Großbritannien: Klimapolitik als Geschäft
In meinem Podcast am 27.11.2020 komme ich auf die Rede von Annalena Baerbock beim Parteitag der Grünen zu sprechen. Grund genug, um mal wieder auf die Klimapolitik zu blicken. Und weil es bei uns so ausgetreten ist, mal ein Blick auf einen Nachbarn, das ehemalige EU-Mitglied Großbritannien:
Zunächst Ambroise Evans-Pritchard, der optimistisch den wirtschaftlichen Nutzen der britischen Variante des europäischen Green Deals beschreibt:
- “The world is in the midst of an arms race in green technology. Any large industrial state that fails to grasp the nettle on electrification and hydrogen will be left behind. America and Europe are both about to launch muscular eco-industrial strategies. China is hellbent on dominance of renewables and green hi-tech, not to save the planet but to achieve economic supremacy. We have moved a long way from the era when renewables were the preserve of ecological Leftists.” – bto: Natürlich, denn es ist ein Billionen-Markt, der da entsteht. Aber wie erreicht man darin eine gute Stellung? Richtig: über Kostenvorteile. Das ist Volumen, aber es sind auch Faktorkosten. Bei beiden haben andere Regionen die Nase vorn, vor allem, wenn sie zwar Ökotechnik herstellen, diese aber nicht zur Voraussetzung für Produktion machen.
- “One thing you will not find on the Humber is many people with a bad word to say for offshore wind. The technology has brought a miraculous regeneration of neglected coastal towns. Grimsby was home to the world’s biggest fishing fleet as recently as the 1950s. A decade ago it was down to four boats. (…) Today the town is thriving as the operational hub for the vast Hornsea wind farms. Across the river in Hull, a Siemens Gamesa plant makes giant rotor blades in the biggest manufacturing plant built in this country this century. It anchors a reborn shipping industry that services the offshore turbines.” – bto: Ist das sinnvoll? Natürlich! Denn UK hat hier einen enormen geografischen Vorteil!
- “The GDP multiplier on green investment is turbo-charged, with little leakage into imports. A study by Oxford University said it could be as high as 2.5 to 3.0 in a depressed economy at a time of near-zero borrowing costs. In short, it is an accelerant.” – bto: wobei sich zu Nullzins fast alles rechnet …
- “Renewable technology has slashed power costs to the point where building anything else ceases to be commercially viable. Electric vehicles will reach that tipping point by 2023 as new models achieve cost parity with petrol and diesel, but with much lower operating costs. Once that happens it is game over for Old Autos that resist.” – bto: Das sehe ich bekanntlich kritischer, da die Integrationskosten und die Back-ups noch eingerechnet werden müssen.
- “His ambition to turn Britain into the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of offshore wind with 40 gigawatts of capacity makes perfect sense. It exploits Britain’s natural advantage: ideal wind flows over the shallow banks of the North Sea. (…) Britain will soon be producing some of the cheapest zero-carbon power in Europe. Instead of importing 9pc of its electricity through the interconnectors, the UK will become a net exporter.The curse of intermittency has essentially been solved. Offshore wind is now highly sophisticated and predictable with a capacity factor reaching 60pc. It can be matched at viable cost by gas peaker plants and soon by entirely new forms of energy storage.” – bto: Wir wissen, dass das mit der neuen Form der Speicher so eine Sache ist.
- “(…) Highview Power is building the world’s first cryogenic liquid air plant at Trafford. This technology is infinitely scalable and can store back-up power for weeks at a time at remarkably low cost. (…) Britain’s ITM Power is already generating ‘green’ hydrogen from wind power through electrolysis. The whole world is scrambling to crack this science. The costs are about to fall dramatically.” – bto: Das wäre sehr erfreulich. Die Skeptiker kamen auf diesen Seiten an anderer Stelle zu Wort.
- “Once European, US, and global carbon prices reach $50 or $60 a tonne, it will make sense to turn excess North Sea wind into hydrogen, either to replace imported natural gas for use in peaker plants, or to make synthetic fuels for shipping and aviation, or for home heating, or for industrial use to slash C02 emissions in steel, cement, glass, chemicals, and fertilisers.” – bto: Ja, sobald es genug erneuerbare Energie gibt und diese zudem konstant zur Verfügung steht, ist dies sinnvoll.
- “Carbon capture is suddenly getting cheaper. The oil and gas industry – once arch-sceptics – have embraced the technology with the zeal of the converted. Exxon is working on a fuel cell variant that eliminates the ‘parasitic load’ and promises extraction at a marginal extra cost of $0.02/kWh. NetPower in Texas has changed the game by using carbon dioxide as fuel for a ‘oxy-combustion’ that burns natural gas with pure oxygen in a closed-loop process based on British-designed Allam cycle.” – bto: Es ist das Beispiel für die Bedeutung des technischen Fortschritts, um das Problem zu lösen. Von Carbon Capture will man bei uns allerdings nichts wissen …
- “The CO2 will be stored in saline aquifers nearby, but it can equally be injected into disused wells in the North Sea through existing pipelines. (…) These reservoirs are a lucrative resource. Europe’s industries are short of storage sites. Companies such as HeidelbergCement and ArcelorMittal are signing fat contracts to dispose of their C02 in Norway’s offshore rock. Britain can offer the same service.” – bto: So gefällt mir Klimapolitik!
