Energy Transition and Climate Change. Discussion with the sustainability experts @United Europe
This is a transcript of the podcast interview recorded for Sustainability Explored on 23 of November 2019.
This is Season 2 Episode 13, the first episode of the 2nd season.
You can listen to it here, or join on any of your favorite podcast platforms.
[00:05] Anna: Hi, this is Anna, and you’re listening to ‘Sustainability Explored’. I’m your guide to the world of corporate social responsibility, environment, social risks, circular economy and many more. Today I am recording this podcast episode from Paris where I’m attending the workshop (or a conference) called “Energy Transition and Climate Change. Is there a European answer?”
This episode is brought to you by, and supported fully, by United Europe. United Europe is an initiative dedicated to the idea of a strong and competitive Europe, which can defend its common interests, yet respects the diversity of its people.
Within the young professional seminars such as the one we are attending today, United Europe wishes to rekindle the younger generations' enthusiasm for Europe, help it to build a network that stretches across Europe and contributes to solutions for Europe’s current problems.
One of such problems is the energy transition and global warming that presents us with one of the biggest economic and social challenges in the coming decades and even today — with annually rising temperatures, melting polar ice caps, and an increase in the number of hurricanes and floods.
The overwhelming evidence and consensus among climate scientists is that man-made climate change is real, and it’s happening right now.
This possesses a significant spread for global economies and people’s lives in the form of potential major human displacements due to floods and draughts, or just malnutrition and famine.
Given that current policies… the parties to the Paris climate agreement or COP 21 set in December 2015 are still far from being on track to meet the goal of limiting global warming to well below two degrees, it is questionable whether further global warming can be slowed down or even stopped completely under the given conditions.
It is unclear how a European or global solution to the problem can be found. So, many countries around the world are actually embarking on the transition to a sustainable energy system.
These transitions will involve fundamental and interrelated changes in technologies and fuels used, infrastructure build, policies employed, markets and institutions.
The historic Paris agreement that I mentioned earlier on climate change sets the course for a fundamental transformation on the global economy over the next decades, achieving the deep cuts in global carbon emissions that this vision of limiting global average temperature rise to well below two degrees requires, is no small task given the enormous challenge of implementing and eventually exceeding current country climate pledges, or countries, as we’re talking about the European Union.
[03:35] Anna: So here with me today I’m having a bunch of extraordinary guests, and professionals.
Marcus Lippold, who is an energy expert and advisor, he has worked for major global energy companies and the EU public regulator for the past 28 years, where he held several management positions in Europe and the USA.
He is also a longstanding member of United Europe.
Dinand Drankier, a policy officer from the field of bioenergy in the Netherlands.
Nevena Milutinovic, project coordinator in the engineering company in Serbia.
And Mihkel Kaevats, strategy writer of the city of Tallinn. So hello, dear guests!
[04:24] Other guests:
- Hi!
- Hello!
- Hello there!
[04:26] Anna: The first question will go probably to Marcus. For those listeners and those who are following the podcast, “Sustainability Explored”, to introduce them a little bit more to that topic. What are we talking about? What is the energy transition and what do we mean when we say that?
[04:49] Marcus: Maybe let me start from the basics then. Society has always had a certain energy mix.
In the past few… If you go back 400 years, a large part of that was made up of wood, just basically burning biomaterials.
Then during the industrial revolution, coal got into the mix, made up a huge part of it and in a large part enabled the industrial revolution extreme, and the 1950s then, oil came into the fold and you had the Middle East coming up in prominence.
And then, maybe 15 years back, natural gas was also increased significantly in share.
So when you talk about energy transition, it is really the change in the mix of the fuels that heat our houses, that power our transportation system, that allow our production processes. I think, the interesting question nowadays is, especially as climate change and food production have become significant topics.
In the past, if you go from one fuel to the next major fuels, the change from wood to coal and from coal to oil typically took about 40 years, 40 to 50 years.
