Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 26th, 2008
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Climate conference makes progress on key dispute.
By (AP) Published: 2008-08-23, ACCRA, Ghana.
Delegates at a key U.N. climate conference made headway Friday on a plan to encourage developing countries to regulate carbon emissions by focusing on their largest industries.
The emerging plan sidesteps objections from countries like India and China, which refuse to accept national targets for the overall emission of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
How to get developing countries to commit to reducing pollution levels has deeply divided countries seeking to craft a new climate change agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The meeting of 1,600 delegates and environmentalists from 160 countries was the third conference this year working on the accord, due to be adopted in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The Accra meeting also was discussing ways to integrate the conservation of the world’s ever-shrinking forests into the Copenhagen agreement, as well as studying ways to raise and distribute the tens of billions of dollars needed annually to help poor countries deal with the consequences of climate change.
Under the Kyoto pact, only 37 industrial countries committed to meet specific targets. Together, they were required to cut emissions by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. The United States refused to participate in the Kyoto regime because it excluded China and other large newly powerful economies from any obligation.
Korea, which is not one of the 37, surprised delegates by announcing that next year it will adopt a target for reducing its carbon emissions by 2020, but declined to give specifics. Earlier this year, South Africa also said it would embrace self-imposed targets, peaking its emissions by 2025.
Under the “sectoral approach” now taking shape, developing countries would set pollution targets for specific industries, like cement, steel or aluminum. Unlike the 37 industrial countries, they likely would not be punished for missing their goals.
“Something quiet but quite dramatic is happening,” said David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “People are now talking about the same idea in the same language.”
India voiced reservations, but did not reject the concept. As for China, Doniger said the plan fit neatly with Beijing’s intention to increase the efficiency of its key industries, which produce the bulk of its carbon emissions.
Details of any agreement on the new approach would be complex and difficult to reach, and it is only one of many disputed components of a post-2012 pact.
But consensus appeared to coalesce around the notion that industrial countries will remain legally bound to meet a national cap on their carbon emissions, while developing countries would have flexibility in deciding which industries would be controlled and at what levels.
A critical element calls for advanced countries to provide the technology and funding to help other countries curb emissions in heavily polluting industries.
***
“There is now a basis for discussion,” said Katrin Gutmann, policy coordinator of the WWF Global Climate Initiative. “Before, we worried there would just be more clashes,”
But financing remains unresolved and it was unclear how governments would move forward, she said.
Japan, which advanced the proposal earlier this year to a chorus of criticism, said it was pleased with the response in Accra after it dropped several components that aroused objections.
Developing countries had feared the Japanese proposal was a backdoor device to impose binding targets that would limit their economic development.
“That is a great advancement compared with the beginning of this year,” Japanese delegate Jun Arima told the conference.
——————
From: sniffenj at un.org
Subject: Cutting Fossil Fuel Subsidies Can Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Says UNEP Report
Date: August 26, 2008 10:21:12 AM EDT
UNEP NEWS RELEASE
Cutting Fossil Fuel Subsidies Can Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Says UN
Environment Programme Report.
Meanwhile, New Assessment of Clean Development Mechanism Shows
Climate-Friendly Energy Projects Achieving Lift-Off in Sub Saharan Africa.
ACCRA/NAIROBI, 26 August 2008 — Scrapping fossil fuel subsidies could play
an important role in cutting greenhouse gases while giving a small but not
insignificant boost to the global economy, a new report by the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) says.
The report challenges the widely held view that such subsidies assist the
poor, arguing that many of these price support systems benefit the
wealthier sections of society rather than those on low incomes.
They are also diverting national funds from more creative forms of pro-poor
polices and initiatives that are likely to have a far greater impact on the
lives and livelihoods of the worse-off sectors of society.
Globally, around $300 billion or 0.7 per cent of global GDP is being spent
on energy subsidies annually.
The lion’s share is being used to artificially lower or reduce the real
price of fuels like oil, coal and gas or electricity generated from such
fossil fuels.
Cancelling these subsidies might reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much
as 6 per cent a year while contributing 0.1 per cent to global GDP.
***
The report acknowledges that some subsidies or mechanisms, whether in the
form of tax breaks, financial incentives or other market instruments, can
generate social, economic and environmental benefits.
A case in point are feed-in tariffs that have kick-started a renewable
energy revolution in countries such as Germany and Spain.
The report also accepts that there may be cases where some subsidies can,
if well- devised and time-limited, meet important social and environmental
goals — for example, ones to encourage a switch from dirty,
health-hazardous or environmentally harmful fuels such a charcoal.
The report also cites the case of Chile where well-devised subsidies have
increased rural electrification from around 50 per cent to over 90 per cent
of the population over 12 years.
But the report argues that many seemingly well-intentioned subsidies rarely
make economic sense and rarely address poverty. The report, therefore,
challenges the widely-held myth that scrapping fossil fuel supports would
hit the poor.
The report cites liquid petroleum gas (LPG) subsidies in India where $1.7
billion was spent in the first half of the current financial year on trying
to get the fuel into poor households. “LPG subsidies are mainly benefiting
higher-income households. … Despite the ineffectiveness of the subsidy the
programme is being extended until 2010”, says the study.
Indeed the report concludes that in many developing countries the real
beneficiaries of such subsidies are neither the poor nor the environment
but well-off households; equipment manufacturers and the producers of the
fuels.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director,
said: “In the final analysis many fossil fuel subsidies are introduced for
political reasons but are simply propping up and perpetuating
inefficiencies in the global economy—they are thus part of the market
failure that is climate change.”
