do we mean by
Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development means small ecological footprints
and a high Human Development Index (HDI)
0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 HDI
Ecologica
l
footprints
(hectares)
2
4
6
8
10
The sustainability
rectangle
High HDI
Small ecol. footprints
Alas, only one country currently populates
the sustainability rectangle
Cuba Source:
Global Footprints Network
If 7 b people would insist having
footprints like US Americans, we
would need 5 planets Earth
Energy is about half of the footprints.
It is also the limiting factor for the circular
economy. And it has direct environmental
effects, notably global warming and
nuclear radiation.
.
We seem to be destabilizing Greenland. (Freshwater
coverage during Summers 1992 and 2002)
Sea level rise can take catastrophic speed!
(after Michael Tooley. Global sea-levels: floodwaters mark sudden rise. Nature 342 (6245), p 20 - 21
1989)
Areas in red are under water if the
Greenland ice breaks off. How about
Stockholm? Bangladesh Florida
The Fukushima disaster looks like the final
blow to nuclear energy.
The Tsunami causes a nuclear desaster
( NTV Japan) The radioactive cloud after 7 days
(Blog alexanderhiggins.com)
So far, GDP goes with CO2 intensity.
We have to break this correlation, i.e. creating a Kuznets
Curve of decarbonization.
„rich and
carbon free“
And then help poorer countries tunneling through.
„rich and
carbon free“
PV as large as airports (Saxony, Germany) Wind turbines,- do you want such neighbours?
Hydrodams : no end of conflicts! Endless palmoil plantations (here in Malysia)
Renewable energies for decarbonization? They are fine in small sizes
but can be nasty in large quantities.
Let‘s calculate: if 1b people (the rich) achieve 20%
new renewables, that‘s 1/35 of what you would need
for 7b people on earth.
Developing
countries
NIC‘s
Old industrial-
ized countries
And now imagine a 35fold increase of today‘s biofuels
plantations, wind power, hydopower, solar power. It‘s an
ecological nightmare!
In other words, decarbonization is
just not good enough. We should
also create a Kuznets Curve of
energy consumption!
GDP also goes with Domestic Material
Consumption (DMC)
The picture is from the first Decoupling report of the Interntional Resource Panel
For DMC, too, we should create a Kuznets Curve.
… and assist developing countries to tunnel through
Creating the those new
Kuznets Curves, - that‘s
the agenda of
Decoupling.
In other words: a Green Kondratiev Cycle,
after five brown Cycles.
Mechanization
Steel &
railroads
Electricity,
chemicals,cars
TV, aviation,
computers,
Biotech
IT
Energy productivity,
renew. Energy.
Cyclical economy
I come back to the Green
Kondratiev in a moment.
But what can we do for the short-
cut for developing countries?
It was proposed by the Indian PM Manmohan
Singh. It means the North would have to go
shopping for emission rights in the South.
But that was 5 years ago. Meanwhile India,
like China, are no longer willing to go for it,
saying they need more energy per capita than
the old industrial countries.
The best solution is per capita equal CO2
emission rights
Nevertheless, some kind of „carbon
justice“ approach is needed. It would
make it profitable in developing countries
to become very energy efficient and to
turn to renewable energies.
Efficiency technology would rapidly
migrate to the South. And hundreds of
plans for new coal power plants could be
scrapped.
Back now to the technology task of
decoupling prosperity from energy.
Let us think bold about efficiency!
Imagine a bucket
of water of 10 kg
weight
How many
Kilowatt-
hours
do you need to lift
it from sea level
to the top of
Mount Everest?
The answer is:
One quarter of a
kilowatthour!
(knowing that one watt-
second is one Joule or one
Newton-meter; ¼ kwh is
900.000 watt-seconds)
1 kwh
Bold efficiency thinking is at the heart of Factor Five
December, 2009 March, 2010 October, 2010
The Blue Economy Das Buch
Another bold approach, also a Report to the Club of Rome, is
Building the Blue Economy 10 years, 100 innovations, 100 million jobs
The Blue Economy
- by Gunter Pauli. From over 2.000
innovations, he selected 100 that are
published on a weekly basis at
www.blue.economy.de
A factor of five in the increase of resource productivity
could pull or push most countries into sustainability!
0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 HDI
Ecol. Footprints (hectares per person)
2
4
6
8
10
The sustainability rectangle
High HDI
Small footprints
Amory Lovins’ “Hyper-car”, or
“Revolution”:
1,5 l/100km
Today’s fleet
6-12 l/100km
Superefficient cars
“Passive houses”: a factor of ten more heat efficient
LED replacing incandescent bulbs: a factor of 10
Philips 7W Master LED
Energy efficiency
Energy efficiency
From Portland cement to geopolymer cement
(e.g. fly ashes from coal power plants).
From 12 lane highways to bicycle centered cities
Atlanta Copenhagen
Atlanta is 25 times larger than Barcelona, but
has a smaller population Ic
h d
ank
e G
eoff
rey H
eal
für
die
Üb
erla
ssu
ng d
es B
ild
es
From endless business travel to telepresence meetings
From using water once to purifying (recycling) it
From flood irrigation to advanced drip irrigation
Water efficiency
(Source: www.driptech.com)
From excessive mining to the Cyclical Economy
Two more
dragons have to
be confronted:
The Jevons
Paradox, and
A new UNCTAD
study on illusions
of green growth
The Jevons Paradox is also known as rebound effect
William Stanley Jevons in his
famous book, The Coal Question
observed that England's
consumption of coal soared after
James Watt introduced his coal-
fired steam engine, which greatly
improved the efficiency of earlier
engines.
The rebound effect is actually a very old phenomenon!
The Neolithic Revolution: a hundredfold increase of ‚land
efficiency‘, - followed by a hundredfold increase of population!