And I think the question that we are debating nowadays is because of climate change and the conviction that we need to change our energy mix, can that happen at a much faster pace or is it the same 30, 40, 50 years?
And the significant change in terms of beating the clock on the change is technological development. So currently many different technologies are being looked at, a lot are promising. There are no guarantees.
The jury is still out on how to best do it, but that is the challenge everyone is basically working on nowadays.
How to most quickly get to the energy mix that we think we need in order to live sustainably, resilient and not have a negative impact on the environment.
[07:25] Anna: Do you think we’re talking today about the ways to reduce also our energy consumption rather than change or transition from the energy mix. Is it on the agenda even…?
[07:44] Marcus: I think, implicitly people are aware that, certainly if you look at the decarbonization scenarios, which are now being discussed up to 2050, that you need massive consumer change.
I think it has not really dawned on a lot of people yet that it will massively disrupt their lives, the way they are currently being led.
But it will have to be a major change in consumer behavior. It will be addressed, but I think we’re certainly not there yet in terms of people needing to make, if you will, certain sacrifices or just different choices because this doesn’t have to be negative, limiting choice only.
I think, if we do it in a clever way, then I think it is going to be not necessarily painful, but just different the way we live.
[08:49] Anna: You mention consumer change, consumer behavior. Here, I assume, we’re talking about households and individuals, but as well companies.
And that inevitably leads me to the next question: to influence the behavior of companies, what are the political changes? What are the governmental changes, the legal changes, and requirements to make this happen?
I would like to address this question to Dinand Drankier, the policy officer, currently working in the Netherlands.
[09:28] Dinand: Yes. Thank you very much. I think that’s a very, very good question. Well, as a government, you have various policy instruments at your disposal. Traditionally, we always distinguish more or less three of them.
You can use stimulative elements. So you can have, for example, through the subsidy stimulate companies to take a certain pathway to do a certain thing.
You can come up with the requirements. So for example, you can require an energy supplier to supply a certain amount of renewable energy.
And a third way is on more facilitative elements, for example, innovation subsidies to facilitate innovation. For example, a few things… Which I personally work in, is bioenergy.
Well, changing the way to create is managed making other rules for grid management can also facilitate uptake of, for example, biomethane. So these three instruments you try to stimulate or to push companies to take a certain pathway.
[10:35] Anna: Would it be right to say that, for example, in the case, anyone can jump in here, but in case of the Netherlands, are there massive coal, oil industries that would be aggressively lobbying against this change?
[10:58] Dinand: I would argue from a personal perspective that in the Netherlands, we have quite a consistential democracy model, so we really work together quite a lot like the traditional polar model, as it’s often called, and I think a good example of that is our recent climate agreements.
In 2019 more than a hundred parties in the Netherlands collectively signed a climate agreement. And in this climate agreement these parties, which are companies, which are governments, which are NGOs, they collectively decided on a set of measures to come to a 49% CO2 reduction in 2030.
So the metrics can be difficult, can be painful, but including all parties, you can find a middle ground, which provides for a good performance.
[11:49] Anna: Mihkel, as a strategy writer for the city of Tallinn, what’s the timeline of your strategy until when do you set the goals?
And maybe you can share some, you know, steps and action plan, or some steps that you include in your strategy for Estonia and specifically the city of Tallinn, in terms of energy transition and climate change.
[12:18] Mihkel: Thank you very much. Yeah. Basically, we can say that the world is urbanizing very fast.
This means that an important part of the energy transition is going to be played out in cities and how cities use energy. Of course, it’s not only like the city is not the self-contained mechanism. For example, I can say in the example of Estonia that also if Tallinn were to be the most forward-running, a frontrunner in the energy transformation, the country of Estonia is not, we have like 80% of our energy comes from not even coal.
We have a very strange and not very common energy source, which is oil shale, only like Jordan and the United States also use it. But let’s say it’s in the league of coal, it’s very polluting.
