The Poor Use of Energy in the Middle East

After the American Century                                                                                                                  

The consumption of energy is a topic usually taken up when discussing China or the United States. Yet the Middle East is not only a major oil-producing region, but an important consumer of oil and natural gas. Unlike the United States or China, however, higher use has not been accompanied by improved energy efficiency.

Doha Qatar, night view

The following table shows the growth in CO2 emissions for OECD Europe, the United States, China, and the Middle East, from 1980 until 2000.  Recent statistics are more fragmentary, but they strongly suggest that the relative positions in this table (ranked according to how close they have come to sustainable growth)  have changed little since 2000. OECD Europe is still the only large region or nation that has come close to achieving sustainable growth, although the United States has begun to do better since 2008.

   Growth in CO2 emissions, selected nations and regions, 1980-2000

 

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Selected Region / nation	Population growth (annual)	GDP % growth (annual)	Energy Intensity Change (annual)	Carbon Intensity Change (annual)	growth CO2  Emissions (Annual)	20 year growth in CO2 emissions 1980 = 100
OECD Europe	0.53	1.73	- 1.00	- 1.06	0.18	103.7
United States	0.96	2.15	- 1.64	- 0.21	1.23	127.7
World	1.60	1.28	- 1.12	- 0.45	1.30	129.5
China	1.37	8.54	- 5.22	- 0.26	4.00	219.1
Middle East	2.98	0.04	2.45	- 1.14	4.34	233

The far right-hand column indicates the overall growth in CO2 for each region. It becomes immediately clear, The Middle East, aside from all its political problems, also has serious problems with energy misuse, in good part because oil and gas are abundant in the region. Their price is kept low, and with an annual population growth rate of almost 3%, there are millions more people using energy in the Middle East. More recent statistics show that between 1980 and 2010 Middle East use of oil and natural gas has quadrupled.

Moreover, in stark contrast to all the other regions listed, the Middle East is the only place were energy is being used more carelessly and less efficiently. Look at the third column, "energy intensity" which measures such things as whether cars get fewer or more miles per gallon, whether appliances use more or less electricity to accomplish a task, and so on. In the world as a whole, energy intensity is improving. In China, dramatic improvements in energy intensity do a great deal to offset the enormous increase in GDP. As a result of this factor and lower population growth,  CO2 emissions did not increase as fast in China as they did in the Middle East.

The Middle East has long been increasing CO2 pollution levels faster than Europe, the United States, or China, even though the region's economies as a group scarcely expanding. The population grows, but the economy scarcely holds even. Rising energy use is not part of a dynamic growth economy, as in China or East Asia. 

If one drills down to the national level, the Middle East  dissolves into contrasting oil-rich economies and oil-poor economies, and into sharply divided social classes. But that is not my subject. I merely want to emphasize the failure of the Middle East as a whole to develop efficient energy use. Despite a view highly-publicized solar projects and windmills, almost all energy consumption remains oil and natural gas. For thirty years the Middle East has gone down the path of unsustainable stasis, when most other economies have sought sustainable growth. 

See also: Technology: Energy Rationing or Quotas?  America vs. Europe, 2100 

Military Spending and Global Warming

After the American Century Posting # 200

The climate conference has now reached the crucial stage, where money must be pledged by the rich nations to help the poorer nations develop without excessive CO2 emissions. The EU has put $10.6 billion on the table, offering it over a three year period. They have made the most generous pledge so far, which amounts to $3.53 billion per year. The amount needed is far greater and a subject of discussion.

To put these figures into perspective, consider what the world is spending on armaments: $1.4 trillion every year. Without even doing the math in detail, you can see that the nations of this world are spending more than 100 times as much on weapons as they are willing to spend on global warming. Time to get the priorities right.

The two biggest CO2 polluters, the United States and China, also have the world's two largest military budgets. The US is by far the largest, at $602 billion, while China "only" spends $84.9 billion.

Some of the "poor" nations who want to be paid for curbing their CO2 growth are also spending large sums on arms. The United States spends about 4% of its gross national product on its Defense Department, far too much in my view, but a smaller percentage than some others. Angola uses 5.7%, Armenia 6.5%, Macedonia 6%. Saudi Arabia uses 10% of its budget for the military, which is about $38 billion.

In the next week, when the discussion of global warming focuses largely on money, keep these figures in mind. I suggest that no "poor" nation that spends more than 2% of its GNP on the military should be given any funds to help with global warming. And I suggest that no nation spending more than 3% of its GNP on the military should be taken seriously when it says it cannot afford to pay more to solve this problem.

This posting is #200 on After the American Century

Obama and the Copenhagen Climate Summit

After the American Century

President Obama has announced that he will briefly attend the Copenhagen Climate Summit. This is welcome news. But the timing of the visit (early) and its length (brief) suggest that the White House does not expect a major breakthrough to occur. After all, in the American system of government the President can only carry out what the independent Congress has mandated, and no laws are yet on the books that endorse even the modest 17% cutbacks that Obama has proposed.

One weakness of the preparations for the Copenhagen Summit is that there seem to be no clear guidelines on the methods of calculation that all nations share in advance. So when Obama says the US will cut CO2 emissions by 30% in 2025, this sounds much like what the EU is offering to achieve by 2020. It is not. The EU calculates from 1990 while the US is using a 2005 baseline. What the US is actually promising is to make reductions back to about where it was in 1990, while the EU is promising to go 20% lower than the 1990 level.

A second problem is that the focus really ought to be on per capita energy use and CO2 emissions. The United States uses about twice as much energy per person as Japan, so the US would need to reduce its total energy use by one half just to get to get even. Nations such as China and India, which each have more than four times as many people as the United States, look at per capita energy use, and relatively speaking do not see themselves as the problem. India uses less energy that the United States, and millions of its people still do not have regular electrical service. China is now the world's largest polluter, but the United States is by far the largest per capita.

A third problem is that the summit seems to be focused primarily on ends - CO2 reductions - without a corresponding showcase for the technological means to achieve it. Some nations, notably the UK, are adopting atomic energy as the way forward, since nuclear plants produce almost no CO2 compared to coal-fired ones. The problem is that atomic energy does produce serious amounts of toxic waste, and it must be stored for hundreds, or in some cases for thousands of years. Look around for examples of hermetically sealed buildings that have been constantly guarded for even 100 years. There are none. When all the long-term costs and dangers of atomic power are included, is it not likely that wind, tide, thermal, and solar power are more desirable?

In short, in addition to having a big political circus with heads of state coming that negotiate on the ends, the world needs an equally big demonstration of what is already possible. We already have the means available to build houses that are close to self-sufficient. We already can make automobiles that are twice as efficient as the average vehicle on the road today. There are hundreds of new technologies and best practices that just need to become better known and put to use.

The Kyoto agreement focused on noble ends, but they have not been achieved. In practice, not even one of the major industrial nations that signed the Kyoto agreement has in fact managed to do what they promised. In every case, energy use has continued to rise. (See my October 1, 2009 blog on this.) It is time to focus more on the technological means. The leaders can promise whatever they like, but will they know how to achieve those noble ends?