Background on Energy and Resources Strategy

Abstract

This chapter sets the scene for the series of lectures on energy and resources provided as part of the environmental leader course. Many of the individual lectures (chapters in this book) focus on specific resource or energy issues or technical challenges but these have also to be seen as part of an overall picture, where human activities have reached a scale which can no longer be supported in a sustainable way. This chapter provides some of the background to placing these individual fields in this wider perspective by looking at some of the history of environmental problems in Japan, as well as some key current international issues including global warming and climate change, social issues including poverty, threats to biodiversity and sustainability’s limits and balances.

2.1 The Environmental Leader Programs

As described in Chap. 1, the thinking behind Japan’s Environmental Leader programs is that even though many agree that we need to move rapidly to a more sustainable society, the current pace of change is failing to reverse adverse trends in energy and resources consumption, population growth, climate change, ecosystem loss, species extinctions and other key indicators of unsustainable development. This situation has led to initiatives in Japan to nurture a new generation of environmental leaders who can influence individual, business and governmental priorities and help promote the development of a more sustainable society. These programs face the challenges of providing participants with the knowledge, motivation and skills necessary to influence and lead others towards a more sustainable future.

The Environmental Leadership Training Program (ELTP) within the Strategic Energy and Resource Management and Sustainable Solutions (SERMSS 2014) (Tanaka 2014) project of the Graduate School of Environmental Sciences (GSES 2014) was outlined in Chap. 1 and has been designed to be flexible and allow students who are conducting research across a wide range of different disciplines (science, engineering and humanities) to participate in the same program. The ELTP comprises lectures to provide knowledge of sustainability and specific environmental problems and solutions, active learning to encourage personal skills development, fieldwork for practical experience and internships to provide intensive training opportunities- all built on the foundation of the student’s basic scientific or engineering research. The ELTP was introduced in 2011 and over 110 students have already completed the various types of courses (Basic, Regular, Masters and Doctorate courses).

The ELTP teaching curriculum was shown in Table 1.3 and allows students to access teaching on international aspects, sustainability and environmental problems, problem solution identification and in leadership training. Features of Tohoku University ELP are that we have a foundation of global environmental issues, the energy / resources / water. One course, as outlined in Chap. 1, is a series of lectures related to strategy for energy and resources, and is provided by professors in the GSES on various aspects of energy and resources in their own research fields. In this chapter, I set out some general background considerations which are provided to course students to help them put each of the specialised lectures into the broader framework of sustainability’s multiple dimensions. I also hope this can be a useful background to readers of this book.

2.2 Background Issues

2.2.1 Environmental Issues

The ELTP is motivated by our wish to help solve key global environmental problems. First of all, we must consider what are these problems? The following can be listed:

• Global warming.

• Deforestation.

• Depletion of the ozone layer (both North and South Poles).

• Acid rain (now including ocean acidification).

• Desertification.

• Artificial hazardous chemicals (also including diffusion and trans-border movements of hazardous chemicals and wastes).

• Exposure of the public to pollution in developing countries.

• Decreases in biodiversity.

• Marine pollution.

• Two historically local forms of pollution (referred in Japan to as KOGAI because of their effects on the public) have also spread to become important global environmental issues; air pollution, and water pollution/shortage.

• Increase in quantity and complexity of waste from human society.