Doch der Telegraph macht es sich nicht leicht. Am gleichen Tag erschien als Titelgeschichte eine Ablehnung des Verbots von Verbrennungsmotoren von keinem Geringeren als Bjorn Lomborg. Der rechnet nüchtern vor, wie viel der Umstieg auf Elektroautos bringt und weshalb es besser wäre, das Geld woanders einzusetzen. Ich würde sagen, so wie oben beschrieben in neue Technologien. Seine Kernaussagen:
- “Electric cars are certainly fun, but almost everywhere cost more across their lifetime than their petrol counterparts. That is why subsidies are needed. And consumers are still anxious because of their short range and long recharging times. Despite the US handing out up to $10,000 (£7,600) for each electric car, for example, fewer than 0.5 per cent of its cars are battery electric. And almost all the support goes to the rich. Ninety per cent of electric car owners also have a fossil-fuel driven car they drive further.” – bto: Dazu sagt die Politik: Deshalb subventionieren wir, damit die Industrie groß wird und über Kostendegression wettbewerbsfähig.
- “Innovation will eventually make electric cars economical even without subsidies, but concerns over range and slow recharging will remain. That is why most scientific prognoses show that electric cars will not take over the world. A new study shows that by 2030, just 13 per cent of new cars will be battery-electric. (…) The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2030, if all countries live up to their promises, the world will have 140 million electric cars on the road.” – bto: Das wäre doch ein großer Erfolg.
- “Yet, this would not make a significant impact on emissions for two reasons. First, electric cars require large batteries, often produced in China using coal power. Just producing the battery for an electric car can emit almost as much as a quarter of the greenhouse gasses emitted from a petrol car across its entire lifetime.” – bto: Da würden von mir sehr geschätzte Leute wie Stefan Hajek von der WiWo widersprechen und sagen, dass diese Berechnungen nicht stimmen. Ich bin deshalb skeptisch, was diese Aussagen betrifft.
- “Second, the electric car is recharged on electricity that almost everywhere is significantly fossil-fuel based. Together, this means that a long-range electric car will emit more CO2 for its first 60,000km than a petrol car. (…) Comparing electric and petrol, the International Energy Agency estimates the electric car will save six tons of CO2 over its lifetime, assuming global average electricity emissions. Even if the electric car has a short range and its battery is made in Europe mostly using renewable energy, its savings will be at most 10 tons.” – bto: Die zehn Tonnen sind ja nicht schlecht, immerhin eine positive Bilanz.
- “(…) if Biden restores the full electric car tax credit, he will essentially pay £5,700 to reduce emissions by at most 10 tons. Yet, he can get US power producers to cut 10 tons for just £45. Indeed, if the whole world follows through and gets to 140 million electric cars by 2030, the IEA estimates it will reduce emissions by just 190 million tonnes of CO2 – a mere 0.4 per cent of global emissions.” – bto: Das wäre dann so wie unsere erfolgreiche Förderung der Solarindustrie.
- “We need a reality check. First, politicians should stop writing huge cheques just because they believe electric cars are a major climate solution. Second, there is a simpler solution. The hybrid car saves about the same amount of CO2 as an electric car over its lifetime. Third, climate change doesn’t care about where CO2 comes from. Personal cars are only about 7 per cent of global emissions, and electric cars will only help a little.” – bto: Na ja, Hybrid-Autos, die dann nur schwerer sind und weiter mit Benzin gefahren werden, brauchen mehr. Aber richtig ist, dass es Bereiche gibt, wo mit weniger finanziellem Einsatz mehr CO2 gespart werden kann.
- “(…) if we want to fix the climate, we need to focus on the big emitters and drive innovation to create better low-CO2 energy from fusion, fission, geothermal, wind, and solar. Innovations that will make just one of them cheaper than fossil fuels would mean not just rich Londoners changing their habits, but everyone, including China and India, switching large parts of their energy consumption toward zero emissions.” – bto: Was Lomborg hier macht, ist einfach. Er fordert Effizienz und Effektivität auch in der Klimapolitik und da bin ich bei ihm.
Doch es gibt noch mehr Kritik. Diese ist von der FINANCIAL TIMES (FT), der man doch eher ein wirtschaftsfreundliches, also eher klimapolitisch skeptischeres Label geben würde:
- “Many of the particular elements of the vision also make a lot of sense. Promoting hydrogen as a zero carbon energy source suits an economy where both extraction and consumption of natural gas play an important role. Carbon capture and storage is a worthwhile future to pursue for the North Sea oil and gas industry.” – bto: Das sehe ich genauso und ist ein großer Unterschied zur Lage in Deutschland.
- “The one hard, significant policy commitment in Johnson’s announcement — to ban sales of solely diesel and petrol-powered vehicles from 2030 — is meaningful. It both vaults the UK to the international forefront on this particular dimension of decarbonisation and is likely to take a big bite out of emissions.” – bto: Nun ja, da leuchtet mir die obige Argumentation schon besser ein. Es ist ein viel zu kleiner Teil der Emissionen.
- “A good yardstick by which to measure the UK’s — or any government’s — climate policy programme is the IMF’s ambitious advice from last month’s World Economic Outlook. (…) the IMF’s chief economist, she explains a three-pronged approach is necessary: ambitious public investment to draw in private investment; a significant and predictable rise in carbon prices; and a redistributive mechanism to ensure that the carbon transition is just and does not hurt those who are already worst off.” – bto: Ja, so kann man es zusammenfassen, jetzt muss man nur noch ergänzen, dass es vor allem Forschungsausgaben sein sollten.
- “(…) without squarely confronting these potential downsides, it is less likely that the government will take the measures needed to prevent them. We should remain sceptical, therefore, about Johnson’s ‘plan’ until we see a detailed commitment to a rising path of carbon taxes and an acknowledgment and solution to any regressive distributive effects.” – bto: Fragen, auf die unsere Politik übrigens auch keine Antwort hat. Gar keine.
Dies zeigt: Überall wird über das Thema heftig gestritten, aber nicht überall so dogmatisch und ideologisch wie bei uns.
