Blog
25.November 2009 - 22:53
Towards a trick-free climate policy
As the Copenhagen Climate Conference approaches, besides CO2, the air is full of different wagers concerning whether an agreement will come about or not. The most common guess is that it is possible that the meeting may create a political frame but not a binding agreement.
Last week, China stirred up more confusion. Some were already happy about the promise of cutting the economy’s carbon intensity by 40-45 per cent by 2020, and I saw on the Web a couple of hasty interpretations which described China as having committed itself to some huge emission reductions. The professionals know that this is not the case.
What does this figure mean? The International Energy Agency IEA recently gave a prediction on China’s future energy-intensive development; i.e., emissions per GDP, in its World Energy Outlook report. According to the Business As Usual model this would be 40 per cent by 2020, as emissions increase from 6.1 gigatonnes of carbon in 2007 to 9.6 gigatonnes in 2020.
So, China hasn’t promised anything else than to be its old self – to use new technology whilst increasing its emissions. China does more, but with less; in other words, it generates large amounts of emissions but does it in a more decent way. The cutting of carbon intensity takes place naturally.
This promise is a small disappointment, as it does not promise that China will move from the path on which it is already walking. Since the United States of America, for example, has promised direct cuts in its emissions, and not just a cleaner growth, Michael A. Levi, the Director of the US’s Council on Foreign Relations on Climate Change Programme, has stated that China should also increase its ambition level a little so that the efforts could, at least somehow, be comparable with each other.
To tell the truth, neither will the number given by Obama reel any European minds. If the US promises to cut 17% of the level of 2005, this promise will mean something like zero when it is proportional to 1990.
Would this be comparable in any way, if the EU answers to the challenge by changing its target of 20% of the level of 1990 to 30 per cent?
I really think that it is insane.
Some of my colleagues, including Finns, have already been loudly and clearly demanding this 30 percent target. Last week in Brussels, a new piece of information leaked out that the Commission was preparing, silently with some Member States, a proposal according to which these 30 percent cuts would be implemented right away. The argument states that the price of carbon dioxide could be kept at a reasonable level, i.e. at a level promoting emissions reductive measures, if the cuts were 30 per cent.
The large electricity producers are diligently lobbying the Commission: They don’t seemingly object to the plan that would increase the profits of those listed companies more than ever and, at the same time, this would remove the carbon leakage protection from European industry.
However, I have reminded the Commission that according to the Emissions Trading Directive, the EU’s emission reduction target of 20% can be changed to 30%, only in the event that the other industrial countries show “comparable reduction efforts” and the developing countries also have some kinds of obligations.
It would not be enough if a political framework were to be created at the Copenhagen Conference. On the other hand, a legally binding agreement is not sufficient before all of the countries ratify it. Until the agreement has been ratified, the EU cannot ascertain if the present condition on comparable reduction measures has been fulfilled. This may take months, even years.
First of all, the question is that only a synchronous emission reduction can ensure that emissions as a whole will be reduced and not just transferred from one place to another, simultaneously increasing the total amount of emissions. Therefore, the conditioning of the EU’s emission reductions, in respect of the measures of other states, may be considered to be politically responsible. Otherwise, Verheugen’s depressing prediction may come true, in so far as we would only export pollution and import unemployment.
However, I would not completely cast China’s promise aside as an entirely bad idea. In my opinion, it is a promise that points in the right direction and stirs the EU in the right kind of way, as the EU has been stuck with the Kyoto model; i.e., numbers concerning the emissions cuts, whilst it does not see the entire CO2 problem so that it could be also solved by other means than by just setting emissions ceilings.
As one can see, China’s Business As Usual is not just a usual promise as the country has committed itself to energy efficiency efforts aiming at an annual decarbonisation of 3.7 per cent.
In any cases, the investments in decarbonisation are a step in the right direction, as this can be regarded as trick-free climate change policy. This kind of policy is not based on a search for loopholes or on transferring emissions elsewhere but on the problem itself. The trouble with the current climate policy has been that while the world is in an uproar over the greenhouse effect, emissions have been increasing not only quantitatively but also relatively, i.e. as emissions per GDP.