Associated with each of these problems are some common factors; they all result from the rapid growth in human numbers and activity, in the rapid growth in the exploitation of resources, and the lack of any balance between consumption and its consequences. We have been attempting to deal with such pollution problems now for many years- particularly since the 1950s, and now know a lot about the environmental impacts of different types of emissions, how they spread and may or may not be degraded by the environment, how to measure and calculate toxic impacts, and how to mitigate the harmful effects of pollutants. Some of these major problems are under some degree of control (for instance the ozone layer depletion seems to have stabilised), but others such as deforestation, desertification and global warming show no signs of being placed under effective control. Only recently, the IPCC released the summary for policymakers in its 5th Assessment (IPCC 2013) which confirmed that global temperatures are rising as a result of emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, that a further rise in temperature of up to 4.8 ℃ can be expected by the end of the century (depending on the degree of success in reducing emissions), together with a sea level rise of 26–82 cm (Table 2.1). A critical fact which IPCC pointed out is that the level of warming is determined by the overall quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that to have a 2/3 chance of limiting warming to 2 ℃, the total emission since industrial revolution need to be limited to 1000 Gt carbon; half of this has already been used and at current rates, the rest will be emitted in the next 20 or so years. The largest causes of this global warming are human activity and excess energy consumption. For energy, see the described outline in 1.3.1. of Chap. 1.

Table 2.1 Main messages of the IPCC 2013 5th Assessment. (IPCC 2013)

2.2.2 Japan’s History

Looking at Japan, the legal framework for dealing with pollution is influenced very much by our own country’s historical experience of gross public pollution. The country’s rapid economic growth during the 1950s and the complete lack of any environmental controls with the priority firmly on the economy, led to many local cases of dead rivers, gross levels of air pollution and also several toxic events including mercury poisoning at Minamata and Niigata, and food contamination by PCBs and cadmium. This history of events means that under Section 3, Article 2 in the Japanese Basic Environment Law, the main examples of environmental pollution and destruction include atmospheric pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, noise, vibration, odours and unpleasant smells, and land subsidence. We might also since add light pollution, obstruction of sunshine by buildings, dioxins, asbestos, hormone disrupting chemicals, hazardous chemicals, chemical allergies, cedar pollution allergies, and others. Some of the major influences on government legislation are listed in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2 History of some major pollution events in Japan

As can be seen from Table 2.2, Japan’s history of pollution events goes back many years—even to the nineteenth century and the first involvement of politicians in trying to solve a public pollution problem. This was well before the days of parliaments and laws, and in one example in the 1890s, Shozo Tanaka had to make a direct appeal to the Meiji Emperor to take action against the Ashio copper mine’s environmental damage to local citizens, farming, and forests. Perhaps this might be categorized as an early example of an environmental leader!

Of course Japan’s experience is not unique and has been mirrored across the world; many similarly famous incidents in other countries have led to new laws and regulations to try and overcome the basic problem of environmental pollution (Table 2.3). Some environmental issues have truly entered the public consciousness through books such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, books on hormone disrupting chemicals (“Our Stolen Future” and “Feminisation of Nature”), and of course Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” on global warming.

Table 2.3 Famous pollution incidents outside Japan and influential books or movies

In Japan, the gross impacts of pollution even entered the public consciousness through famous monster characters such as Godzilla! In the 1971 movie “Godzilla versus the Monster of Chemical Ooze”, the monster Hedorah (Fig. 2.1) was able to feed on pollution. In this way a pollution event in real life (Hedorah is the name for a waste sludge from paper production at Tagono-Ura, Shizuoka Prefecture) causing local social problems, became a theme and message reaching children around the world.

Fig. 2.1

Pollution in movies-the Story of “Godzilla vs. Hedorah”(1971 Toho Co., Ltd.)

In tackling pollution problems, a contrast is often drawn between developed and developing countries. We can summarise the different influences and interactions between developed and developing countries and environmental issues in Fig. 2.2. This shows that some of the central environmental issues may appear at first sight to be more closely linked to one type of country; but in fact whether developed or developing countries, all are contributing to the problems and also must contribute to their solution.

Fig. 2.2

Different origins and responses to environmental problems in developed and developing countries. (Source: Guide for Global Environmental Research Committee, edited by keywords related to the environment)

2.2.3 The Overall Challenges

Let us now turn to the central part of this course where we try and answer the questions:

• What is the basic nature of environmental problems?

• What is their cause?

• How do we correct them?

