Use less,gain more

29/11/1995
Down To Earth

Use less,gain more LET us accept the general consensus of scientists that global warming is happening, that it is caused largely by carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels, and that it cannot be reversed without a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. Following on from Rio and more recently Berlin, most governments have accepted this in principle. More tellingly, so has the insurance industry.

Peter Harper, a policy analyst at the Centre for Alternative Technology at Wales, UK, has stated in the Geographical Magazine (August 1995), London, that governments have, however, failed to spell out the real implication. If, as the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc) asserts, a 60 per cent cut in global carbon dioxide emissions is required immediately-, then for Western Europe, we are looking at cuts of 70-80 per cent. Think for a minute what this implies. There are two 4ical possibilities. One is to replace most of our fossil fuels with non-fossil resources which could mean a 10-fold aq)ansion of the nuclear industry.

The logical alternative of actually reducing energy use by four-fifths, would appear completely impossible. We have built a whole culture on cheap md abundant energy: wars are fought to maintain supplies of it, and governments totter when they try to increase stges on it. Measures required to bring 0" warming under control could Aws backfire politically. So we cannot V6n for them; we cannot even start a VWhbc debate.

At the outset, however, the answers Aready clear. There is a fundamental tion going on in more sophistienergy policy circles, and it is very on the 'use less' side of the arguit shifts the focus away from , supply to energy use; it points out that the pattern of energy use which has evolved is arbitrary, inefficient, and deeply irrational; that we do not need anything like the amount of energy we use to run modern societies; and that investment in efficiency and more rational use is simpler, quicker, and kinder to the environment investment in the than supply of energy. Using less energy is also a cheaper option and can often produce a direct profit.

But can a country drastically, yet practically, lower its energy consumption? Yes, it can. For instance, the per capita consumption of energy in Western Europe and Japan, hardly backward parts of the world, is half that of the us. And energy consumption in these two countries has remained more or less static for the past 20 years, despite substantial increases in their gross national product. So Western Europe,and Japan have become more efficiept without really trying. Once they do start trying - once energy use becomes a prime focus of policy - then almost anything is possible.

So achieving ipcc's target is not such a forlorn prospect after all. The barriers are not technical or economic, but cuttural and institutional. We can start to break them down by daring to think the unthinkable, and insisting the debate be joined.

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