And it also actually means that Estonia is the only country in Europe, where, for example, taking an electric car would actually pollute more than a normal gasoline car. So, we cannot take things in isolation, but I will take the liberty of.. from Dinand you asked from company behavior, I will take the consumer part, then.
Because it, if I divided it before in two, and I think the cities have quite a big effect on a consumer, like how we consume energy.
And this actually means that lifestyles in a way have to change. This means that, maybe, we should not take the personal car and drive it alone to work where we park it; 95% of the car`s lifetime it stays parked.
It has climate implications. It has air pollution implications, but it also has other implications, which are not climate-related. At least not directly. It also has, for example, implications of space.
If you have to build big roads and parking lots, then you cannot build parks and city squares. This is a simplistic way and logic. So, we tried to take with Tallin`s 2035 strategy, which also self-explains the timeline, we tried to take this kind of a holistic and a proactive role in designing these consumer behaviors.
Because, in local governments, basically, where you invest, where you put your money, you get the results.
For example, Tallinn in the last 20 years has invested most of its investment money into roads. And, surprise-surprise, we have actually 140 more cars per thousand people than the European medium.
So, Tallinn is heavily car-centered. Now, it doesn’t only mean that the roads are better for cars. It all also means that every euro you invest into a road, you cannot invest into trams or bicycle lanes, or whatever. This tilts the picture even more.
So with the new strategy, we aim to create an environment which stands on four pillars. And the first is mobility.
I’ll bring it first, but there is no actual order. Mobility, which should be more active.
“Active” means that, actually, in city space you have walking and cycling preferred. They are the least carbon-emitting, well, we might say zero-emitting mobilities.
Then public transport, which forms good public transport, which corresponds to the needs of people, and might be also defined in another way as more multimodal transport.
You, for example, have an app and first take the car, then the tram and for the last kilometer, maybe an electric scooter, and leave car mobility as the last one — not to harass car owners, but actually to provide the possibilities for everybody else, because now it’s certainly off balance.
It is accompanied by a network of greenery. And we aim to make it as uninterrupted as possible.
And in Tallinn, strangely enough, it is, as it is quite a dispersed city, it is quite possible to make uninterrupted green networks, which will provide like also possibilities for mobility, but they also provide lungs for the city, they provide possibilities to, let’s say, hold or maintain the biodiversity, and also project, we have a better mental health, have happier citizens.
Lungs for the city, biodiversity, better mental health, and happier citizens
The third and the fourth pillars are good public space, which means that city’s piazzas and events going on good city streets, not roads, not car roads, but city streets.
And last, which encircles everything, is creating this kind of a space for learning and innovation because there are enough studies to suggest that if people actually bump into each other, if people see each other by chance, then you may chat or you make some kind of other ‘eureka’ moment.
There is more innovation. There is more interaction between people, less loneliness — important! More learning from each other, and I think, most importantly of all, societies that have more like this kind of public interaction have less segregation, so everything is united.
Of course, there are other very important topics which support these four pillars. But we perceive these four as the most important ones.
[20:48] Anna: Thank you very much. I heard recently from another Estonian colleague about the so-called green electricity certificate, which kind of allows you to buy a paper probably that ensures your electricity to your household is coming only from renewable energy sources. Could you share a little bit more on how this system works, how much maybe does it cost, and how, most importantly, how acceptive people, in general, are of this idea?
[21:23] Mihkel: I’m no expert in on this, but basically — yes, it’s a consumer option. While I was very critical of Estonian energy production, we actually have made good progress also.
Notwithstanding that it was easy progress. We have met and exceeded the 2020 goals already now for renewable energy. And this basically means that your energy comes from solar.
If you choose this electricity product with this label, then it means that it comes from solar, wind, we don’t have much hydro, but it all comes from renewable sources. In part, it’s also biomass or which there is also, let’s say, and partly, I would also be critical because sometimes, at least, in Estonia, it’s also greenwashing, but let’s say at least the intention is there.