First let us have a brief look at the second half of the twentieth century-Table 2.4 summarises the growth which has occurred between 1950 and 2000 in a range of indicators of human activity. Since 1950, global population has tripled, energy consumption has increased 15 times and global GNP increased about 21 times. During this period the environmental problems mentioned above have also worsened, requiring substantial expansions in environmental laws and regulations in the last 50 years in order to deal with the more urgent problems (Meadows 1999, 2004). It is an understatement to say that the twentieth century was a century of rapidly expanding human activity¹. The key six elements of energy, resources, chemicals, water, food, and atmosphere are all under stress as a result of growth in population and human activities. Driving all these is an apparently insatiable appetite of humankind in both numbers (population growth) and consumption (energy and resources). I see this ‘human desire’ as driving all these global trends. For example, the ecological footprint says current human activities have already greatly exceeded the capacity of our one Earth. In view of the state of the planet beyond the sustainability the current situation, Dr. Meadows (et al.) pointed out that the global economy will approach its limits by environmental pollution and consumption of resources, in “The Limits to Growth” which was published in 1972. (D. H. Meadows, 1972). They also published “The Limits to Growth: a 30-Year Update” in 2004. They speculated on multiple scenarios around the world from an environmental stance which is increasingly worse through “desire” and “overkill” by humankind. (D. H. Meadows, 2004) In his report in 2009, Dr. Rockstrom also pointed out how some human activities have already exceeded their limits.

Table 2.4 Growth in the second half of the twentieth century

Such high rates of consumption may lead to resource shortages as described in the next chapter by Professor Taniguchi. But it has also exceeded the ability of the planet to provide a range of ecosystem services and natural resources on a sustainable basis (see environmental management tools in the next chapter), while at the same time actually making some of the economic indicators of sustainability worse-as evidenced by the widening gap between the rich and poor (Fig. 2.3). Indeed the widening inequality only serves to exacerbate poverty. In turn, poverty is not only one of the biggest problems in our society, but it is also has a deep relationship with environmental issues such as deforestation, expansion of desertification, and environmental issues in developing countries As recognised in the original Brundtland report (WCED 1987), when there is no food today, who will think about the future? When there is no firewood today, who will protect the forest of tomorrow? At present, the 2 % richest monopolize more than 50 % of world income. In contrast, the poorest 20 % of people only have 1–2 % of global income.

Fig. 2.3

World income distribution (Source: Data from Dikhanov, Y. (2005). Trends in global income distribution, 1970–2000, and scenarios for 2015. New York, NY: United Nations Development Programme.)

What has been happening in businesses and companies during this period? There have certainly been changes in corporate environmental management, starting with the growth in environmental reporting in the 1980s and 1990s and the first international environmental standard (ISO 14001) from 1996. In recent years, the term ‘Eco’ has become widespread (eco-points, eco-car, etc.) together with advances in energy-saving appliances, technological advances in energy conservation and pollution control technology, and other contributions to reducing environment impact. A comprehensive range of laws has emerged on various public nuisances and also one of the world’s leading legal frameworks for a ‘recycle based society’ has emerged in Japan (see Fig. 2.4). Japan is not alone in this and the EU has also introduced a range of environmental directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE directive), the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS: Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and the regulation on Registration, Evaluation Authorisation and Restriction of CHemicals (REACH).

Fig. 2.4

Japan’s legal framework for the Environment and Recycling Society. (Translated from http://www.logistics.or.jp/green/map.html. Accessed 26 June 2014)

Despite these positive trends however, when the overall scale of environmental impact is measured in terms of CO₂ emissions, Japan along with other countries, has still made little progress. Japan agreed to reduce total emissions under the Kyoto protocol by 6 % relative to 1990. By 2009, Japan’s emissions had declined slightly, but the switch from nuclear power to fossil fuels following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster reversed this, and Japan has shown the largest increase in CO₂ emissions of any of developed country in the last year, with a rise in emissions of 4 % in 2011 and a further rise of 2.7 % in 2012 (Fig. 2.5). Nevertheless with the help of absorption of CO₂ through forest carbon sinks, and purchases of carbon credits through the Kyoto mechanisms, Japan was at least one of the original Annex 1 countries who did meet their original commitment (in contrast to countries such as USA which did not join the Protocol and Canada which reneged on its original commitments). However the Abe government announced in November 2013 that it would abandon the further reduction target of 25 % by 2020 adopted by the previous government. Instead, it adopted a target of an increase (of 3–4 %) relative to the 1990 baseline.

