As we were writing in our previous post, the future of the post-Kyoto agreement is seriously endangered. Yesterday, during an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore, the US president Barack Obama and country leaders from China, Japan, Russia, Mexico, Australia and Indonesia agreed to delay a climate agreement to 2010 or even later. This means that there will not be the Copenhagen Protocol with reduction targets set for all countries with huge emissions. So maybe it is better to make hawajskie party

According to Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, the failure of COP15 is sealed. He foresees that there will be a political agreement to continue climate change efforts only, but concrete figures may come on the UN summit next year. Some pessimists say that countries will not be able to set a deal before 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The European Union see the US as the main cause of the problem. The climate bid is still not signed by the US Congress. This situation has a strong impact on other big emitters, such as China, India or Brazil, and determines their access to global climate change battle on the US decision. The EU also will not rise its greenhouse gases reduction target from 20% to 30% because of lack of support in global efforts from other countries. The other subject of the Copenhagen talks – finance aid to developing countries – may also be lost due to discord within the EU regarding costs distribution between European countries.

Only Ivo de Boer, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, seems to be still focused on the final result, saying that “Copenhagen can and must deliver clarity on emission reductions and the finance to kickstart action.”  We will see soon whether the world really “can”.

Regards,

Gustaw

According to Carol Browner, climate and energy coordinator in White House, President of the United States Barack Obama will most probably not sign the climate change law before the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen in December this year. It is because the law is unlikely to be voted within the US Senate before the climate change summit.

At the end of September senators from Democratic party John Kerry and Barbara Boxer presented a draft law which is a respond to the draft law published by House of Representatives in June this year. Currently the draft law needs 60 votes of senators to be approved.

The new draft law proposes more ambitious reduction target for GHG emissions – which now accounts for 20% by 2020 below the 2005 levels. In addition, by 2050 the emissions should be lower by 83%. The second target is in accordance with the one presented earlier by House of Representatives. However the mid-term goal is slightly higher as in Henry Waxman and Edward Markley project it accounted to 17%. Prelimnary Barack Obama suggested a target of 14%.

Even if the law will be approved by Senate it would need a coherent and common text agreed both by Senate and House of Representative within a special commission.

Looking at the legislative procedure there are low chances that Barack Obama will sign the law before the COP15 in Copenhagen.

Regards,
Anthony

The UNFCCC Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) published documents which are to help parties prepare to the meeting of UNFCCC in Barcelona (which is being held at the beginning of the November) and facilitate the work on new international agreement on climate change.

One of the most interesting paper that was presented is that which indicates the proposition of several developing countries for individual reduction targets for Annex I countries of UNFCCC (the document is available here).

All the documents can be found on the UNFCCC website.

However below we show also very interesting table presenting the official reduction commitments from Annex I countries which were already published in different formal plans and statements.

Regards,
Anthony

The weekly informal negotiations of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn (Germany) regarding the future post-Kyoto agreement ended on Friday 14th of August 2009. Taking into consideration that participants didn’t reach a considerable progress during this meeting more fears come up among experts and observers that new international agreement related to climate changes will not be signed in December in Copenhagen.

What is important the Chief of UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, said during the press conference at the end of the Bonn meeting that “if we work in such pace we won’t be able to reach an agreement”.

He highlighted that there are 15 days of negotiations left before the meeting in capital of Denmark i.e. meeting in Bankok in September and in Barcelona in November.

Jonathan Pershing, negotiator from United States was also disappointed of the results during Bonn informal meeting saying that without compromise the ambitious agreement will be impossible.

Some of the attendees expressed their opinion that in December the negotiations will conduct to sign an general agreement but without any significant reduction targets and important commitments and detailed measures regarding the fight against climate changes.

During the consecutive meeting in Bonn participants worked on shortening the negotiation text (we wrote about it in June). However the document has still more than 200 pages.

The next official UNFCCC meeting will be held in Bankok which starts on the 28th of September.

Regards,
Anthony

According to data published by UNFCCC during the informal meeting in Bonn on 10-14th of August the current reduction targets related to greenhouse gases emissions disclosed so far by several industrialized countries by 2020 are amounting to 15-21% below the 1990 levels. This data come from national GHG emission reduction plans presented amongst others by Russia, Japan, Canada and EU Member States, but are not including United States.

