Climate Deal’s First Big Hurdle: The Draw of Cheap Oil
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and DIANE CARDWELL

Barely a month after world leaders signed a sweeping agreement to reduce carbon emissions, the global commitment to renewable energy sources faces its first big test as the price of oil collapses.

Buoyed by low gas prices, Americans are largely eschewing electric cars in favor of lower-mileage trucks and sport utility vehicles. Yet the Obama administration has shown no signs of backing off its requirement that automakers nearly double the fuel economy of their vehicles by 2025.

In China, government officials are also taking steps to ensure that the recent plunge in oil prices to under $30 a barrel does not undermine its programs to improve energy efficiency. Earlier this month, the country’s top economic planning agency introduced a new regulation, effective immediately, aimed at deterring oil consumption.

For the climate accord to work, governments must resist the lure of cheap fossil fuels in favor of policies that encourage and, in many cases, require the use of zero-carbon energy sources. But those policies can be expensive and politically unpopular, especially as traditional fuels become ever more affordable.

“This will be a litmus test for the governments — whether or not they are serious about what they have done in Paris,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

So far, there is no sign that the world’s two largest energy consumers — the United States and China — are wavering. With those two countries staying the course, albeit in the early days since the signing, there is optimism among backers of the accord that the momentum is too strong to stop. And despite the recent turmoil in energy markets, renewable industries are prospering.

“The trend toward much greater penetration of low-carbon energy driven by policy and technological advancements is going to continue,” said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former top aide to President Obama. Despite the lower fuel costs, he added, “technological alternatives and policy drivers that are reducing demand for fossil fuels are already really starting to take a bite.”

A few days ago, the Energy Department projected that total renewable power consumed in the United States this year will increase by 9.5 percent, and the longer-term outlook appears bright as costs continue to plummet and after congressional action last December extended federal tax credits for new wind and solar projects.

Utility-scale solar power generation alone is expected to increase by 45 percent by 2017, according to the Energy Department. Administration officials express an ambition to make wind power the source of more than a third of the American electricity supply by 2050.

In China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, the government implemented a new rule that no matter how low world crude oil prices may fall, the price of gasoline and diesel will continue to be set as though the world price of oil were still $40 a barrel. The goal is to prevent gasoline and diesel from becoming so cheap that China’s citizens would start consuming it indiscriminately.

China’s heavily state-owned refining industry will also not be allowed to keep the extra profits from buying crude oil cheaply and selling gasoline and diesel as though the crude oil still cost $40 a barrel. Instead, the Chinese government will take the extra refining profit margin and put the money into a special fund for energy conservation and pollution control.

But across the globe, the picture is not entirely rosy for zero-emission technologies.

Several nuclear power plants, which emit virtually no greenhouse gases, have closed in the United States in recent years, and few are under construction in part because of the competition of cheap natural gas.

Low oil prices also jeopardize the development of alternative fuels to replace petroleum in transportation and industry, including the advanced biofuels that once looked so promising. Cheap oil also reduces the price of diesel, the primary competitor of renewables in spreading electricity generation to impoverished rural areas of Africa and Southeast Asia.

And if governments’ support wanes, the alternative fuel industries could take a hit.

In Spain, the development of renewables has slowed to a crawl since the government started weakening support in 2009 because of an economic downturn. In Britain, analysts warn that the wind and solar industries could collapse as the government shifts subsidies away from renewables; two global wind developers recently canceled projects there. And in the United States, when an important tax credit lapsed briefly in 2013, installations of new wind farms all but ceased, falling 92 percent for the year.

“The challenge for governments is to continue appropriate clean energy subsidies even while the fossil fuel industry clamors over low prices,” said Paul Bledsoe, who was a staff member of the White House Climate Change Task Force under former President Bill Clinton.

Many developing countries have taken advantage of the decline in oil prices to cut subsidies on fuel consumption. India, Indonesia and Angola, among others, have taken such action, a move that economists say could conserve millions of barrels of oil from being burned every year in the future.

Saudi Arabia, one of the top energy-consuming nations, this month increased gasoline prices by 50 percent, and natural gas for industry and electrical generation by 67 percent.

Ultimately, supporters of the climate accord say that low oil prices can cut both ways in the march to renewables.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director for energy and sustainability at the University of California, Davis. She noted that low oil prices were cutting investments in drilling, which meant fewer emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, at well sites, and “it has clearly not slowed down the switch toward renewable energy.”

But at the same time, Ms. Jaffe said, low gasoline prices make driving more attractive, and in larger vehicles as well.

“It’s crippling for electric cars,” she said, “because the thing that made you think about buying an electric car was it was so painful for you to fill up your car with gasoline that was so expensive.”

油價太便宜 減碳兩面刃

紐約時報報導，油價大跌已對上月達成的巴黎氣候協定形成第一個考驗。美國電動車銷量低迷，耗油的小卡車、休旅車銷量增加，天然氣價格偏低，讓零碳排放的核電競爭力下降。

中國大陸已警覺這個問題，本月稍早規定即使國際油價低於每桶40美元，汽柴油價格也以每桶40美元計算，以防油價太低導致民眾群起開車，使排碳量大增。

若要氣候協定奏效，各國政府必須用政策鼓勵或強制使用零碳排放的能源，這種政策可能惹來民怨，尤其在傳統化石燃料愈來愈便宜時。國際能源總署署長比羅爾說：「油價下跌是試金石，能測出各國政府是否認真對待在巴黎許下的承諾。」

目前還沒有跡象顯示，全球兩大能源消耗國美國與大陸對自己的承諾態度動搖。美國政府曾要求車廠在2025年前將車輛能源效率增加將近一倍，目前還沒有放寬標準的跡象。幾天前美國能源部預期，今年美國消耗的再生能源電力會比去年增加9.5%。能源部還預期，從目前到2017年，公用供電規模太陽能將增加45%。美國政府希望2050年時，風力發電占全美供電量三分之一以上。

至於大陸，政府將國營煉油廠因汽柴油零售價有下限、原油價格卻無底線而產生的額外獲利，全都用在節能與控制汙染上。

不過，就全球整體而言，低油價確實衝擊到潔淨能源的發展。美國近年關閉幾座核電廠，正在興建的也很少。生質燃料一度前景看好，現在發展受阻。非洲與東南亞貧困鄉村捨棄用再生能源發電，改用柴油發電。

替代燃料產業一旦失去政府的支持，就岌岌可危。西班牙政府從2009年起因為經濟低迷而減少支持再生能源，以致再生能源發展遲緩。英國政府停止補貼再生能源，分析師警告風力與太陽能業恐將崩潰。

美國戴維斯加州大學能源與永續發展執行主任艾美．賈菲指出，低油價有如雙面刃，一方面使業界不願開採成本太高無利可圖的頁岩油，因開採頁岩油排放的強力溫室氣體甲烷會減少，有利對抗暖化；但是低油價也讓人們更樂於開車，對電動車的發展不利。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/energy-environment/climate-deals-first-big-hurdle-the-draw-of-cheap-oil.html

2016-01-27．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯李京倫