Shale Gas to the Climate Rescue

The battle against runaway climate change is being lost. The green movement and the energy industry — while engaged in a furious debate on issues from nuclear power to oil sands — are missing the bigger picture.

There is little recognition by either side that current policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are inadequate for dealing with the threat that they pose. It is the coal-fueled growth of countries like China and India that generates much of these emissions. Unless a cheap, rapidly deployable substitute fuel is found for coal, then it will be next to impossible to safely rein in rising carbon dioxide levels around the world.

Although the green movement might at first see shale gas as an enemy in this fight, it may in fact turn out to be a friend. Broad development of shale gas resources — with proper ecological safeguards — could be the best way to achieve the quick cuts in carbon dioxide emissions that we need to maintain a habitable environment on Earth.

The International Energy Agency has made it clear that, under current energy policies, the door is closing on our attempts to contain the carbon-driven rise in global temperatures to within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the middle of the century. In fact, worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels reached a record high of 31.6 gigatons in 2011. With emissions rising by one gigaton per year, it appears the temperature-increase target will most likely be missed.

The shale gas revolution could be the means of blunting the rise of carbon dioxide emissions and give new hope for staying within the 2 degrees Celsius scenario. This resource is widely dispersed across the planet, cheap to develop and offers many of the same energy benefits as coal. If exploited properly, it could replace coal within a couple of decades as a primary fuel.

By developing shale gas as a replacement fuel for coal we retrieve the prospect of blunting — and possibly reversing — the upward climb of carbon dioxide emissions. Shale gas emits 50 percent less carbon dioxide than coal, and so if countries like China and India made the switch on a large scale, then we have a chance to reset the trajectory of global carbon dioxide emissions.

A widespread turn to the use of shale gas would give the planet precious time to develop other, renewable solutions to further lower our output of carbon dioxide. Current renewable energy sources cannot in any way deliver the same savings in carbon emissions that we can achieve by replacing coal with shale gas.

One only has to look to China to see the strong potential of this solution. With the world's largest shale gas resources, the country has set out a vast gas development program in its latest five-year economic plan. Output would rise from 6.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas by 2015 to 100 billion cubic meters by 2020. And if China can produce that much by 2020, is there any reason to think it cannot pump out 800 billion cubic meters by 2030?

Such a development program would be similar in scale to that undertaken in the United States, which has seen shale gas rise from 1 percent of gas production in 2001 to 37 percent last year.

China can surely achieve these goals, especially given all the new technology available to the shale gas industry, along with abundant state capital. That the government is focusing its efforts in this direction is another reason to believe that China can reach these production levels. An output of 800 billion cubic meters a year — combined with far-higher levels of energy efficiency — would allow China to slow, and then terminate, its coal-expansion plans and ultimately end its reliance on coal-fired energy altogether.

The United States could play a key role in encouraging China and other developing nations to switch from coal to shale gas. The State Department has launched a Global Shale Gas Initiative to facilitate the transfer of technical expertise to other countries to ensure safe development of this new resource. The United States could also lead the way in creating a credible, alternative climate change strategy in which the use of shale gas becomes the driver of radical cuts in carbon dioxide emissions over the short and medium term.

Such a strategy would include establishing a series of Shale Gas Trusts around the world to disseminate information, know-how and assist in building regulatory capacity. A second part of the strategy would press for the gradual suppression of coal use and the global trade in coal, with compensation outlays for the coal industry as a whole.

Suppressing the production and trade in coal would be vital for three reasons. First, it would demonstrate the West's commitment to replacing coal. Second, we would be able to transfer the social, regulatory and business know-how to other nations to encourage coal suppression. Third, it would push up the price of coal to encourage states to switch from coal to shale gas.

Of course the coal industry in the West would resist suppression. But the reality of rising access to cheap shale gas will in any event increasingly undermine the profitability of coal. A compelling business case can be made to the coal industry that compensation and access to the shale gas industry is a better option than remaining in coal.

Successful worldwide cooperation in suppressing coal could provide the basis for building a credible international coalition to further decarbonize the energy system beyond shale gas and into a fully renewable economy.