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Climate change: Australia’s boom in energy exports bring world’s doom

By 2030, Australia will reclaim its title of being the world's largest exporter of coking coal, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) titled World Energy Outlook 2013.

According to the report, global exports of coking and thermal coal from Australia will be augmented by 57 per cent - 410 million tonnes per year until 2035.

The whole of Asia will be the primary market for Australia's coal exports. According to Fatih Birol, chief economist for the energy group, the Asian countries will ''need every bit of Australia's energy exports ... coal, gas and maybe even uranium."

''I see a golden age for the Australian economy to come, looking at the export volumes ... and the prices we expect," Mr Birol said.

Australia will eventually compete with Qatar as the largest LNG exporter by 2020 as two-thirds of global investments in liquefied natural gas will all be placed in the country.

The country has seven export projects still in construction and three of these will eventually tap coal-seam gas production which will bloom from 6 billion cubic metres to 100 bcm by 2035, according to IEA.

However, Australia's boom in energy exports threaten the world with a precarious climate change as fossil fuel-sourced emission soar, the report notes. Energy-related greenhouse gas emission is predicted to reach a 20 per cent increase to 37.2 gigatonnes by 2035.

''Some people talk about the 'green growth' in Asia. When I look at the numbers ... it's black growth,'' Mr Birol emphasised.

The greenhouse gas emission will cause a long-term average temperature rise of 3.6 degrees worldwide as compared to the internationally agreed 2-degree target.

"Without current efforts to limit emissions, temperatures would rise 5.2 degrees," Dr Birol explained.

Other key points of the report:

Despite positive developments in some countries͕ global energy-related CK2 emissions increased by 1.4% to reach 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2012, a historic high.
    In 2012, China made the largest contribution to the increase in global CO2 emissions, but its growth was one of the lowest it has seen in a decade, driven largely by the deployment of renewables and a significant improvement in the energy intensity of its economy.

In the United States, a switch from coal to gas in power generation helped reduce emissions by 200 million tonnes (Mt), bringing them back to the level of the mid-1990s. However, the encouraging trends in China and the United States could well both be reversed.

Despite an increase in coal use, emissions in Europe declined by 50 Mt as a result of economic contraction, growth in renewables and a cap on emissions from the industry and power sectors.

Emissions in Japan increased by 70 Mt, as efforts to improve energy efficiency did not fully offset the use of fossil fuels to compensate for a reduction in nuclear power.

Source: au.ibtimes.com