Fig. 2.5

Japan’s CO2 emissions to 2012. (Source: Ministry of the Environment; http://www.env.go.jp/en/headline/file_view.php?serial=547&hou_id=2031. Accessed 26 June 2014)

The effects of the 2011 disaster on household energy can be seen in Fig. 2.6. Emissions of CO₂ from the average household in Japan were 4758 kg in fiscal 2010. Supply of electricity was interrupted by the earthquake and following this, nuclear power generation was stopped due to local opposition to restarts after routine maintenance and due to increased regulatory standards and approval procedures. As a result, the supply of electricity has shifted from nuclear generation to fossil fuel-using thermal power generation. Despite many additional measures for saving energy, CO₂ emissions rose to 5060 kg/household in fiscal 2011. This is an increase of about 300 [kgCO₂/ household], or about 6 % (Fig. 2.6). And this is 5,270kg/household in FY 2012. Basically, the average Japanese household is emitting higher levels of CO₂ because of the loss of CO₂ emission-free nuclear power from the electricity supply side. However, at present we cannot pronounce the reactivation of nuclear power plants as something “good or bad.” This is because the cause of accident of Fukushima nuclear plant is not yet clear and no one can guarantee the safety of nuclear power generation at the moment. Furthermore, we have not resolved the treatment methods to dispose of highly radioactive either technologically or socially.

Fig. 2.6

Household emissions before and after the 2011 Disaster. (Source: Japan GHG Inventory Office; https://www.env.go.jp/policy/hakusyo/h25/html/hj13020201.html. Accessed 26 June 2014)

The growth in emissions from other countries however means that Japan remains in fifth position in the amount of CO₂ emitted (Table 2.5). These global emissions continue to increase the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, which passed 400 ppm in 2013—a level not reached for almost 1 million years.

Table 2.5 CO₂ emissions by country ranking trends—2012 (million tons). (Data from Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency)

2.2.4 Sustainability, Limits and Balances

Moving to the broader system aspects of sustainability, increasingly we must think of the earth as a dynamic system under increasingly severe disturbance from human activity. Whether it is the carbon cycle, the water cycle, the climate system or the ocean circulation system, human activities are now on a scale capable of disrupting these essential systematic life-support systems for humankind (Fig. 2.7 illustrates carbon and water cycles). Hollywood movies enjoy dramatising future catastrophes arising from our planetary limits being exceeded, but the science is telling us that this is not science fiction- the future life-support system for humankind really are in jeopardy. Rockstrom et al.’s paper in Nature in 2009 starts to quantify this and identifies essential limits which together provide a “Safe operating space for Humanity”. Sustainability basically signifies that we have to keep and maintain a safe and satisfactory life for our descendants, and thus balance is becoming an important key word. For example, the balance between the earth’s capacity and human activity, the balance between nature and human, between living creatures and humans, between the environment and the economy, between hope and desire. It may be necessary to suppress our own numbers or activities to maintain these critical balances. Indeed, I believe that it is increasingly necessary to establish a balance between the earth and human activity in order to maintain the sustainability of both nature and humanity. This in turn requires us to be better in our selection of which technology to use, to limit the appetite (greed) in our mind and to also care about other people. It is necessary to ask a number of key questions if we are to consider true happiness in a sustainable world. “What is our happiness and satisfaction?” “Which is more important, philosophical satisfaction and family especially children and grandchildren, or materials/money/power?” “What is our true purpose?”

