Tag Archives: carbon
Aviation Industry Aims For Carbon-Neutral Growth
June 20, 2013 | Filed under: Air Freight , Breaking News , Environment , Government | Posted by: Charles Pauka Photo courtesy of Heathrow Airport. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) 69th Annual General Meeting (AGM) overwhelmingly endorsed the resolution on “Implementation of the Aviation Carbon-Neutral Growth (CNG2020) Strategy.” The resolution provides governments with a set of principles on how governments could: Establish procedures for a single market-based measure (MBM). Integrate a single MBM as part of an overall package of measures to achieve CNG2020. “Airlines are committed to working with governments to build a solid platform for the future sustainable development of aviation. They have come together to recommend to governments the adoption of a single MBM for aviation and provide suggestions on how it might be applied to individual carriers. Now the ball is in the court of governments. We will be strongly supporting their leadership as they seek a global agreement through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) at its assembly later this year,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s director general and CEO. Environment will be at the top of the agenda for the 38th ICAO Assembly in September 2013. The aviation industry urgently needs governments to agree, through ICAO, a global approach to managing aviation’s carbon emissions, including a single global MBM. IATA member airlines agreed that a single mandatory carbon offsetting scheme would be the simplest and most effective option for an MBM. “For governments, finding agreement on MBM will not be easy. It was difficult enough for the airlines, given the potential financial implications. Bridging the very different circumstances of fast-growing airlines in emerging markets and those in more mature markets required a flexible approach and mutual understanding. But sustainability is aviation’s licence to grow. With that understanding and a firm focus on the future, airlines found an historic agreement. This industry agreement should help to relieve the political gridlock on this important issue and give governments momentum and a set of tools as they continue their difficult deliberations,” Mr Tyler said. “Aviation is the first industry to suggest a global approach to the application of a single MBM to manage its climate change impact. This keeps aviation in the forefront of industries on managing carbon emissions. It was also the first to agree global targets. These are: improving fuel efficiency by 1.5% annually to 2020, capping net emissions with CNG2020, and cutting emissions in half by 2050 compared to 2005. And it was also the first to agree on a global strategy to achieve them. “An MBM is one of the four pillars of the aviation industry’s united strategy on climate change. Improvements in technology, operations and infrastructure will deliver the long-term solution for aviation’s sustainability. “Today’s agreement focuses on a single global MBM as part of a basket of measures. A single MBM will be critical in the short-term as a gap-filler until technology, operations and infrastructure solutions mature. So we cannot take our eye off the ball on developing sustainable low-carbon alternative fuels, achieving the Single European Sky or the host of other programs that will improve aviation’s environmental performance,” Mr Tyler said. An MBM should be designed to deliver real emissions reductions, not revenue generation for governments. The principles agreed apply to emissions growth post-2020. “Airlines are delivering results against their climate change commitments. For example, we are on track to achieve our 1.5% average annual fuel efficiency target. We need governments to be serious partners as well. Developing an MBM must not become an excuse for revenue generation by cash-strapped governments, or for avoiding incentivising investments in new technologies and sustainable low-carbon alternative fuels,” said Mr Tyler. A summary of the principles of the resolution includes the following: Setting the industry and individual carrier baselines using the average annual total emissions over the period 2018–2020. Agreeing to provisions/adjustments for: – Recognizing early movers, benchmarked for 2005–2020 with a sunset by 2025. – Accommodating new market entrants for their initial years of operation. – Fast-growing carriers. Adopting an equitable balance for determining individual carrier responsibilities that includes consideration of: – An ‘emissions share’ element (reflecting the carrier’s share of total industry emissions). – A post-2020 ‘growth’ element (reflecting the carrier’s growth above baseline emissions). Reporting and verification of carbon emissions that is: – Based on a global standard to be developed by ICAO. – Simple and scalable based on the size and complexity of the operator. Instituting a periodic CNG2020 performance review cycle that revises individual elements and parameters as appropriate. Continue reading
Backloading Is A Temporary Fix, The Emissions Trading Scheme Needs Bolder Reform
Policy Exchange’s Simon Moore makes the case for ambitious carbon market reform based on a demanding 2035 emissions cap By Simon Moore, Policy Exchange 19 Jun 2013 Later today the European Parliament’s Environment Committee will attempt to fix Europe’s flagship decarbonisation policy, the beleaguered Emissions Trading System. The proposal will see some permits (permission to emit a tonne of carbon) withdrawn temporarily from the carbon market. If this sounds familiar, it is because it tried exactly the same thing in April, only to be voted down by the full parliament. The committee has made a few tweaks, but the premise remains unchanged. Unfortunately, the premise is a political fudge masquerading as an important intervention. It tries to prop up the carbon price in the short term without addressing fundamental weaknesses of the current cap-and-trade system. The EU would be better served by turning its attention to fixing the long-term problems afflicting the ETS. If it fails to do so, then the backbone of Europe’s climate policy will remain fractured and Europe will have