Tag: target

Chutney With Your Lamb?

Submitted by MBrockley on May 22, 2012 - 5:21am

New Zealand has landed in a pickle over its forest accounts. The age structure of NZ’s plantations means that major harvesting is due to start late this decade and continue into the 2020s. Combine this with the new afforestation/reforestation debit-credit rule and the gains NZ wrangled in LULUCF look likely to evaporate – its carbon accounts skewed into the negative. ECO might even have a rare twinge of sympathy for NZ.

But ECO has no sympathy for New Zealand when it comes to gross emissions. They’ve continued rising since 1990 and are projected to continue rising, even with its much-talked-about-but-rather-weak Emissions Trading Scheme.

Worse, having agreed in Cancun that developed countries should write a low carbon development plan, New Zealand is showing no sign of writing one. It certainly has no plan to get gross emissions on a downward trajectory.

Instead New Zealand is planning just everything possible to increase emissions: dairy farming expansion, unprecedented levels of coal mining, a major road building programme, more oil and gas exploration, and, to cap it all (no pun intended) off, the state owned mining company wants to dig up 1.5 billion tonnes of lignite and turn it into fuel and fertiliser.

It’s no wonder New Zealand wants rules for setting QELROs that would enable it to meet its 20% by 2020 target and end the second commitment period with over 22 million spare AAUs – a tidy sum for a small country.

So, where does all this leave New Zealand’s decisions on CP2 of Kyoto, its 2020 target and its QELRO? NZ is quietly desperate to accommodate its planned increase in gross emissions and expected blow-out in net emissions. With no intention of actually reducing gross emissions, NZ’s only course of action is to play with the accounting system. This means trying to ensure maximum carry-over of surplus AAUs from CP1 to CP2, securing access to the cheapest carbon credits possible (euphemistically “full recourse to carbon markets”) and a handout of AAUs from new accounting rules.

It looks like New Zealand’s decision on CP2 will depend on who New Zealand wants to be friends with and whether the accounting system is sufficiently favourable. Failing to meet a voluntary commitment under the Copenhagen Accord has political consequences, but failing to meet a binding commitment under CP2 has political and economic consequences. So no surprises then that New Zealand has not submitted its QELRO, is focused on the accounting and has also created an impossible hurdle (see the demand for a "balancing agreement" in its recent submission) in case an excuse is needed to bail from the Kyoto ship.

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Low Carbon Development Plans

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Bonn Climate Change Conference 2012

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“CAN Collectibles”: South Africa

Submitted by MBrockley on May 19, 2012 - 3:23am

We Put the “fun” in “Mitigashun”!

Fast Facts About Countries That Can Increase Their Ambition in Qatar!

Bonus Double Saturday Edition!

National term of greeting:	Howzit? / Heyta!
Annual alcohol consumption:	>200 litres per person per year (beer equivalent)
Annual cheese consumption:	We prefer meat.
Best things about South Africa:	Sun, surf, sand (take that, Australia!). Lots of unspoilt open spaces.
Worst things about South Africa:	Our soccer team. Lots of unspoilt open spaces targeted for fracking.
Things you didn't know:	South Africa has 3 capitals separated by as much as 1600 km.
Existing action on the table:	Peak national emissions between 2020 and 2025, plateau for up to a decade and then decline. Bring emissions below business-as-usual trajectory by 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025, conditional on receipt of adequate support. 9% of SA’s electricity supply from new renewables (excluding hydro) by 2030.
Additional actions South Africa should agree to as its 2020 contribution, at a minimum:	Peak emissions by 2020 and as far as possible below 550 Mt/annum. Achieve 15% of electricity from new renewable energy technologies by 2020. Adopt a process, with timeline, to establish a national carbon budget, or at least sectoral budgets covering at least 80% of national emissions, by mid-October 2013. Deploy over 25 million m2 of solar water heating collection. Enforce comprehensive energy efficiency labelling regulations.

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Bonn Climate Change Conference 2012

MBrockley's blog

Building Capacity Building

Submitted by Anonymous on October 2, 2011 - 10:06am

Just as CAN's approach to mitigation has always been for Parties to focus on the reality of "What the atmosphere actually sees", so CAN's approach to capacity building (CB) in the LCA has always been for Parties to concentrate on the realities on the ground. These realities are four-fold:

1) The vast majority of Parties are mid to small sized developing countries with under-developed economies containing immense potential for human and economic development;

2) Most of these economies are already in the frontline of initial climatic impacts that their populations are already experiencing, can witness, and can understand;

3) Governments and populations of these countries understand the implications of established science; things will only get worse without action, and mitigation action capable of limiting warming to 2 degrees or less will require: a) robust action from wealthy economies and b) deviation from business-as-usual high-carbon development pathways for developing countries;

4) Very few of these countries have the political, economic or institutional capacity right now to rapidly design and build low-carbon development pathways on their own and unassisted;

Unfortunately, up to now the CB negotiations in the LCA have largely turned around almost anything else except these basic realities - despite CAN's insistent pressure and constant calls for focus. (With the significant exception of a short period during the Bangkok and Barcelona sessions before Copenhagen when CB was negotiated on its own and suddenly started to make significant progress.)

The Panama session is crucial for CB in the LCA. By contrast to progress on both technology and finance, negotiations on institutional arrangements for CB were almost completely unproductive at Cancun. Some forward movement was established at Bonn this June. However that progress now needs a new sense of purpose and focus if we are to get a decision at Durban.

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CAN Intervention - Bonn June Closing LCA Plenary - June17, 2011

Submitted by MBrockley on June 22, 2011 - 2:03pm

Bonn_2011_LCA_closing_plenary.pdf

My name is Manjeet Dhakal and I am from Nepal.

Climate change is already melting glaciers and putting my community at risk.
The following urgent action is needed to close the ambition gap and keep
warming at a level that my country can adapt to – no more than 1.5 degrees.

Firstly developed countries must move to the top end of their pledged ranges.
Secondly, at your next meeting, identify a pathway for developed countries to
increase ambition to more than 40% by 2020 and make this target a
milestone in low carbon development strategies. Show us how you will
decarbonise your economies!

Developing countries can also contribute to global ambition, by more clearly
identifying assumptions, and beginning a process to agree guidelines for
business as usual baselines. Developing countries should then articulate
how much their mitigation effort could increase with financial and
technological support. Clearly, further technical work is necessary on the
NAMA registry before Durban, to understand how developing country
mitigation effort will be recorded and supported.

If negotiations continue on their current path there is a danger we will create a
Green Climate Fund without any funds! The current commitments for climate
finance in 2013 are zero. Parties should provide submissions, and hold
workshops before Durban, on mid and long term sources of funding –
including supplementary innovative sources, such as bunker levies, financial
transaction taxes and special drawing rights. Including a discussion on
CBDR, no net incidence and compensation. We do not want to fall off the cliff
of fast start finance, only to see the mountain of long term finance in front of
us.

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Climate Action Network

UNFCCC

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Bonn June 2011