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Special Report
on Selected Side Events at SB 24 |
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Events
convened on Wednesday, 17 May 2006 |
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US
climate activities: States, Congress, and an agenda for
action |
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Presented
by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change |
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Joshua Bushinsky, Pew
Center, noted that states, via governors and legislature, are
taking the lead in addressing climate change in the US. He
noted that they are responding to multiple motivations,
including the desire to develop and market technology to
mitigate climate change as well as growing concern regarding
climate impacts, particularly in coastal areas. He provided an
overview of state and regional initiatives, including the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and a Western Governors’
Association initiative.
Manik Roy, Pew Center,
outlined progress in climate change policy by the US Senate
and Congress. He highlighted, inter alia: the 2005
Bingaman resolution in Senate and the 2006 Dicks resolution in
the House calling for mandatory, market-based programmes to
address GHG emissions; the 2006 Domenici-Bingaman Energy
Committee hearing on mandatory national climate policy; and
the Lugar-Biden resolution related to international climate
policy.
Vicki Arroyo, Pew Center,
described the Center’s "Agenda for Climate Action", a
comprehensive, economy-wide examination of means to "put the
US on a climate-friendly path." She outlined the Agenda’s
focus areas: research and development; market-based
programmes; reduction of GHG emissions; energy production and
use; adaptation; and international engagement.
Participants discussed:
intensity-based versus absolute emission reduction targets;
the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate;
and the linkage between US domestic policy and international
commitments to climate change.
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“You control
climate change” an EU climate change awareness
raising |
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Presented by
the European Community |
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Renita Bhaskar, European
Commission, introduced the EU’s upcoming climate change awareness
raising campaign to be launched across the 25 member States on 9
June, 2006. She described the campaign’s message as "short, simple
and catchy": ‘You Control Climate Change: Turn down. Switch off.
Recycle. Walk. Change.’
Bhaskar stated that the campaign
was initiated under the sixth European Environment Action Programme
2002-2012, which emphasizes the importance of awareness-raising
activities. She added that the campaign ties into Article 6 of the
UNFCCC on education, training and public awareness. She listed the
campaign’s objectives, namely: improving awareness and understanding
of climate change across the EU; spotlighting the proactive role
citizens can play in addressing the problem; and informing citizens
of small daily changes that make a difference at a collective
scale.
She illustrated aspects of the
campaign, including giant campaign posters, a school programme and
an internet portal. She said the television channel MTV is their
main partner and that the campaign will be evaluated after the first
seven months.
Participants discussed, inter
alia: the choice of slogan; and the campaign’s length,
monitoring, cost effectiveness, and target
audience. | |
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New work from
the Annex 1 Expert Group |
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Presented by
the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development |
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Jane Ellis, Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), presented an update on the current CDM
portfolio. She highlighted the increase in number of CDM projects,
CERs and small-scale projects as well as the continued dominance of
a few countries and sectors in CDM. She introduced an OECD paper
that assesses issues relating to "project activities under a
programme of activities" under the CDM.
Richard Baron, International Energy Agency,
presented institutional and operational concerns with regards to
sectoral crediting mechanisms (SCM) for mitigation. He highlighted
three SCM options and noted issues relating to international
governance measures and additionalities in SCM.
Dennis Tirpak, OECD, emphasized the wide range of
adaptation terms and concepts available, noted some conflicts and
contradictions between these terms and highlighted the need to reach
a consensus.
Ellina Levina, OECD, presented a paper that
examines the domestic policy frameworks for the water sector in four
countries and assesses how adaptation could be incorporated in these
frameworks.
Discussion: Participants focused on the nature of
SCM buyers and issues relating to setting SCM baselines, the
importance of consensus on adaptation definitions, and the merits
and demerits of a sectoral approach to adaptation.
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Market
mechanisms, sustainable development and post-2012 |
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Presented by
the International Institute for Sustainable
Development |
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John Drexhage, International
Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), emphasized growing
awareness regarding limitations of the CDM. Noting increased
interest to reform the CDM, he urged participants to consider how
the market can deliver projects that significantly reduce GHG
emissions while generating development benefits, or high
"development dividends."
