To fight poverty and unemployment, increased electricity
supply at cheaper rates should be made available in the country, spurring
growth, which creates more jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.
High poverty incidence and darkness kill people. They are
more exposed to dangerous informal sector work, criminals and robbers lurking
in dark corners, more prone to road accidents due to dimly-lit streets roads,
more prone to fires due to frequent use of candles.
Thus, the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris
this coming Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 should not be used to hamper or even kill
cheaper and reliable electricity sources in the future.
The Philippines’ Climate Change Commission (CCC) however,
sent an ambitious plan to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change last October. It said:
“The Philippines intends to undertake GHG (greenhouse
gas; CO2) emissions reduction of about 70% by 2030 relative to its [business as
usual] scenario of 2000-2030. Reduction of CO2 emissions will come from energy,
transport, waste, forestry and industry sectors. The mitigation contribution is
conditioned on the extent of financial resources, including technology
development & transfer, and capacity building, that will be made available
to the Philippines.”
What is the reference period, 70% of what by 2030?
In an Oct. 2 BusinessWorld report, “Philippines makes
conditional offer to cut emissions by 70%,” it said:
“If fully implemented, the Philippines’ carbon emissions
should drop 70 percent by 2030 from 2000 levels, said Lucille Sering, head of
the country’s Climate Change Commission.”
70% drop from 2000 levels. Wow.
And in another report, CCC Deputy and Assistant Secretary
Joyceline A. Goco said that their initial estimates showed that the Philippines
would need around $12 billion to $15 billion in support to achieve its intended
nationally determined contributions.
The basis for such ambitious and unrealistic commitment
rests on questionable, if not wrong scientific data. There was global warming
in the past century coinciding with the rise in CO2 emission from human
activities and modernization, true. But there was also global warming during
the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Warm Period, when there was not even
bicycles during that time.
The current big El Niño that affects the Philippines and
other countries in the tropics is true, we can expect drought conditions in the
dry months of December-May.
But to say that it is the “Godzilla” of El Niño, the
biggest and warmest of all time as reported in many papers, is not true. The
big El Niño in 1997-98 was more severe than the current one. (See chart)
Meanwhile, following are the numbers for electricity
production in big Asian economies. Not included in the list are Asian economies
with low electricity consumption, or those which consume less than 30 billion
kilowatt-hours (kWh) like Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos,
Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
The sources and distribution of such electricity output
per country is also given. The table is divided into two parts: those countries
which have 90% or more of their total electricity production coming from fossil
fuel sources, and those below 90%. (See Table 1)
Our four more developed Asian neighbors -- Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong -- have fossil fuel dependence of 92% to
100%. They can attract more manufacturing and other industrial players; more
hotels, financial institutions and malls because they have stable, reliable and
more affordable electricity supply. And they create more high value jobs to
their economies, and that partly explains why their people have generally
escaped from poverty and high unemployment.
For other Asian countries with less than 90% dependence
on fossil fuels, their big hydro power and nuclear power have filled up the
gap. For instance, production of nuclear power in million tons oil equivalent
(mtoe) in 2012 were as follows: S. Korea with 34 mtoe, China with 22 mtoe,
Taiwan with 9 mtoe, India with 7 mtoe.
Singapore with only 5.5 million population consumed
almost 47 billion kWh; Hong Kong with only 7.3 million people consumed almost
39 billion kWh; Malaysia with only 30 million people consumed 134 million kWh.
In contrast, the Philippines with 101 million population consumed only 73
million kwh or nearly one-half that of Malaysia’s consumption when the
Philippine population is more than three times that of Malaysia.
There is a need to further expand energy production in
the Philippines, make the supply of electricity more abundant and the price to
go down and more stable.
Today is a good opportunity to expand power generation
capacity from conventional sources -- coal, liquefied natural gas and oil (West
Texas Intermediate) and coal. Their prices have been declining since the past
few years. (See Table 2)
More electricity supply at cheaper prices is a must to
sustain the fast growth of the Philippine economy. This is more evident in many
industries that are electricity-intensive like manufacturing, hotels and
business process outsourcing that are open almost 24/7.
It is doubtful that the CCC’s target of 70% cut in carbon
emission by 2030, 70% from 2000 level, has any realistic basis, even if the
targeted $15 billion of climate money is given to the country. It seems that
the reduced emission target was taken with little considerations for the
electricity needs of the country.
Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the head of Minimal
Government Thinkers, Inc. and a Fellow of the South East Asia Network for
Development (SEANET).
------------
See also:
BWorld 25, Feed in tariff means expensive electricity, November 14, 2015
BWorld 26, IPRI 2015 in APEC economies, November 19, 2015
BWorld 25, Feed in tariff means expensive electricity, November 14, 2015
BWorld 26, IPRI 2015 in APEC economies, November 19, 2015
BWorld 27, The rich getting richer, the poor getting middle class, November 21, 2015
BWorld 28, Economic freedom in Asia, November 28, 2015
Energy 48, US energy subsidies and global energy consumption, November 06, 2015
Energy 49, Malaysia's and Singapore's bright nights and nat gas power, November 21, 2015
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