Tag: JI

Market Mania

Submitted by MBrockley on June 10, 2013 - 1:35am

Carbon markets are in the dumps and policy makers and market participants alike are scrambling to come to their rescue. This weekend, ECO spent two days with delegates to discuss the future of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and what changes to its underlying modalities and procedures are needed to make the CDM fit for the future. The number of delegates that showed up on Sunday at 9 AM showed us that there is hope.

Let’s start with the good news. For the first time, human rights impacts of CDM projects and harmful impacts of large power supply projects in the CDM were discussed openly! Now dear delegates, it’s time to move into action mode: start by kicking coal out of the CDM, find a way to phase out large scale power projects, improve the stakeholder consultation process, establish a grievance mechanism and move the whole CDM far beyond offsetting!

But ECO is worried that certain Parties that host many CDM projects did not seem to like the proposed changes. Some of them posited that everything was all right with the mechanism and that people who raised doubts about additionality were only showing their ignorance. ECO suggests that a little less self-congratulation would be in order given the number of academic studies that have concluded that there are in fact substantial problems. If you want a future for the CDM you need to improve its reputation by addressing the problems, not ignoring them. This old-fashioned thinking will certainly not help the CDM to recover and scale up but will once and for all give it the lethal injection.

Joint Implementation has been in the shadow of the CDM for many years. Yet close to 800 million JI credits have been issued to date. Strong reforms are needed for JI. Almost all of them under track 1 have very limited transparency or integrity. Despite the poor quality of JI offsets, they are used extensively. Strong reforms are needed for JI. The experience with JI track 1 shows that a new, unified track needs to have strong international oversight. Also, issuance of JI credits for emissions reductions after 2012 should only be possible once the host country has issued its AAUs for the second commitment period. The future 2015 regime will require market mechanisms to work in a different world where many developed and developing countries will have mitigation commitments.

This issue is currently being discussed in SBSTA, where Parties are establishing a new market mechanism and a Framework for Various Approaches that should make emission reductions units that are achieved by various mitigation systems internationally tradable and eligible for meeting national emission reduction targets.

Some countries have put forward good proposals to avoid double counting. But ECO is missing support for centralised governance and international consistency of standards and how to achieve net mitigation benefits. And let’s not forget, before we can agree on anything, we need an international accounting framework and clearer and more ambitious pledges.

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SBSTA

Clean Development Mechanism

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Flexible Mechanisms

MBrockley's blog

CAN Intervention - AWG-KP Opening Plenary - May 15, 2012

Submitted by MBrockley on May 15, 2012 - 6:08am

CAN_KP_Opening_intervention_May15-2012.pdf

Thank you Chair

I am speaking on behalf of the Climate Action Network. The lack of ambition and leadership shown by most developed countries is putting humanity and the natural systems on which we rely at risk.

The IEA recently found that projections for energy use and emissions could be putting us on course for a 6C temperature increase, which would have a high probability of activating a number of potential global-scale tipping points.

Keeping global temperature increase to below 2°C, much less 1.5ºC, requires emissions to peak by 2015 while science tells us that developed countries must reduce emissions by more than 40% by 2020. Low pledges from developed countries are further weakened through loopholes, attempts to shift the ambition discussion to post-2020, andby Parties walking away from the Kyoto Protocol. We are utterly dismayed and disappointed with the decision by the Canadian government to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Repealing all environmental legislation on the statute books will not make climate change go away. We urge Australia and NZ to fulfill their commitments and not follow in Canada's dirty footsteps.The legal and governance structure of the Kyoto Protocol is crucial to ensuring that mitigation commitments are legally binding and have environmental integrity.

We call on Parties:

 To immediately raise ambition at least to the top ends of the pledges.

 To agree on an adjustment procedure to enable developed countries to increase their 2020 pledges at any time until 2020 without requiring ratification by all Parties.

 To translate pledges into QELROs with the highest possible environmental integrity without de facto weakening of the pledges.

 To eliminate loopholes that threaten the environmental integrity and viability of a second Kyoto commitment period. These include surplus AAUs, weak rules for CDM and JI offsets and LULUCF, and possible double-counting of financial flows related to offsets as climate finance.

Thank you Chair

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Organization:

Climate Action Network

Kyoto

Related Event:

Bonn Climate Change Conference 2012

Related Member Organization:

Oxfam Australia

CAN Submission - Joint Implementation Projects, April 2012

Submitted by Anonymous on April 16, 2012 - 9:03pm

CAN_submission_on_JI_19April2012.pdf

According to Decision 11/CMP.7 paragraph 14 admitted UNFCCC observer organizations are invited to submit views, on the revision of the joint implementation guidelines, taking into account, as appropriate, their experience of implementing the mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol. The above mentioned NGOs welcome the opportunity to submit their views.

First we must put the future of the Joint Implementation mechanism (JI) in context. The window of opportunity to prevent catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing. Several studies show that current pledges are not only woefully insufficient to keep warming below 2^oC; loopholes, such as the surplus allowances (AAUs) from the first Kyoto commitment period (commonly referred to as ‘hot air’) could negate all current pledges and enable developed countries to meet mitigation targets while continuing with business-as-usual. We are now on an emissions path that could lead to warming of 4^oC or more. In addition, impacts associated with 2^oC have been revised upwards and are now considered ‘dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’. ...

Maintaining a reasonable likelihood of limiting temperature increases to within 2°C will require commitments in the next few years to considerably higher levels of ambition by all nations.

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Climate Action Network

CAN Positions

Kyoto

UNFCCC

CAN Submission - Framework for Various Approaches - March 2012

Submitted by MBrockley on March 9, 2012 - 2:24pm

CAN_submission_Framework_for_Various_Approaches_March2012.pdf

Admitted UNFCCC observer organizations are invited to submit views, including experiences, positive and negative, on matters referred to in paragraphs 79 and 80 of the Durban decision of the AWG-LCA which establishes a work program to consider a Framework for Various Approaches (Framework). CAN welcomes the opportunity to submit views.

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