(This blog is available on the website at the forum address energiajakasvu.fi)
As the Copenhagen Climate Conference approaches, besides CO2, the air is full of different wagers concerning whether an agreement will come about or not. The most common guess is that it is possible that the meeting may create a political frame but not a binding agreement.
Last week, China stirred up more confusion. Some were already happy about the promise of cutting the economy’s carbon intensity by 40-45 per cent by 2020, and I saw on the Web a couple of hasty interpretations which described China as having committed itself to some huge emission reductions. The professionals know that this is not the case.
What does this figure mean? The International Energy Agency IEA recently gave a prediction on China’s future energy-intensive development; i.e., emissions per GDP, in its World Energy Outlook report. According to the Business As Usual model this would be 40 per cent by 2020, as emissions increase from 6.1 gigatonnes of carbon in 2007 to 9.6 gigatonnes in 2020.
So, China hasn’t promised anything else than to be its old self – to use new technology whilst increasing its emissions. China does more, but with less; in other words, it generates large amounts of emissions but does it in a more decent way. The cutting of carbon intensity takes place naturally.
This promise is a small disappointment, as it does not promise that China will move from the path on which it is already walking. Since the United States of America, for example, has promised direct cuts in its emissions, and not just a cleaner growth, Michael A. Levi, the Director of the US’s Council on Foreign Relations on Climate Change Programme, has stated that China should also increase its ambition level a little so that the efforts could, at least somehow, be comparable with each other.
To tell the truth, neither will the number given by Obama reel any European minds. If the US promises to cut 17% of the level of 2005, this promise will mean something like zero when it is proportional to 1990.
Would this be comparable in any way, if the EU answers to the challenge by changing its target of 20% of the level of 1990 to 30 per cent?
I really think that it is insane.
Some of my colleagues, including Finns, have already been loudly and clearly demanding this 30 percent target. Last week in Brussels, a new piece of information leaked out that the Commission was preparing, silently with some Member States, a proposal according to which these 30 percent cuts would be implemented right away. The argument states that the price of carbon dioxide could be kept at a reasonable level, i.e. at a level promoting emissions reductive measures, if the cuts were 30 per cent.
The large electricity producers are diligently lobbying the Commission: They don’t seemingly object to the plan that would increase the profits of those listed companies more than ever and, at the same time, this would remove the carbon leakage protection from European industry.
However, I have reminded the Commission that according to the Emissions Trading Directive, the EU’s emission reduction target of 20% can be changed to 30%, only in the event that the other industrial countries show “comparable reduction efforts” and the developing countries also have some kinds of obligations.
It would not be enough if a political framework were to be created at the Copenhagen Conference. On the other hand, a legally binding agreement is not sufficient before all of the countries ratify it. Until the agreement has been ratified, the EU cannot ascertain if the present condition on comparable reduction measures has been fulfilled. This may take months, even years.
First of all, the question is that only a synchronous emission reduction can ensure that emissions as a whole will be reduced and not just transferred from one place to another, simultaneously increasing the total amount of emissions. Therefore, the conditioning of the EU’s emission reductions, in respect of the measures of other states, may be considered to be politically responsible. Otherwise, Verheugen’s depressing prediction may come true, in so far as we would only export pollution and import unemployment.
However, I would not completely cast China’s promise aside as an entirely bad idea. In my opinion, it is a promise that points in the right direction and stirs the EU in the right kind of way, as the EU has been stuck with the Kyoto model; i.e., numbers concerning the emissions cuts, whilst it does not see the entire CO2 problem so that it could be also solved by other means than by just setting emissions ceilings.
As one can see, China’s Business As Usual is not just a usual promise as the country has committed itself to energy efficiency efforts aiming at an annual decarbonisation of 3.7 per cent.
In any cases, the investments in decarbonisation are a step in the right direction, as this can be regarded as trick-free climate change policy. This kind of policy is not based on a search for loopholes or on transferring emissions elsewhere but on the problem itself. The trouble with the current climate policy has been that while the world is in an uproar over the greenhouse effect, emissions have been increasing not only quantitatively but also relatively, i.e. as emissions per GDP.
(This blog is available on the website at the forum address energiajakasvu.fi)