Transforming the Global Economy Through 80%

Improvements in Resource Productivity: How to Do It

Prof. Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker Co-Chairman

Towards a Circular Economy: Driving Forces

and Obstacles –What Are the Policy Challenges?

Stockholm, Kulturhuset, 16 April, 2012

What do we mean by

Sustainable Development?

Sustainable development means small ecological footprints

and a high Human Development Index (HDI)

0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 HDI

Ecologica

l

footprints

(hectares)

2

4

6

8

10

The sustainability

rectangle

High HDI

Small ecol. footprints

Alas, only one country currently populates

the sustainability rectangle

Cuba Source:

Global Footprints Network

If 7 b people would insist having

footprints like US Americans, we

would need 5 planets Earth

Energy is about half of the footprints.

It is also the limiting factor for the circular

economy. And it has direct environmental

effects, notably global warming and

nuclear radiation.

.

We seem to be destabilizing Greenland. (Freshwater

coverage during Summers 1992 and 2002)

Sea level rise can take catastrophic speed!

(after Michael Tooley. Global sea-levels: floodwaters mark sudden rise. Nature 342 (6245), p 20 - 21

1989)

Areas in red are under water if the

Greenland ice breaks off. How about

Stockholm? Bangladesh Florida

The Fukushima disaster looks like the final

blow to nuclear energy.

The Tsunami causes a nuclear desaster

( NTV Japan) The radioactive cloud after 7 days

(Blog alexanderhiggins.com)

So far, GDP goes with CO2 intensity.

We have to break this correlation, i.e. creating a Kuznets

Curve of decarbonization.

„rich and

carbon free“

And then help poorer countries tunneling through.

„rich and

carbon free“

PV as large as airports (Saxony, Germany) Wind turbines,- do you want such neighbours?

Hydrodams : no end of conflicts! Endless palmoil plantations (here in Malysia)

Renewable energies for decarbonization? They are fine in small sizes

but can be nasty in large quantities.

Let‘s calculate: if 1b people (the rich) achieve 20%

new renewables, that‘s 1/35 of what you would need

for 7b people on earth.

Developing

countries

NIC‘s

Old industrial-

ized countries

And now imagine a 35fold increase of today‘s biofuels

plantations, wind power, hydopower, solar power. It‘s an

ecological nightmare!

In other words, decarbonization is

just not good enough. We should

also create a Kuznets Curve of

energy consumption!

GDP also goes with Domestic Material

Consumption (DMC)

The picture is from the first Decoupling report of the Interntional Resource Panel

For DMC, too, we should create a Kuznets Curve.

… and assist developing countries to tunnel through

Creating the those new

Kuznets Curves, - that‘s

the agenda of

Decoupling.

In other words: a Green Kondratiev Cycle,

after five brown Cycles.

Mechanization

Steel &

railroads

Electricity,

chemicals,cars

TV, aviation,

computers,

Biotech

IT

Energy productivity,

renew. Energy.

Cyclical economy

I come back to the Green

Kondratiev in a moment.

But what can we do for the short-

cut for developing countries?

It was proposed by the Indian PM Manmohan

Singh. It means the North would have to go

shopping for emission rights in the South.

But that was 5 years ago. Meanwhile India,

like China, are no longer willing to go for it,

saying they need more energy per capita than

the old industrial countries.

The best solution is per capita equal CO2

emission rights

Nevertheless, some kind of „carbon

justice“ approach is needed. It would

make it profitable in developing countries

to become very energy efficient and to

turn to renewable energies.

Efficiency technology would rapidly

migrate to the South. And hundreds of

plans for new coal power plants could be

scrapped.

Back now to the technology task of

decoupling prosperity from energy.

Let us think bold about efficiency!

Imagine a bucket

of water of 10 kg

weight

How many

Kilowatt-

hours

do you need to lift

it from sea level

to the top of

Mount Everest?

The answer is:

One quarter of a

kilowatthour!

(knowing that one watt-

second is one Joule or one

Newton-meter; ¼ kwh is

900.000 watt-seconds)

1 kwh

Bold efficiency thinking is at the heart of Factor Five

December, 2009 March, 2010 October, 2010

The Blue Economy Das Buch

Another bold approach, also a Report to the Club of Rome, is

Building the Blue Economy 10 years, 100 innovations, 100 million jobs

The Blue Economy

- by Gunter Pauli. From over 2.000

innovations, he selected 100 that are

published on a weekly basis at

www.blue.economy.de

A factor of five in the increase of resource productivity

could pull or push most countries into sustainability!

