《Petroleum Geoscience》上发表的文章“Principles of sustainability and physics as a basis for the low-carbon energy transition”.

原文链接：http://pg.lyellcollection.org/content/23/3/287

作者： Philip S. Ringrose

Petroleum Geoscience, 23, 287-297, 27 April 2017, https://doi.org/10.1144/petgeo2016-060

Abstract

Human society needs to achieve a low-carbon energy mix this century. To achieve this, we need: (a) an appreciation of the value of Earth's atmosphere; and (b) a sustainable approach for low-carbon energy. For sustainable developments, three pillars need to work together: the environment, social equity and economics. To address the societal aspects of the low-carbon energy transition, we need to appreciate that our future depends on protecting the Earth's atmosphere. By reviewing the discovery of the greenhouse gas effect over the last 200 years, we establish the essential motivation for changing human behaviour with regard to energy use. From this basis, we consider the challenge of how to achieve this energy transition or, more specifically, how to overcome the dissonances related to societal acceptance, economic hurdles and lack of progress with deployment of low-carbon energy options. The last decade has seen a significant growth in the renewable energy and natural gas sectors: however, CCS has made limited progress. This has to change if the human population is to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In order to accelerate reductions in global CO2 emissions, all low-carbon energy options must be deployed at an increasing rate in the coming decades.

Reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions is now widely agreed upon as a key issue for modern human civilization. With around two-thirds of current greenhouse gas emissions coming from the energy sector and with 82% of world energy supply (in 2014) coming from fossil fuels (IEA 2016a), the transition to low-carbon energy systems is consequently an urgent priority. Despite widespread agreement on the need to control greenhouse gas emissions, there are many diverging opinions on how this should be achieved (Bale et al.2015) along with political and social resistance to implementing the changes involved (Geels 2014). Debate about the causes of recent climate change and some dissenting voices questioning whether such an energy transition is actually needed (Hulme 2009; Stoknes 2015) creates a degree of confusion about the reasons for, and urgency of, this transition to a low-carbon energy system.

This energy transition is intimately connected with the concept of sustainable development, which was defined by the United Nations Brundtland Commission (in 1987) as development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This principle clearly applies to modern human society (Grubb 2014) where industrial development since about 1750 has been based on a rapid growth in the use of fossil fuels and in the CO2 emissions to atmosphere resulting from their combustion (Andres et al. 1999). In studies of sustainability, is it widely argued that the three pillars of sustainability need to work together, namely: (a) the environment; (b) social equity; and (c) economics. The challenge for the transition to low-carbon energy systems, desirable from an environmental point of view, is therefore to find transition mechanisms that are both economically viable and socially acceptable. Achieving this transition in a sustainable manner is a highly complex problem (Grubb 2014) but, nevertheless, an essential challenge to address. Sachs (2015) has argued that sustainable development is now so fundamental to our modern society that sustainability principles should be the norm for solving a broad set of global problems, not least the energy transition.

The aim of this paper is to review the scientific basis for the low-carbon energy transition, recognizing many other important and more comprehensive reviews that have focused on the climate change aspects (Stocker 2014), the socio-economic aspects (Stern 2007;Grubb 2014) and the psychological aspects (Stoknes 2015). After briefly reviewing the history of fossil-fuel consumption, the paper reviews the history of atmospheric science and the discovery of the greenhouse gas effect. This historical review aims to support the main argument in the paper concerning the basis for societal change. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is then reviewed in terms of the main low-carbon energy response options.

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