The submitted goals are definitely well below the recommendation of e.g. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC) which suggested the need of reduction by rich countries from 25% do 40% below the 1990’s levels till 2020 to prevent the negative aspects of climate changes like floods or droughts.

The UNFCCC data show that total emissions from 39 industrialized countries, that were officially or preliminary published are oscillating between 9,86 billions tones CO2e and 11,71 billions tones CO2e in 2020. In 1990 the level of emissions from this countries was 12,53 billions tones CO2e.

This results were distributed among the participants of informal UNFCCC meeting in Bonn in August.

Regards,
Anthony

The heads of group of the world most influencial countries i.e. G8 agreed on the 8th of July 2009 during the G8 summit in L’Aquila to accept the general long-term target of keeping the growth of average global temperature below 2 Celsius degree to 2050 in relation to pre-industrial times during the whole this period. It is the first time that politics from the highest level approved official commitment that was previously a matter of analysis and recommendation of scientist from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). The G8 countries didn’t formally accept this target before.

The G8 leaders committed also to decrease the GHG emission by 80% by 2050, but they didn’t say what would be the base year. They suggested only 1990 or an earlier period. According to G8 countries the overall global target should amount to reduction of 50% by 2050, but still there wasn’t any base year indicated.

Leader didn’t also present any mid-term target and how much money they will spend on help for developing countries for adaptation and mitigation measures.

According to some experts especially the case of mid-term goals and financial support is the main barrier of reaching and global agreement in Copenhagen.

WWF calls G8 countries to undertake a target of 40% emission reduction by 2020 in relation to levels from 1990.

Parallel to the G8 summit other meeting was held i.e. Major Economies Forum which embraces 17 of the biggest world economies. China and India called the richest countries to undertake the position of a leader in fight against to consequences of climate changes and present the ambitious mid-term and long-term targets. These two countries didn’t accept the global target of halving the GHG emission by 2050.

Regards,
Anthony

We are after another UNFCCC meeting of ad-hoc working groups this year. The summit in Bonn started at 1st of June and ended on 12th of June. In experts opinions it brought some progress i.e. the negotiation documents papers were generally welcomed and they will be discussed in Copenhagen in December this year during climate conference COP15. Discussed and hopefully it will come up with a final version of post-Kyoto agreement. However on the other side specialists said poor countries where to “calm” at attacking rich countries regarding their reduction targets commitment, so the didn’t show us any individual and binding targets of most polluting countries.

The time will show if the Bonn meeting was a key meeting on the road to achieve the global agreement focusing on the fight with climate changes. In Bonn there were some interesting statements and announcements that I would like to share with you.

United States representatives highlighted amongst others that financing of greenhouse gases reduction measures should be covered in the biggest part by private sector not governments. In my opinion it’s a good approach, we need to improve the awareness of companies that fighting with climate changes doesn’t mean only costs but in longer-period it could bring profits not only for the environment but also for their wallets. It also means private investments in developing countries in for instance JI (Joint Implementation) and CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) projects. This case was strongly advocated by European Union as a good example of practices helping to fight with climate changes.

Yvo de Boer, the chief of the UNFCCC Secretariat, was very happy about the opinions of UNFCCC parties about the negotiation documents. He expressed that these papers opened the discussion. However developing countries indicated that developed countries should present more ambitious target that are generally mentioned in UNFCCC talks and other summits.

During Bonn meeting China was one of the countries that was strongly calling for big cuts in greenhouse gases emissions in developed countries. Together with other developing countries they propose a 40% decrease in GHG emissions in 2020 below the 1990 levels. In their opinion it will save world from negative consequence of global warming such as droughts, floods and increase of sea levels.

It is worth mentioning that according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research the current propositions in greenhouse gases emissions mitigation targets in developed countries are representing the scope of 8 to 14% comparing to year 1990.

Well…still the Bonn meeting was a small step towards post-Kyoto agreement. I think bookmakers should place a new bet in their offer: post-Kyoto agreement – signed in Copenhagen, not signed in Copenhagen.