Aaron Cosbey, IISD, discussed
the CDM in the current commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol and
post-2012. He suggested that the CDM, in its current form, is in
effect a tax on governments and firms. He emphasized that investors
need certainty regarding the CDM in the post-2012 regime in order to
invest in projects and noted that continued use of quantitative
targets is a pre-requisite to the CDM’s survival after
2012.
Diana Smallridge, Green Capital
Advisors, noted that many CDM projects will fail for lack of
financing due to the uncertainty of CER delivery and the small
volume of CERs which may not justify costs and risks to buyers. She
outlined possible solutions to overcome the challenges for financing
the development dividend, including: building CDM capacity in host
countries to make better use of carbon finance for projects; linking
projects with high development dividend potential to national
priorities; engaging ODA providers to catalyze CDM projects with
high development dividend potential; and reducing CDM transation
costs through bundling of small projects.
Brian Dawson, UNDP, outlined
UNDP’s experience with and interest in CDM and announced the
upcoming release of a UNDP CDM Asessment Report. He suggested that
the CDM could deliver sustainable development benefits over time if
there is an increase in project number, technology mix and
geographical spread. He identified financing and long-term post-2012
market certainty as essential determinants of the future project
flow.
Daniel Murdiyarso, speaking on
behalf of Rewarding Upland Poor for Environmental Services,
highlighted the organization’s use of watershed functions as an
entry point for carbon sequestration projects. He suggested that
market-based mechanisms for the Land Use, Land-Use Change and
Forestry sector are at stake and that new mechanisms must be
explored. He concluded that payment for environmental services
projects may not be able to reduce emissions effectively.
Murray Ward, Global Climate
Change Consultancy, suggested reframing the mitigation challenge by
thinking of climate change as a transformative and innovative
business opportunity for the 21st century. He called for more
flexible commitment measures along with a policy framework that
could mix binding emissions targets and voluntary sector targets,
proposed by countries according to their sustainable development
priorities.
Participants discussed tender
processes, sectoral baselines, internal rates of return and
investment in CDM projects, and prospects for voluntary markets for
emissions
reductions. | |
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Contributions
to climate change – the Brazilian proposal – report of
MATCH |
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Presented by
the Center for International Climate and Environmental
Research |
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Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro, provided an introduction to the modeling and assessment of
contributions to climate change (MATCH) process, which aims at
assessing methods for calculating the emission contributions of
different sources and their impacts on climate change. He introduced
two papers that contain MATCH’s current results.
Niklas Höhn, Ecofys, presented the first paper, "On
analyzing countries’ contribution to climate change: scientific and
methodological choices." He said the analysis suggests that the
impact of policy parameters such as time horizon of emissions,
climate change indicators or greenhouse gas mix is greater than the
impact of scientific uncertainties.
Joyce Penner, University of Michigan, provided an
overview of the second paper on examining uncertainties in absolute
attribution of climate change using a closure method. She explained
that the paper examines uncertainties in emissions inventories,
estimates forcing and forcing uncertainty from all other known
climate factors, and considers the implications of this uncertainty
for predicted global average temperature change and the change
associated with 1990-2002 OECD Annex 1 emissions.
Höhn noted that the two papers are the first of a
series and that future publications could combine the two earlier
ones and include other test cases.
Participants discussed: robustness of data sets
from the 19th century; choice of regional groupings; and possible
policy
recommendations. | |
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The Earth
Negotiations Bulletin on the side (ENBOTS) © <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is a special
publication of the International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD). This issue has been written by Asmita Bhardwaj,
Alice Bisiaux, Robynne Boyd, and Alexandra Conliffe. The
photographer is Francis Dejon. The Digital Editor is Diego Noguera.
The Editor is Soledad Aguilar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. The
Director of IISD Reporting Services is Langston James “Kimo” Goree
VI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. The opinions
expressed in ENBOTS are those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect the views of IISD and funders. Excerpts from ENBOTS may be
used in non-commercial publications only with appropriate academic
citation. For permission to use this material in commercial
publications, contact the Director of IISD Reporting Services at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Electronic
versions of issues of ENBOTS from SB 24 can be found on the Linkages
website at http://www.iisd.ca/climate/sb24/enbots/. The
ENBOTS Team at SB 24 can be contacted by e-mail at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. | |
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