shown it is not serious about tackling climate change. Getting carbon pricing policy right is an important way to stop pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The current scientific consensus argues for cuts in carbon emissions to mitigate risks from dangerous climate change. But many potential responses to climate change are expensive. Only a system that can identify the cheapest low carbon technologies can help keep those costs as low as possible. The ETS, which is designed to cap carbon emissions and then allow technologies to compete, should deliver such an outcome. Like all markets, it may lead to surprising and innovative outcomes. But it should find the cheapest way to a low carbon economy. As long it achieves the carbon cuts expected of it, does it matter whether it is achieved by better insulated homes, new nuclear power stations or wind turbines? And the cheaper the cost of decarbonisation, the more likely it is that the effort is politically sustainable and that other countries, notably the US and China, will follow Europe’s example. In a report we launched this morning, Policy Exchange calls on the EU to radically strengthen the ETS. That means setting an ambitious, carbon target that stretches out to 2035 giving investors clear, long-term direction. It also entails ditching the expensive renewable energy targets that have added unnecessary costs to European energy bills. Moreover, it means establishing a system that can respond to major changes in the economic, political or scientific circumstances. The slack under the current ETS cap has led to the current price having collapsed to €4/tonne, compared to about €20 just three years ago. The “business as usual” case used to set the cap turned out to be highly inaccurate in the wake of the financial crisis. Without any straightforward means of tightening the cap, Europe has resorted to the current highly politicised process for intervention. Recommendations stumble back and forth between the European Commission, Parliament and its committees. Each time it is lurches in a different direction, its political credibility is damaged. As a result, even coal, the most polluting of power sources, is having a mini-renaissance. Our report argues that an independent agency, modelled along the UK’s Committee on Climate Change is imperative if we are to avoid the current chaos. The body would make firm recommendations on when politicians should intervene (with politicians still making the final decisions). It should be set up with clearly defined rules and on a set timetable. Intervention would only be necessary if: macroeconomic circumstances changed significantly (as in the global financial crisis); if progress on an international deal failed (or was more ambitious than expected); or if the climate science changed. Crucially, such a body would not intervene just because the price was lower or higher than expected. If you want a market system, you have to trust the price signal. So long as emissions are being cut sufficiently, low prices should be celebrated. Such an agency would be better placed to navigate between the need to retain stability, giving longer-term investment signals and ensuring that decisions taken about its ambition keeps pace with world events. The EU is now contemplating a package of climate policies for 2030, with separate carbon reduction and renewables targets. The consultation, out only a few weeks ago, suggests a 40 per cent carbon reduction target and a 30 per cent renewable energy target. The Commission should be more ambitious on carbon and ditch the distraction of the renewable target. However, unless it fixes the ETS and trusts market processes to deliver the low carbon economy, all the political posturing in the world will not hide Europe’s empty words. Simon Moore is an environment and energy research fellow at Policy Exchange Continue reading
Global Fund Would Provide Effective Means To Fuel REDD+ Climate Program: Experts
Source: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:06 AM . Efforts to stop an increase in global temperatures can succeed if policymakers put in place a broad governance structure to oversee REDD+ from which money would trickle down through state-level funding to local projects, according to a new research paper . How best to govern REDD+ — a UN-backed framework for reducing emissions caused by deforestation and degradation — is politically disputed, particularly over what role financial markets and governments should play in the scheme. “ National Governance Structures for REDD+ ”, co-authored by Norwegian University of Life Sciences professors Arild Vatn and Paul Vedeld, examines four potential national REDD+ architectures that could be funded directly by a compliance market or by a global fund supported by both public and private sources. The options outlined in the research paper consider strengths and weaknesses of channeling economic support from the global to the country level through financial-market directed intermediaries, a separate national fund, a fund in a national state administration, or conditional budget support that would direct resources into local projects, national programs or sector policies. “The main idea is to open up the box and start to think about wider governance structures, rather than just thinking about it as a market, which has been the preferred mechanism up until now,” said Vatn at the “ Options for National REDD+ Architectures ” conference in Norway. “The way funding is organised will have a decisive impact on its capacity to deliver reduced carbon emissions, improved local livelihoods and protect biodiversity.” LAYING THE GROUNDWORK REDD+ assigns financial value to carbon stored in trees, creating a disincentive to cut them down. If policymakers were to set up a global fund paid for by carbon markets, it would mean that countries and businesses could receive carbon credit payments as Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), by an issuance from the fund as an alternative to the international carbon market, Vatn said. Currently, carbon credits in the form of CERs are issued by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board, approved under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialised countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). They pave the way for investments in emission-reduction projects in developing countries. So far, because REDD+ is still in preliminary stages — referred to as the “readiness phase” — most of the $ 17.2 billion funding pledged for projects to protect standing forests has been made available to developing countries through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) of the World Bank and the UN-REDD Programme . The funds are meant to create national capacity and strategies for REDD+ based on country-specific causes of deforestation. However, the scheme, intended to establish global climate policy, faces many challenges, according to Vatn. “In early discussions, everybody thought about developing compliance projects financed by firms like in the CDM,” Vatn said. “While we see some strengths with that, there are also some clear weaknesses, so we need to think about alternatives.” TRICKLE DOWN FUNDING OPTIONS The authors propose that REDD+ could be based on a CDM-like system, becoming in part a market-based carbon-trading system made up of buyers in the form of firms that need to reduce emissions and sellers who own — or have the right to use — tropical forests. “Given that a post-Kyoto agreement includes substantial cuts and accepts trade in emission permits, the market could raise significant revenues to invest in forest protection — this is seen as one of the strengths of a market-based solution,” Vatn said. “However, there are many problems with CDM, concerning such issues as additionality (the net positive difference resulting from economic development interventions) and transparency.” An international fund agreed by governments that would issue CERs to firms responsible for emission cuts, could be at least as effective in raising funding, he said, adding that it could also do away with problems encountered in the market-based solution by increasing transparency and including measures directed at lessening potential for fraud. Using an international perspective, several alternatives for a national REDD+ architecture could take shape. One alternative would be to set up a national fund outside of the state administration, where resources would flow from a global fund to national funds based on the level of reduced emissions from forests in each individual country. The national fund could be governed by an independent administrative board that would operate as an intermediary between forest owners — or users — and the international fund. The board could include representatives from the private sector, civil society and public authorities. Another option would involve a fund managed by the state administration. The money received would be allocated by a REDD+ -designated board made up of members from government, civil society and the business sector. It would function independently of a government budget, but have the capacity to use existing state administration to organize programs and coordinate among different sectors of society. While it has several of the strengths of the independent fund, an added advantage is that it would have the capacity to use existing public systems, and could ensure that such important sectors as agriculture and energy also get involved, Vatn said. The final option proposed by the authors would channel money from a global fund in the form of conditional budgetary support. While this solution would use existing administrative systems – it could also offer resources to make them more effective, and is expected to reduce transparency compared to both of the proposed national fund options. “While principally the best system for democratic accountability and potentially best at intersectorial coordination, the present situation concerning public misuse of money, may hamper its functionality in many countries,” Vatn said, adding that a separate fund within the present state administration may seem to offer the best solution in many contexts. “What stands out are the many challenges that organizing REDD+ at the national level will face,” the authors conclude, adding that their analysis of all options indicates the weakest option is the market-based system. ENHANCING TRANSPARENCY The main appeal of such a system has been its capacity to attract private funding, but it also raises the question as to whether international trades over government-owned forest lands are appropriate. In the market-based system, transparency can be reduced because traders can claim that information must be protected for business reasons, according to the paper. The analysis showed that it seems problematic to establish a system for combating deforestation and forest degradation that is separated from state decision-making and administrative bodies, leading the authors to suggest that considering local conditions is of paramount importance when choosing a feasible option. “We still need to define who are the carbon buyers, who are the sellers and define the relationships between them,” Vatn said, adding that all four funding models are open to corruption due to REDD+ delivering large amounts of money to developing countries, which could attract organizations and people who are after the money, rather than supporting the REDD+ ideals. “Obviously governance issues and rent-seeking behaviour — characterized by pursuit of the money — aren’t only important when it comes to the actual set up of a REDD+ system, but these factors are at play in most forest resource-rich countries, and can hinder any kind of major policy changes if actors from state bureaucracy and business profit from current business-as-usual”, said Maria Brockhaus, an economist and policy analyst in forestry and agricultural sciences at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). For more information on the issues discussed in this article, please contact Maria Brockhaus at m.brockhaus@cgiar.org This research is part of the Global Comparative Study on REDD+ , which forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry . It is supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, AusAid, the UK Department for International Development and the European Commission. Continue reading