0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 HDI

Ecol. Footprints (hectares per person)

2

4

6

8

10

The sustainability rectangle

High HDI

Small footprints

Amory Lovins’ “Hyper-car”, or

“Revolution”:

1,5 l/100km

Today’s fleet

6-12 l/100km

Superefficient cars

“Passive houses”: a factor of ten more heat efficient

LED replacing incandescent bulbs: a factor of 10

Philips 7W Master LED

Energy efficiency

Energy efficiency

From Portland cement to geopolymer cement

(e.g. fly ashes from coal power plants).

From 12 lane highways to bicycle centered cities

Atlanta Copenhagen

Atlanta is 25 times larger than Barcelona, but

has a smaller population Ic

h d

ank

e G

eoff

rey H

eal

für

die

Üb

erla

ssu

ng d

es B

ild

es

From endless business travel to telepresence meetings

From using water once to purifying (recycling) it

From flood irrigation to advanced drip irrigation

Water efficiency

(Source: www.driptech.com)

From excessive mining to the Cyclical Economy

Two more

dragons have to

be confronted:

The Jevons

Paradox, and

A new UNCTAD

study on illusions

of green growth

The Jevons Paradox is also known as rebound effect

William Stanley Jevons in his

famous book, The Coal Question

observed that England's

consumption of coal soared after

James Watt introduced his coal-

fired steam engine, which greatly

improved the efficiency of earlier

engines.

The rebound effect is actually a very old phenomenon!

The Neolithic Revolution: a hundredfold increase of ‚land

efficiency‘, - followed by a hundredfold increase of population!

http://www.kamat.com/database/content/prehistoric_theater/klk621.jpg

http://history-world.org/agriculture.htm

Hunters-Gatherers

(after a cave painting) Early agriculture

Ulrich Hoffmann demolishing green growth illusions

Based on Tim Jackson‘s ‚Prosperity Without Growth‘, Hofmann

sees the need for a 21-fold ‚decarbonization‘ to reach climate goals.

How do we deal

with the two

dragons?

The answer is twofold in terms of technology and

behaviour: efficiency and sufficiency

… and simple/ one-fold in terms of policy:

let prices do the job.

To understand the „power of prices“,

let us look back into the history of the

Industrial Revolution.

Labour productivity increased twentyfold

since 1850. It did so almost exactly in

parallel with gross labour „prices“ (wages).

Not a surprise for wage negotiators: wages and labour

productivity rose in parallel.

This is a fifty years time-window from the United States

On resource prices, what you usually see is the alarm about rising

prices

Prices of industrial commodities & energy, in constant dollars

But put in a long term (200 years) perspective, resource prices

were usually falling!

2000-2004

And don‘t fall for the

Peak Oil illusion!

TIME on 9th April:

New breakthroughs are

actually increasing

global supplies.

The reason: tolerance

for dirty operations is

steadily increasing!

What I am proposing, therefore, is a

political decision to artificially raise

energy and other resource prices in

parallel with documented efficiency

increases, so that average expenses

for energy services would remain

stable. (Some „life-line“ low prices

can be accepted for the poor.)

High energy prices need not hurt the economy. Japan

blossomed during the 15 years of highest energy prices!

One lesson from this is: pioneers need

not wait for the slow ones.

Also developing countries can benefit

from gradually increasing domestic

energy prices.

For the material Circular Economy,

rising energy prices would also serve

as a big push.

But additional measures are

conceivable such as slowly rising

charges on mineral extraction.

Who would win, who would lose?

(1. inside countries)

Winning: IT, generally high tech; crafts; science;

education; green businesses; railroads; leasing (all

the great ideas proposed by Walter Stahel!);

maintenance; culture.

Losing: air traffic; extractive industry, heavy

industry (some), development of urban sprawl,

wasteful consumers.

Some adjustments (eg revenue neutrality for

vulnerable sectors of industry) can avoid losses.

Who would win, who would lose?

(2. among countries)

Winning: Europe, East Asia, developing

countries poor in natural resources. That is

some 90% of the world population!

Losing: USA, Canada, Australia, Russia,

commodity exporting developing countries.

Red & orange: high per capita CO2 emissions, - the usual

suspects.

I foresee, at the horizon, an alliance of the

winners: Europe, Asia, Oceania and much of

Africa and Latin America, on

• real climate policy;

• ecological price policies;

• developing the 21st century technologies

& habits.

In a world of basically scarce resources (and

here I side with McKinsey‘s 2011 study),

countries and companies pioneering efficiency

(and sufficiency) will be the game winners.

Let me conclude: Decoupling prosperity from carbon intensity is

doable, both in the North and the South.

North-South „carbon justice“ is indispensible.

Prices should make the transition profitable.

No need for pioneers to wait for the slow ones.