Tag Archives: parties
UN Carbon Market Health Depends On Global Ambition – JI Chair
20 June 2013, 3:49 pm By John Parnell – See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/…h.60MVdq16.dpuf Fixing carbon markets and mechanisms will do nothing to reduce emissions without ambitious climate policies from governments a senior climate diplomat has warned. Derrick Oderson, chair of the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (JISC), said fixing the Joint Implementation (JI) programme was not the real long term goal. “The JI will be put to good use only when countries do what’s needed with respect to commitments to reduce. This is an extremely urgent matter, not to save the JI, but to avoid calamity,” he told RTCC in an emailed interview. The JI, part of the Kyoto Protocol, allows industrialised nations to invest in low carbon projects in economies in transition. Low carbon prices, partly a result of low greenhouse gas reduction targets, have damaged the scheme’s health. Oderson has been overseeing a review of the JI to get it back on its feet and is confident it will have a role to play when a new, global treaty replaces Kyoto in 2020. Read the full interview with Oderson below: Derrick Oderson, chair of the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (Source: UNFCCC) What effect has the new extended but streamlined Kyoto Protocol had on the JI in the 6 months since Doha finished? Agreeing a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol was a key success of Doha. In the six months since COP 18, the JI Supervisory Committee has been working to fine-tune its recommendations to the Parties on how to improve the JI for a stronger future. This JISC is hopeful that these recommendations will be adopted in Warsaw at the end of the year. That said, without increased ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mechanisms like JI have a limited role. With ambitious targets, mechanisms like JI become indispensable. It’s as simple as that. Low carbon prices and imbalances in supply and demand are being addressed in carbon markets, what is the best course of action in your opinion to address low prices in offset mechanisms? Again, countries need to increase their level of ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If countries committed to the level of abatement that is required to address climate change, then demand for tools like JI – and the clean development mechanism, and other mechanisms and approaches – would be immediate and substantial. Given the types of projects that JI invests in, energy efficiency for example, do you think it can argue more than others that participation has economic advantages? I think the strength of JI is that it can be used by countries to focus investment on whatever sector makes sense. However, the mechanism’s value is tied to countries’ efforts to reduce emissions. With prices for units so low, and emission reduction ambition well below what is needed to address climate change, the incentive is just not there. How important is ambitious climate action by governments in making tools like the JI effective? JI will be put to good use only when countries do what’s needed with respect to commitments to reduce. This is an extremely urgent matter, not to save the JI, but to avoid calamity. The JI exists, above all, as a mechanism to support least-cost options for climate change mitigation. Climate change is not going away. It is the JISC’s job to ensure that JI is there for countries when they do turn to reach for it. With the benefit of hindsight, what would change about the JI if you could redesign it? Joint implementation is a fully functioning tool that countries took a great deal of trouble to create. JI has shown that it works, but it has also shown that it could be improved. The JISC has invested a lot of effort into developing recommendations to do just that. The key feature of our recommendations is creating a single track for the oversight of JI projects, administered by an international body. Only then will people have the level of comfort in the mechanism that is required, with respect to the reliability of oversight and the quality of the emission reductions produced. The recommendations also include creating an aligned or unified accreditation process with the CDM, an appeals procedure and clear additionality requirements amongst other things. The full recommendations are on the UNFCCC website (JISC 30, Annex 1). How do you see the future of the JI in the new climate regime? National governments and the private sector see value in the JI mechanism. It works, helping countries to focus and incentivize investment. Parties could quite easily agree to the needed improvements in JI – these have already been before them for consideration – and they could (and should) come up with the bridging decisions that would carry JI to the next phase of international action. The challenge in coming up with recommendations for the future has been to devise a mechanism that has the benefits of flexibility and strong national involvement, but which can ensure a healthy, useful measure of broad, independent oversight. The JISC thinks it has done this in its recommendations for revisions to the JI guidelines. Continue reading
Global Carbon Trading System Needs Urgent Support Warns UN chair
7 June 2013, 1:27 pm By Ed King The world’s main system of carbon trading needs urgent support from governments if it is to continue functioning effectively and give developing countries access to green technologies. The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has 6900 registered projects in 86 countries, and has issued 1.3 billion certified emission reductions (CERs) since its launch. One CER is the equivalent to a tonne of carbon dioxide. But falling demand for these credits and a lack of policy clarity from governments has left the CDM struggling, with prices dropping by 90%. CDM Executive Board chair Peer Stiansen told a meeting at the UN climate talks in Bonn he was happy with the integrity of the mechanism, but said the global economic outlook and struggling EU emissions trading system indicated there would be no quick fix. “We have proved we can deliver on scale, and that is an important achievement, because we need scalability for this mechanism,” he said. “But currently we are seeing low demand in CERs, which rests in low prices and lack of incentives. It is very frustrating, and we’re seeing the market cannot continue for project developers, and many are leaving.” CDM projects aim to develop low carbon solutions in developing part of the world (Photo: Curt Carnemark/World Bank) Last September a panel set up to assess the health of the CDM warned that allowing it to fail would make it harder to raise finance in the future to help developing countries cut carbon. Joan MacNaughton, vice chair of the high level panel and a former UK civil servant, told the Guardian : “The carbon market is profoundly weak, and the CDM has essentially collapsed. It’s extremely worrying that governments are not taking this seriously.” New restrictions on what types of projects would be accepted by the CDM were introduced at the end of 2012, leading to a spike in applications before that came into effect. Since then Stiansen says they have fallen to around 20 a month. It’s a substantial drop compared to previous years, and the chairman suggested it was indicative of the current uncertainty in the markets over the global desire to pursue a low carbon agenda. “We hope this will be a temporary dip and that countries will move and make decisions to create more demand,” he said. “In 2014 there is a provisional step-up of ambition on the Kyoto Protocol, and positive movements in the ADP [talks on a global emissions deal in 2015] would hopefully raise expectations and raise more demand.” The UN is taking steps to simplify what critics say has become a complicated and lengthy application process. Stiansen said the initial registration and review process on new submissions will be streamlined to just over two weeks. The CDM has also opened three offices in Africa, with a fourth planned in the Carribbean, to promote applications from those regions. “What we have to offer is our moral support. The ones who can take action would be the parties – such as voluntary cancelation of CERs,” he said. “It is limited what the board can do. I want to re-emphasise this is a problem of demand – I do not see this as a problem of supply.” Stiansen’s bleak forecast is shared by analysts, some of whom fear continued lack of demand could hit investment in green development projects in poorer parts of the world. Anja Kollmuss from Carbon Market Watch told RTCC the CDM board has to tighten its application process to ensure projects are environmentally acceptable, but admits that unless governments took steps to drive demand the short-term outlook is bleak. One hope is that a possible aviation emissions agreement could boost demand for CERs. Earlier this week the world’s leading airlines called on governments to agree to a new greenhouse gas offsetting scheme for the aviation industry. “What may happen is that if ICAO [international aviation body] comes to an aviation agreement and they do agree on a market-based mechanism there might be an increase in demand from aviation – but this wouldn’t start till 2020. “I’m not too optimistic that anything will change anytime soon in terms of prices in the CDM” Continue reading
Kenya polls: Organisational issues reported
Kilongi Munene, Nairobi, Kenya (27 December 2007) As the polling stations are now about to close, sentiments are mixed among the different actors involved in… Continue reading