“There are now less than 500 days before the crucial UN Climate Change
Convention meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009. Governments should urgently
review their energy subsidies and begin phasing out the harmful ones that
contribute to the wasteful use of finite resources and delay the
introduction of renewables or more efficient forms of generation while
creating disincentives and barriers to public transport up to energy saving
appliances”, he added.
***
The new UNEP report– Reforming Energy Subsidies: Opportunities to
Contribute to the Climate Change Agenda—was released today at a meeting in
Accra, Ghana of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Here Governments have gathered to continue negotiations under the Bali Road
Map towards a conclusive and far-reaching new climate deal by Copenhagen
2009.
***
CDM Takes Off in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Today UNEP also presented new findings on the penetration of the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) in sub-Saharan Africa.
The CDM, part of the Convention’s Kyoto Protocol agreed in 1997, allows
developed nations to offset some of their greenhouse gas emissions by
funding cleaner energy projects in developing countries that generate
carbon credits known as certified emission reductions.
These can range from wind and biomass energy projects to ones that tap
methane from rubbish tips and schemes that encourage the use of less
polluting fuels or power plants.
There has been concern that the benefits of the CDM, a contrasting example
of a policy tool aimed at wider social, economic and environmental benefits
when compared with fossil fuel subsidies, have been by-passing countries in
Africa.
The main countries benefiting to date have been the rapidly developing
economies such as China, Brazil, and India.
The new figures, compiled by the UNEP Risoe Centre on Energy, Climate and
Sustainable Development in Denmark, indicate that this is changing with the
first CDM projects emerging over the past 18 months in six countries– the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique,
Mali and Senegal.
These include an oil well, gas flare reduction project in the DRC and a
river hydroelectric project in Madagascar.
In Kenya new projects include a 35MW extension of geothermal, hot rocks,
generation and a sugar cane waste-into-energy project with Mumias Sugar
Company.
Mr. Steiner added: “Whereas fossil fuel subsidies are an example of a
blunt policy instrument, perpetuating old and inefficient economic models,
the CDM is an example of a more intelligent, market-based mechanism that is
fostering the transition to a modern Green Economy.”
He said the uptake in Africa was due, in part, to the impact of the UN’s
Nairobi Framework initiative launched in 2006.
Here UNEP, along with partners including the UN Development Programme
(UNDP), have been working to build the human and regulatory capacity of
poorer countries to access carbon financing.
Other measures have included awareness-raising among banks and industry
players on the continent to new green finance opportunities.
The UNEP Risoe Centre has been monitoring global trends in CDM investment
and the impacts of these activities for some time.
“Excluding South Africa, there were only six CDM projects in five
sub-Saharan countries in 2006. Now there are 49 projects in 12 countries,
South Africa included”, says Lars Appelquist, a researcher at the Centre.
This still remains low compared to a global tally of close to 3,500 CDM
projects, but does mark a departure from the very low levels of the past.
“As new policy drivers and planned capacity development activities bear
fruit, the market will likely exhibit exponential growth like other
regions”, says Glenn Hodes, CDM Programme Manager at UNEP Risoe. Indeed,
assuming Governments agree on a deep and decisive new climate agreement in
2009, Africa overall could see roughly 230 projects by 2012, according to
Hodes’ and Appelquist’s calculations.
These could cumulatively generate over 65 million certified emission
reductions, worth close to $1 billion at a conservative carbon credit price
of $15.
“Compared to CDM prodigies like India, Africa is poised to be the late
bloomer”, says Hodes.
—————————-
Notes to Editors:
“Reforming Energy Subsidies: Opportunities to Contribute to the Climate
Change Agenda” was commissioned by UNEP’s Division of Technology, Industry
and Economics. The principal author is Trevor Morgan of Menecon Consulting
and now with the International Energy Agency (IEA).
It says that Russia has the largest subsidies in dollar terms amounting to
around $40 billion a year and mainly spent on making natural gas cheaper.
Iran comes second with around $37 billion; six countries, spending in
excess of $10 billion on subsidies, come next. These are China, Saudi
Arabia, India, Indonesia, Ukraine and Egypt.
The report can be downloaded at www.unep.org
The new data and estimated take up of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
projects in Africa can also be downloaded at www.unep.org
For more information, please contact: Nick Nuttall, Spokesperson/Head of
Media, UNEP Nairobi, on Tel: +254-20-762-3084, Mobile: +254-733-632755 or
+41-79-596-5737, E-mail: nick.nuttall at unep.org;
Or Anne-France White, Associate Information Officer, UNEP Nairobi, at Tel:
+254-20-762-3088, Mobile: +254-72-8600-494, or E-mail:
anne-france.white at unep.org
=========
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Posted in UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Reporting from Washington DC, Austria, Brazil, Global Warming issues, Israel, China, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, European Union, Futurism, South Africa, Japan, Korea, India, Iran, Denmark, Ghana
One Response to “From Accra, Ghana, a UN Climate Change Conference Made Some Progress In Opening Up A Little Bit The Door on Emissions by the Largest CO2 Emitter Industrial Sectors in the Developing Economies. Surprising the Participants, South Korea and South Africa Announced They Will Institute Self Imposing Regulation of Emissions. The Agreement is That Something Has To Be Done and That the Old Industrialized Countries Will Have to Pay-Up. UNEP Says That The Main Problem Is That Governments Subsidize The Use of the Polluting Fossil Fuels. As an example, Ahim Steiner Mentioned the Indian LPG Program as a Political Benefit For The Rich. We Are Flabbergasted That It Took so Long To Say That UNDP, Dr. Pachauri, USAID, UN Hqtrs, Were Wrong All That Time!”
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September 2nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
This is great - I think more conferences need to convene with energy issues as their main focus. This debate is a great way to start a discussion on some of the key issues facing the world right now.