Fig. 2.7

Natural cycles being disturbed by humanactivities–carbon cycle, water cycle, atmosphere circulation, ocean circulation. a Schematic diagram of anthropogenic carbon balance (Unit: Giga ton) Yellow: Amount by industrial activity Black: Before Industrial Revolution (Source: Adapted from Japan Meteorological Agency: http://www.data.jma.go.jp/kaiyou/db/mar_env/knowledge/global_co2_flux/carbon_cycle.b 2.7.2AverageMovement of water peryear [×103km3/y] (Note: By the law of conservation of mass) (Source: Adapted from JGL, Vol. 3, No.3 2007. Oki and Kanae (2006) revised)

2.2.5 Biodiversity

In this short introduction, we also need to point to the drastic reduction in planetary biodiversity which is underway. This is not necessarily a pollution issue but really a symptom of how the increasing population of the planet needs yet more and more land to provide the resources needed for food, timber, fish and other biological resources. I can just point to the explosive growth in the coverage of Southeast Asia (Malaysian and Indonesia in particular) in producing Palm oil (see Fig. 2.8). The destruction of the forest to replace with palm oil plantation is one of the biggest causes of biodiversity loss, and also periodically leads to extremely poor air quality in the region, as well as destroying the hitherto sustainable forest-based life styles of indigenous people. The driving forces here are not just in the producing countries—as can be seen from Fig. 2.9, the real driving force is the demand in the importing countries such as China, EU, Pakistan, Egypt, and so on.

Fig. 2.8

Palm oil production trends. (USDA data). (Unit: 1000 tons)(Source:USDA “World Markets and Trade”August-July)

Fig. 2.9

World imports of palm oil. (USDA data). (Unit: 1000 tons) (Source: USDA“World Markets and Trade”August-July)

Biodiversity and the associated ecosystem services are becoming important issues for global sustainability. For a sustainable world, maintaining biodiversity is recognised as very important. In fact, we humans do not even know how many creatures inhabit the earth. Currently, it is said that about 1.4–1.8 million species are recognized scientifically, but some scholars say the numbers of species, including yet unknown organisms, may be much greater. Scientists are now warning that 0.1–0.01 % are becoming extinct every year. The biggest contribution to the accelerating modern rates of extinction (loss of biological diversity) is human activity- especially loss of habitat through habitat destruction or land use change. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA 2005) said that the rate of extinction of species is 1000–10,000 times that which would occur in the absence of human involvement, and numbers of threatened species globally are shown in Fig. 2.10. Natural ecosystems exist in complex and subtle balances, which if destroyed may not be capable of being restored through human intervention. Biodiversity loss involving the extinction of many organisms raises ethical questions and the question of whether it is any different to allowing the extinction of humans. Japan has its own list of species already extinct and those endangered as in Fig. 2.11. It is important to emphasise that current rates of species extinction have occurred in the past only as a result of catastrophic events such as volcanoes, asteroid impacts, but now are due to human activity.

Fig. 2.10

Threatened species of the world. (IUCN 2007 data from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IUCN_Red_List_2007.svg. Accessed 26 June 2014)

2.2.6 Energy, Water, Food and its Security

There are two sides to many of the major challenges facing a sustainable world. For instance, with energy there is the environmental impact- the increase in carbon dioxide and harmful substances due to the use of fossil fuels (problems of air pollution and global warming). On the other hand, there are concerns over depletion of energy in general and the specific problem of energy security in Japan. In the latter case, the energy self-sufficiency rate in Japan is about 20 %, even when there is nuclear power. If there is no nuclear power, self-sufficiency is about 4 % or lower. It is thus important to increase renewable energy usage substantially as soon as possible. I will explain one of the examples of such a new energy system in a later chapter (Chap. 7).

Water pollution is a serious issue in many areas, but water supply is an even more important issue than energy in many parts of the world. The water which humanity can use easily is about 0.01–0.02 % of the water on the planet—the freshwater existing in the rivers and lakes, and stored in glaciers and underground aquifers (Fig. 2.12). According to the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), one in five developing countries’ population (about 1.1 billion people) cannot be assured of the water needed for farming. These water shortages become more severe with population growth. Currently 884 million people do not have access to ‘safe’ drinking water in the world. The water environment is thus threatened not just in quality but also quantity.

