00:00Because the UN has warned that we're going to overshoot that one and a half degrees that was stipulated as
00:07the safe bet in the Paris Accords.
00:10But someone who thinks that we're still going to be able to keep it under two degrees, it's still possible,
00:15is Lord Adair Turner.
00:16He joins us now. We're going to talk to you about all of this.
00:19So you're the co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission and former chair of the UK's Climate Change Commission Committee.
00:27So we're in good hands here. So talk to me about this.
00:31You think it's still vital to stick to this temperature goal. What is still possible? What's credible?
00:37On the basis of existing policies and on the basis of what businesses will do, because it's economic in any
00:44case,
00:44we're heading for about 2.65 degrees centigrade by the end of the century.
00:49And we all have to realise that rather than believing that we're just going above 1.5.
00:54We're going above 1.5 this year, not at some stage in the future.
00:58However, at the ETC, we think it is still vital and still possible to limit global warming well below 2
01:04degrees centigrade.
01:05Let's say that calls 1.8.
01:07And to get back to 1.5 by the end of the century, if we pay for a large amount
01:13of removals.
01:14Now, within getting from 2.65 to 1.8, the bit we can do and must do without removals,
01:22clean electrification, clean electrification, is the single biggest thing we need to do, but it's not sufficient in itself.
01:29Even if we have total clean electrification of everything that can be electrified and total decarbonisation of our power systems
01:37by 2050 or 60 thereabouts,
01:41that will limit global warming to about 2.2 degrees centigrade.
01:45To get well below 2 degrees centigrade, we also have to deal with methane emissions, we have to deal with
01:50deforestation,
01:50and we have to decarbonise the hard-to-electrify sectors of the economy like steel and cement, plastics, aviation, shipping.
01:58But how do leaders admit that, that we're going to overshoot this 1.5, but we can still bring it
02:04down within reasonable levels?
02:05How do they admit that without giving up altogether?
02:08Well, I think we've got to face the facts.
02:11Look, we have admitted it, the United Nations Environment Report, it says that its most optimistic scenario limits global warming
02:21to a peak of 1.8 degrees centigrade.
02:23So the UN said it, everybody said it, Jim Ski, the head of the IPCC, has said it, we are
02:29going to very significantly overshoot 1.5.
02:31But if we're serious about what we have to do for the people of the world, we've got to have
02:36a serious plan to make sure it isn't more than 1.8,
02:39and that preserves the possibility of getting back to 1.5 if we then have removals.
02:45But step one is a serious plan to bring where we're heading down from 2.65 to 1.8.
02:52So is that serious plan electrification?
02:55A half of that serious plan is electrification.
02:58Very important point.
02:59The single most important thing we have to do is electrification, but it's not enough.
03:04If you electrify and you don't deal with steel, iron, shipping, aviation, which are not electrification solutions,
03:10you stay at about 2.2 degrees centigrade.
03:13Think about it, from 2.6 to 2.2, that's what you can achieve by clean electrification.
03:19No stress, the clean as well as the electrification.
03:21From 2.2 to 1.8, you've got to do the other stuff, which is not electrification.
03:26So if it's such a no-brainer, why isn't everybody on board in terms of the detail, including clean in
03:32this pledge, for example?
03:33Well, the clean is very important, and the balance varies by different countries.
03:38If you take my own country, the UK, we have pretty clean electricity now.
03:43Our electricity produces about 120 grams per kilowatt-hour of electricity.
03:48But we're way behind China, for instance, on electrification.
03:52We're at about 19% of final energy demand comes from electricity.
03:56So our priority is to electrify with some already quite clean electricity.
04:02Take China, already at about 30%, approaching 30% on electrification,
04:07but the electricity is still quite dirty, still about 500 grams per kilowatt-hour.
04:14So China has got a balance, yes, going further with electrification,
04:18with really driving down its grams per kilowatt-hour.
04:21We've got to think about both of those dimensions, bringing down the grams per kilowatt-hour,
04:26driving up the electricity as a percent of final energy demand.
04:29You talk about heavy industry.
04:31You've mentioned aviation, shipping and so forth, methane, deforestation.
04:36All of these things are boulders stuck at the foot of a hill, right?
04:39Yeah.
04:39So who's going to push them up, that hill?
04:41Well, I think that's right, and that's one way we've expressed the way we think about our challenges.
04:46There are some where the economics is already working.
04:50We've got a boulder rolling down the hill, and we just need to push it faster.
04:54EVs are going to beat ICEs because they're a better product.
04:57Electric theaters will beat internal combustion engines.
05:00We're going to get electrified residential heat.
05:04We just need to do that faster, but once we've done it, those are win-wins.
05:08People will enjoy lower household budgets and lower emissions.
05:12Then we've got a stuff where it is more difficult, the pushing uphill stuff.
05:16Let's take hard to electrify.
05:18You are never going to decarbonize iron and steel or shipping or aviation unless you have a carbon price,
05:25because it is more expensive to do those in a zero-carbon fashion than in a high-carbon fashion.
05:31We've got to do it.
05:32We've just, at the Energy Transition Commission, done a major piece of work in China
05:37on how to decarbonize the Chinese iron production.
05:40Hugely important.
05:41More than 50% of all the production in the world.
05:44And it can be done, but it will require a carbon price of about $100 a tonne.
05:49So, one of the things we're very keen about at the ETC is, let's get serious about this.
05:54We can't go on just making high-level comments that will meet targets
05:59without being specific about what's required to get there.
06:02Lorde Der Turner, thank you very much indeed.