And it means that your energy will cost a bit more, which of course makes it a very good option for a vegan cafe, which charges four euros for a coffee and also for consumers who are better off. Nevertheless, for people who are not so well off and actually are struggling to remain afloat, of course, they go for the cheapest option and run on oil shale since the 30s.
[23:15] Anna: Thank you very much for sharing! Now, I would like to leave a little bit of the European Union, technically speaking, and shift a little bit to the Balkans. Nevena, on the example of Serbia, how is the government tackling climate change? Are there any particular steps undertaken so far, and what is happening in the energy transition, if anything does happen at all, in Serbia?
[23:49] Nevena: Thank you. We’ll start with the energy transition, and unfortunately, there are no major steps in the transition. So for the past few decades, most of energy mix comes from the coal.
I think more than 60%. Then the next one is a hydropower, and then, of course, oil. In that sense, Serbia is dependent on Russian oil and there was a project of South stream that actually hasn’t been realized. So now we are still dependent on oil from Russia that comes from Hungary and Ukraine.
So, in that sense, I don’t think there is a major idea or policy on how to shift to renewables. And honestly, I don’t see even any policies that would back that up. And as for the environment, like a few weeks ago, actually, Belgrade set the negative example — the capital was the most polluted city in Europe.
And as for the energy efficiency, also, I don’t think that we are really good examples, because there are numbers, which state that Serbia, it’s very energy insufficient, because we spent at least twice as much energy than the average European in terms of households.
So, I feel like there is really the need from the government, and they also sign the agreements with the EU that makes them, obliges them to follow it. But I don’t think that every day and on a daily basis level there are some changes. So, hopefully, that would change. Thank you!
[26:12] Anna: Speaking of the changes and the timelines that we have. Yesterday I heard an interesting thought — the planet will be there, the question is whether humans will still be there when the temperatures rise. Right? There is a very ambitious goal to keep “well below two degrees”, the temperature below two degrees.
Marcus, what are your estimations? Maybe predictions? What do you see happening? How much time do we have? And maybe, what to do?
[26:48] Marcus: Well, a couple of thoughts, maybe. We’re all Europeans around the table. Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions are 9% of the global share or 8%. Europe is not the biggest problem.
Even if we were carbon neutral by 2050, if no other region were to follow and would stay on the current trajectories, overall, we wouldn’t be able to change that much.
So one question is, I’m assuming, we’re successful and our energy transition towards de-carbonization, how do we best pull others along?
Meaning, whichever projects and changes we make, first of all, they need to make sense for Europe and its own ride.
I’m quite convinced that others will then naturally follow.
If it is projects where Europe really benefits, others will want to copy this.
Prior to others being able to see the successes, there might be intermediate steps, which is: corporations with think tanks, companies with more proven technologies already going out globally.
So maybe the timeline can be shortened.
Another important point for me is whenever we talk about COP 21 and keeping the temperature rises to a well below two degrees, around 1.5, there are still many people that say, well — if my summers tend to be 1.5 degrees higher, maybe it’s actually not that bad or even 2% or 3% higher. Is it really that crucial that we try to set everything in motion now? Shouldn’t we wait a bit through becomes clearer?
Well, I think it’s important to view the world as such and the natural environment, just like our human bodies.
With 37 degrees, we are perfectly healthy.
At 2% higher, 39 degrees, we are extremely sick. The same is true for the natural environment.
So if we’re talking two, three percent increases in temperature, it is significant and we do not know what changes will be.
Then, immediately we come onto — should you just look at mitigation? Should you do mitigation/ adaptation at the same time, there are various different histories in terms of just EU member States, but also elsewhere in the world.
What I’m saying is, I think it is a serious enough challenge that needs to be tackled now. How successful we will be in terms of adapting, mitigating, reversing it, I don’t know.
Certainly, technology will play a big part of it.
As consumers, and as employees, and as business leaders, we need to stay very flexible, not rooted in the past and just be a bit more willing to also play, test, fail.
