Grid Emission Factors (G.E.F) in Maldives for 2012

Grid emission factor is the amount of emission per unit of electricity used in that grid. Below I have derived the grid emission factor (GEF) for some islands on Maldives based on data of 2012.

*one kWh is equal one unit of electricity

The significance of these numbers is that it gives you an idea how much carbon footprint you would have if you were living in one of those islands. All you would have to do is take the kWh (meter) reading for a particular month and multiply with this number. And that would give the contribution of your household to global warming or climate change by the use of electricity that month or the period that reading has been taken.

Remember this just one part of your carbon footprint, there are others things like the waste u create, or the cycles, buses or taxis ride you take which adds to your carbon footprint.

True Energy Price in Maldives (updated)

When I say "true energy price" I do not mean the price of petrol/diesel available at the petrol bunks nor do I mean the price of fossil fuel per liter or per kg. It would mean the price per energy content of the fuel.

Given the different types of fossil fuel imported to Maldives over the past 10 years and how it is measured (LPG in kg while diesel in liters) it and its different energy content(diesel have higher energy content than petrol), it would be completely impossible to give an accurate picture of which fuel is more expensive and which is cheaper. In order to give an accurate comparison of the cost of fossil fuels imported, I had to convert the amount of fuel imports in that period to its respective energy content. And that energy content is measured against the monetary value expended to buy that fuel. The diagram below shows such a comparison of the 4 major fossil fuel imports in Maldives over 10 years (2001 to 2010). This just for information.

The data provided for this analysis is from Maldives Customs Services, and the data has been used without any changes to the original data. Furthermore this analysis is not a reviewed or a published analysis. 

Global Warming and Energy Consumption

The figure above shows the relation between energy consumption and atmospheric temperature. It shows a clear relation between rising temperature with energy use. This means the rising temperature exhibited  in the long term temperature trend (as shown in figure below) from Hulhule' Met station would translate into an increase in energy consumption in Male region.

And this creates a vicious cycle. That is more electricity used means more GHG in Male' meaning more global warming, higher temperatures and again more electricity. More electricity also mean we spend a lot more money of fuel which frankly Maldives cannot really afford to do for mid and long term. The other issue is the relation between development and electricity or energy as a whole. The following figure shows how closely energy consumption is related to GDP growth.

It infers that increase in economy, leads to increase in Energy, which leads to increase in fossil fuel consumption and increase in CO2 emission and global warming. As i said before due to high dependence of fossil fuel we can't afford to increase our energy usage as it is. Even if we have to slow down and look for other options we will run into a wall sooner rather than later. We need to choose an option which would decouple development/ energy consumption from fossil fuel/ CO2 emission. And the Urgency is now.

GHG emissions in Maldives overtime. (Updated)

The figure shows the increase of GHG emission in the maldives overtime. The method used to derive the numbers was using top to bottom approach and using standard emission factors from IPCC EFDB. The  gap from 95 to 2000 is due to lack of data. The unit Gg is equivalent to kilo-ton equivalent of CO2. The 2012 (the red bar) is projected emission for this year based on the 1st quarter of the year.

Male' in 1922 and today

Story of CDM - part 1

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It was the year 1997, place Kyoto, Japan. One of the milestone meetings held under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). After much debate Conference of Parties (COP) adopted Kyoto Protocol(Kyoto Protocol) as an immediate solution for climate change issues. As a testament to the issues it had, Kyoto Protocol took 8 years of its 15yrs of its 1^st Commitment Period (CP1) to enter into force under the UNFCCC. Nevertheless KP gave birth to whole new market mechanisms, introducing a whole new commercial product which went on to revolutionized the world of innovators, financiers and overall development of the whole world. Those mechanisms are known as Joint Implementation (JI) and Clean Development Mechanism(CDM) and that commercial product is better known as Carbon Credits.

Clean Development Mechanism, and Joint Implementation are the paternal twins of KP. Where the JI focused only developed countries, CDM focused on rest of the world. Reason why CDM is more popular than JI is because of the larger audience CDM catered to. Now this isn’t about the controversial KP or the rivalry between the brothers JI and CDM. Its only about CDM.

Clean Development Mechanism or CDM is a market mechanism which dictated that the Country A who had technology, financing and any other resource of importance/use to reduce carbon emission would use those in a CountryB which has no such technology, finance or any other resource of importance/use. And in return the emission reduced or the Carbon Credits produced would be owned by the Country A.The idea behind is the credits earned by Country A from Country B using CDM would be used to offset the emissions of Country A so as to meet the any commitment (if any) of Country A under the KP.

Ok before I head on, I should explain, under KP, the Parties to KP were categorized into 2 groups. The Developed Countries aka Annex 1 countries and Developing Countries aka Non-Annex 1 countries. Annex 1s are the have it alls, and Non-Annex 1s are the want it alls. Although imperfect CDM gave an avenue under KP to let them both have what they want (I.e. to be have it alls). This particular grouping is the main reason why KP is under fire today, but will not talk about that here.

Now under CDM, green technologies (which were environment friendly and reduces the green house gas) which were expensive than normal technologies got a financial edge. That is by the emission reduced by using green technology instead of using normal technology will be counted as Certified Emission Reduction (CER). By the way 1 CER is 1ton of CO2 equivalent. Due to the emission reduction commitments of Annex 1 countries and the high cost of reducing that much emission whithin their country left them needing CER to meet their commitments. And with lower cost of CO2 reduction in Non-Annex 1 Countries in comparison with the same in Annex 1 countries, CDM became attractive. But CDM was new and it took time to set up some rules/guidelines and whatever else needed for it. And that caused the huge demand and low supply of CER by CDM in the beginning, the price of CER in the market sky rocketed attracting everyone and anyone who had something to offer into the carbon business (technology developers, financiers, brokers etc...). And thus began the story of CDM.