Tag: Low Carbon

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

MBrockley's blog

Two for the Price of None

Submitted by MBrockley on May 21, 2012 - 2:14am

Over the past week, we’ve heard discussions in a variety of forums here in Bonn on how to address the urgency of climate change by increasing emissions reductions and mo-bilizing enough climate finance to help fund the transition to a climate resilient future for all. Well, ECO has found just the source to help both of these efforts – end fossil fuel subsidies by 2015!

Let’s start by raising mitigation ambition. The UNFCCC re-ceived many submissions on raising ambition. 111 countries were represented in the sub-missions citing phasing out fossil fuel subsidies as a po-tential source of additional emission reductions repre-sent. And how often does that happen?

Perhaps all 111 countries saw the recent statements by the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency, who said that phasing out fossil fuel subsidies could provide half of the emission reductions needed to stave off dangerous climate change between now and 2020. Now, because the devil is often in the details, phasing out these government handouts could go a substantial way in helping close the gigatonne gap. The ambition work programme under the ADP would be well-served to include this in its deliberations.

Now, on to finance. Recent estimates show that fossil fuel subsidies in rich countries could be in the tens of billions of US dollars, to perhaps as much as $100 billion. How about, instead, governments spend that money to support climate change fighting efforts? ECO encourages delegates to include this in discussions of both short-term and long-term finance.

While we’re at it, let’s all make sure we’re talking about the same stuff. The numbers quoted above are estimates, mainly because the data out there isn’t transparent enough to allow for more precise figures. But, wouldn't you know, the UNFCCC could provide just the tools to increase transparency in this area through its national communications and biennial reports. And since so many UNFCCC parties want to remove these subsidies, why not report on their existence and efforts to remove them? Who doesn’t like taking credit for doing good things, after all?

ECO hopes parties here at the UNFCCC will take note of the multiple benefits of removing fossil fuel subsidies. ECO encourages delegates to speak to their colleagues in the G20 and Rio+20 negotiations as well, so that progress can be made wherever possible, in order to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2015.

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fossil fuel subsidies

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Finance

Mitigation

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Bonn Climate Change Conference 2012

MBrockley's blog

CAN Submission - how to address drivers of deforestation and forest degradation - Feb 2012

Submitted by MBrockley on February 20, 2012 - 1:47pm

CAN_drivers_deforestation_submission_February2012.pdf

CAN-International welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the work of SBSTA by giving our views on the issues identified by SBSTA at its thirty-fifth session, recorded in document FCCC/SBSTA/2011/L.25, paragraph 5.

Summary

For REDD+ to succeed, it must reduce, and ultimately reverse, the emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and forest degradation. REDD+ policies must address national- and local-scale drivers within REDD+ countries, but they will not significantly reduce deforestation and forest degradation unless they also minimize internationally- driven, demand-side pressures on the world’s forests. Forest loss is caused by many factors but, according to the latest analyses, international demand for commodities such as agricultural commodities, biofuels, wood products and minerals is the dominant driver of emissions in many countries. Countries responsible for this international demand need to take steps to reduce those pressures in conjunction with efforts by forested countries to reduce domestic drivers of deforestation and degradation.

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Climate Action Network

CAN Positions

UNFCCC

CAN letter to Global Sustainability Panel - Feb 2011

Submitted by Anonymous on February 10, 2011 - 2:47am

CAN-International-InputGSP.pdf

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Global Sustainability Panel

Rio+20

High Level Panel on Global Sustainability

Global Sustainability

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Climate Action Network

Planning Now for the Low Carbon Future

Submitted by Anonymous on June 4, 2010 - 3:16am

Amidst the many vital matters being discussed in the LCA, there are two key ideas already enshrined in the current text -- zero carbon action plans (ZCAPs) for all developed country parties, and low carbon action plans (LCAPs) for developing countries (except the most vulnerable countries). By agreeing to begin planning their pathways to complete decarbonization, developed countries can demonstrate that they have the policies and measures in place to meet their emission reduction commitments and the long term vision for decarbonizing their economies by 2050. LCAPs will provide developing countries the opportunity to plan for sustainable low-carbon development, showcasing their efforts and providing clarity on which actions are counted as domestic, carbon market and CDM respectively, to avoid double counting. An elaboration of proposed actions requiring support would also help to match these actions with funding, capacity building and technology from developed countries. And it should be strongly stated that without support from developed countries in the first place, low carbon planning will be impossible for developing countries. ECO applauds the Chair for including low and zero carbon development in the discussion text, and encourages delegates to show their support

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