And if we, if we are successful in keeping the energies, our personal energy levels and going for these sorts of changes and allowing for them, I’m still quite optimistic, but how successful, by when we will be, I really don’t know.
[30:43] Mihkel: I’d like to pick up on Marcus`s saying that Europe is only 8% and continue from his thought that Europe is an example, because, for example, me, I was born in the Soviet Union.
It’s really crazy to think about it, but I was, and I’ve seen here… And you too, of course! (to Anna) … and I’ve seen when we got independent, and I’ve seen this admiration for the Western way of life.
Now that we have almost, or getting there, I can say that this model of life, it doesn’t have to be this consumerist, this way. It doesn’t have to be so energy-rich. So as for effective Europe can give to energy transition, it’s in big part, like, being a good model instead of a bad model.
And of course, help others to make the transitions — by knowledge, maybe investments and good incentives.
[32:15] Anna: Thank you. Outside of the European Union, for example, in Serbia, are there any countries in particular that Serbia takes an example from and uses as role models in terms of the energy transition?
[32:33] Nevena: I’m not sure of whether there are role models, but for sure, Serbia’s goal is to enter the EU to become a full member. So I guess EU is like an overall model and should look up to and follow its rules and regulation and over time to try to reach them, and more importantly, to implement, because we have been suffering very obvious climate change in the past few years.
The temperature is rising. We have been suffered huge floods, so we already become vulnerable. People are feeling that the climate is changing, there’s something has to be done, so we don’t have to look too far for role models. EU is just our next door, so we should, we should find it there.
[33:33] Anna: And within the EU, I will probably not misinform anyone, at least it seems to me that the Netherlands is the country that is of most concern and has this alarmed state of concern about the climate change and you, Nevena, you just mentioned floods, maybe Dinand can add a couple of words from the Ditch example. What does the country do?
[34:07] Dinand: Well, the Netherlands is in the position that a large percentage of the country is below sea level. So as a Dutchman, you learn how to live with the water, and sea level rises, but also flooding risks from rivers. The additional effort also needs to be made in the field of climate and climate adaptation.
And in our case, it’s really lots of waterworks, which need to be made in order to keep the Netherlands safe and dry.
And it’s also a skill that’s, you see now, worldwide is increasingly in demand.
For example, in the US but also beyond that, Dutch water builders, porter companies are increasingly taking a role in building dikes over there and increasing the resilience of societies against water, water dangers.
[35:00] Anna: Okay. Thank you very much, everyone, for this fruitful and very interesting, enriching discussion. I hope you also enjoyed and learned something. Just to add on a positive note, maybe Marcus, you can wrap it all up?
[35:15] Marcus: Well. I would say certainly that the willingness to change the energy systems and to think differently is more and more there.
I`m very positive, I think is also that the costs of a lot of renewable energies have come down significantly. Solar and wind are becoming really, really competitive.
Again, this is due to people trying to improve the technologies, or thinking differently. If you look at how the actual wind rotor blades are designed now, it is significantly different from what the designs were just 20 years ago.
So you see optimized kit everywhere, being much more fit for purpose. So if we keep along this path of seeing technology, certainly as aiding us in all these processes and not something that we should shy away from.
Plus, if we get societies and the Western world to do a little bit of less nimbyism and really implement the technologies much more efficiently, that already exist, where we are currently hampered, then we will be able to move forward faster.
So there are many, many positive signs already and we are in a France here, there’s the famous sort of ‘morosité’ (‘gloominess’ eng) which is a bit like the Hungarian “The glass is always half empty“
I think, just with a sort of spirit of mine, which is more along the Brazilian, that the glass is always half-full, we can actually achieve a lot more.
[37:15] Anna: Thank you very much for being here with me today. I would just like to briefly remind the listeners that this episode was brought to you and fully supported by United Europe, the organization and initiative that stands for European values, looks up to the bright European future, promotes diversity and youth participation.
We’ve been recording this episode from Paris, France, and stay tuned for more. Thank you for being here with us today! Goodbye.
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