Coal-amity! - Part 1

Carbon Resurgence: Addressing the Myopic Lenses of International Environmental Policy and the Impact of COVID-19 on Energy Demand

According to the IEA, the world witnessed a fall in electricity demand of over 8% in 2019 to early 2020, with the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, the global economy was on track to achieve the Carbon Goals set in the COP earlier than estimated, which was meant to be one of the few advantages of this calamitous disease. As a result of global coal consumption falling by over 4 percent, environmental forums commenced celebrations. This rare patch of good news was supported by an international consensus to reduce coal mining and oil drilling in lieu of the massively reduced energy demand during the period, including the Biden presidential campaign whose economic recovery plans heavily featured aspects of environmental energy prioritisation.

Coal mining is one of the most environmentally damaging, industrial activities.

Here, we arrive at why such policy decisions were shortsighted in the long run. According to the IEA, during 2021 and 2022, green energy was only expected to be able to supply 50 percent of total energy demand growth following pandemic economic recovery. Global energy demand was expected to have grown by 5 percent while green energy supply was only going to experience growths of 6-8%. While 6 to 8 are all numbers greater than five, it’s important to note that the total global energy volume demanded is significantly larger than the gross international supply from renewables. This, coupled with record low winds in the European region, poor hydrological conditions and reduced energy exports from the Northern Hemisphere due to anticipations of a long winter all culminated into cementing the global green energy standards 6 feet under, with the global recovery from COVID-19.

In 2020, the global energy consumption accounted for over 556 exajoules, with oil, coal and natural gas accounting for 31%, 27% and 25% of the total. That adds up to more than four-fifths of the total global energy consumption as unrenewable energy sources. The largest contributors to this consumption can be chalked down to India and China, who were the most affected and faced severe supply shocks due to their large population and dwindling international energy supply. In 2020, coal generated 63% of electricity in China and 72% in India. China is the world’s largest producer of steel, which is responsible for over 15% of global coal consumption. Furthermore, India’s urbanisation and electrification in the 21st century were largely based on coal. Thus, the world has doubled its coal-fired capacity since the start of the twenty-first century to over 2,000GW. In august 2021, the White House even called for increased oil drilling from OPEC, the organization for Oil Producing Countries. Coal prices have quadrupled between September of 2020 and August of 2021, displaying the immense demand for energy resources following the economic recovery from COVID-19.

Coal is still the main energy source in less developed countries.

Ultimately, the key is sincerity, sincerity when taking action. Environmental action shouldn’t be taken under pressure from the court of public opinion but to genuinely curb an environmental collapse in the future. Estimates state that if the current environmental standards(current as in those enforced during COP26 and not current as in increased carbon footprint as we addressed in this article, of course) were adopted ten years ago, the world wouldn’t face such extreme supply shocks during a temporary retreat from global energy demand. The tragic reality is that most of these problems can be attributed to green energy supply not being able to cope with total international energy demands. Thus for a future where we see sustainable energy as our main energy source, we need drastic change in our energy infrastructure.

By Revant Biswas