Next UNFCCC meeting is planed in August this year.

Regards,
Anthony

According to results presented by Australian Department of Climate Change emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) rose by 1,1% in 2008 compared to year 2007. However this increase is not influencing on the target from Kyoto Protocol (it is 8% increase in GHG emissions, yes increase, in period 2008-2012 comparing with 1990 levels). Australia is on good road to meet it although in case that the government will implement climate measure that will help to mitigate this rise in coming years.

Personally I’m not afraid about little rise in GHG emissions in Australia in 2008 (however they are 7% above the levels from 1990, and they have ‘track-record’ of average 1,5% increase in three consecutive years). This statement ‘is backed’, in my opinion, by intensive activities and declarations of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to implement an emission trading scheme in his country starting from 2011. Preliminary plans informed about 2010, but Australian government would like to wait amongst others for outcomes of December’s Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. Kevin Rudd said even that if developed countries show some ambitious commitments there he would opt for more rigorous targets in emission scheme (even 25% in 2020 below 2000 levels, now the draft project includes 5 to 15% target).

I hope that the increases in GHG emissions are an ‘accident’ and the future will come with some spectacular reductions in Australia regarding this aspect.

It is important as Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol very late (in December 2007, during Conference of the Parties in Bali) and they need to show their efforts in fight against global warming.

Regards,
Anthony

At the end of May 2009 Volvo group presented an unique tool (maybe somebody heard about it but I wasn’t familiar with it) called ‘CO2 pedometer’ which helps to monitor the carbon emissions from commute (travels home – work).

A Test group in Volvo company in Göteborg in Sweden used this measure which is a mobile-based software to check what are the CO2 emissions from particular commute of each employee. Thanks to this tool the test group, changing their habits (changing car for bike or public transport etc.), was able to reduce daily CO2 emissions by more then 30%. What do you think about it?

I think many holding with huge amount of people should recognize this tool as an important case as it could be for example a nice Corporate Social Responsibility communication or even an cost saving measure.

I often hear about some other propositions regarding traveling like: eco-driving, picking up your friends when their are leaving close to you and working within the same company (avoiding two cars or more, so-called car-pool), public transport (traffic jams in big cities are more and more annoying), hybrid cars etc.. However sometimes it is good that each person sees how he could individually mitigate CO2 emissions and protect the climate.

I think Volvo initiative is worth following.

Regards,
Anthony

(the picture in this article is used from the official Volvo press release)

The beginning of June brings an important (maybe still not crucial) meeting of UNFCCC parties – working groups that will focus mainly on the negotiation documents presented by UNFCCC in May 2009. In this short article I would like just to indicate the main purpose of the two documents regarding Kyoto Protocol and related aspects. The basic document (outlining the new structure of convention) was presented in a previous article – UNFCCC negotiating texts.

No doubt…new Protocol, replacing the Kyoto Protocol (Copenhagen Protocol?) is the most problematic aspect both for developed and developing countries embraced within the UNFCCC. However some basic commitments should be agreed before going to the details which I assume are the national reduction targets in new Protocol. The basic commitments were presented in the main negotiation document (the draft version) that was already mentioned.

The negotiating text concerning the post-Kyoto agreement shows many options presenting variants of reduction targets for countries from the Annex B countries in present Protocol and also some baselines, very important as many post-communist countries received too ‘generous years’ within they should reduce their emissions. This situation impilcates often huge amount of AAU (assigned units) that can be sold by these countries (as their meet their reduction targets well beyond) to the countries that are below their targets.

For more details regarding the proposed targets and baselines I suggest visiting the official UNFCCC website.

Please consider that it’s just an negotiating paper.

Other document that will be discussed in Bonn, from 1st to 12th June, is referring to amongst others flexible mechanisms as JI (Joint Implementation) and CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and also to emission trading, land use and forestry.

For me the most interesting proposition is to include nuclear energy to CDM projects. It will be definitely a very controversial solution and will be broadly discussed. Other ‘eye catching’ point is to include CCS (carbon capture and storage technology) also under the Clean Development Mechanism.

We will see what the Bonn meeting will bring.

Regards,
Anthony