Fig. 2.11

Japanese mammals and birds already extinct and those currently endangered. (MOE http://www.env.go.jp/en/nature/biodiv/reddata.html. Accessed 26 June 2014)

Food is also an important issue. Malnourished people in the world now are estimated at 925 million, of which 563 million (corresponding to two thirds) are living in the Asia-Pacific Ocean region. The food self-sufficiency rate in Japan has fallen to 40 % in a calorie basis. Since the environment for food production may worsen due to global warming, the countries that are not able to be self-sufficient in food and the associated risks of food shortages are growing. These problems have to be considered in parallel with environmental issues.

2.2.7 Guidelines to Achieving Sustainability

Looking for guidelines to maintain sustainability, three principles were proposed by Herman Daly in 1972, and four Natural Step rules were also proposed by Karl Heinrike Robert in 1989. These are summarized in Tables 2.6 and 2.7 respectively.

Table 2.6 Three principles of Herman E. Daly

Table 2.7 Four principles for sustainable development

I translate these in a more personal way as in Table 2.8, and link them to the fundamental human motives, actions and consequences in Fig. 2.13.

Fig. 2.12

Water available for human use. (Source: UNEP and Japan Water Guard) http://npo-jwg.com/studypl.html

Table 2.8 Guidelines made on behalf of the resolution of global environmental problems and sustainable society

This is what I believe to be necessary to resolve current global environmental problems. To do this, we need the power of young people like the “Environmental Leaders” we are attempting to train in the Environmental Leader program.

In summary, I have pointed out that global environmental issues of today are occurring as a result of human activities which are beyond the tolerance of the earth. The reasons for this include the trends shown in Fig. 2.13:

Fig. 2.13

Environmental issues and their root causes

• 1. Overpopulation by explosive population growth.

• 2. Excessive use of energy, resources chemicals, and water through the growth in human activities.

• 3. Diffusion of chemicals and increase of waste beyond levels that can be handled.

• 4. Changes which humans are causing are too fast.

• 5. In other words, people have caused radical changes in both quality and quantity over a very short period of time (almost instantly in terms of Earth’s geological history).

In this series of lectures I ask the students to ask the following questions, and do the same to the readers of this book.

• 1. What is the essence of environmental issues?

• 2. What is the cause of environmental problems?

• 3. How do you solve these problems? What are our best actions?

These are just some of the issues that will be addressed in more detailed during the rest of this course and which are the focus of later chapters in this book.

A Postscript

While this course on energy and resources strategy was being given (October 2013–March 2014), there were many abnormal weather phenomena around the world such as the heavy rain on the Indochina Peninsula in September 2013, Typhoon No. 30 (HAIYAN) in the Philippines in November 2013, and extremely cold weather in North America from December 2013 to January 2014. Furthermore, PM 2.5 warnings (air pollution) have been issued in various regions because of air pollution blowing from China to Japan, resulting in days when children are forbidden to play outside in the Kyushu and Kansai Regions in Japan. In Paris, the atmosphere has become contaminated by exhaust gases, and the Eiffel Tower appears hazy in the smog. In response, car use has been limited to even or odd-numbered days according to license plate numbers.

This reminds us that pollution is not a problem of only one country or region. It exists on a global scale with cross-border pollution from country to country. Water pollution, desertification, and other severe, pressing issues are also continuing. According to the latest information, the average temperature of the world in 2014 was 0.27 ℃ over that of an average year. In other words, the average temperature of the world in 2014 will have been the highest since the start of statistical records in 1891. It is thus important for Japan to consider how it can contribute to the world through new technology in such fields as introducing renewable energy, energy saving, the prevention of air/water pollution and their purification—especially for developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South and Central America.