Transport in developing countries and climate policy: suggestions for a Copenhagen agreement and beyond

Also in the global South, transport already significantly contributes to climate change and has high growth rates. Further rapid motorisation of countries in Asia and Latin America could counteract any climate efforts and aggravate problems of noxious emissions, noise and congestion. This Paper aims at connecting the need for transport actions in developing countries to the international negotiations on a post-2012 climate change agreement. It outlines the decisions to be taken in Copenhagen and the preparations to adequately implement these decisions from 2013. Arguing, that a sustainable transport approach needs to set up comprehensive policy packages, the paper assesses the substance of current climate negotiations against the fit to sustainable transport. It concludes that the transport sector's importance should be highlighted and a significant contribution to mitigation efforts required. Combining the two perspectives lead to several concrete suggestions: Existing elements of the carbon market should be improved (e.g. discounting), but an upscale of the carbon market would not be an appropriate solution. Due to a lack of additionality, offsetting industrialised countries' targets would finally undermine the overall success of the climate agreement. Instead, a mitigation fund should be established under the UNFCCC and financed by industrialised countries. This fund should explicitly enable developing countries to implement national sustainable development transport and mobility policies as well as local projects. While industrialized countries would set up target achievement plans, developing countries should outline low carbon development strategies, including a section on transport policy. -- Die rasante Motorisierung Asiens und Lateinamerikas könnte die Klimaschutzerfolge konterkarieren. Bis 2030, so Prognosen der IEA, werden im Verkehrssektor 2,5 Gigatonnen CO2 mehr emitiert als heute; 80 Prozent davon in den Ländern des Südens. Das Papier soll die Notwendigkeit verdeutlichen, dass in den Entwicklungsländern im Verkehrssektor heute schon Maßnahmen ergriffen werden müssen und die Klimaverhandlungen für die Post-Kyoto-Phase eine wichtige Gelegenheit sind. Die Ansätze in den gegenwärtigen Klimaverhandlungen werden den Anforderungen einer nachhaltigen Verkehrspolitik gegenübergestellt und dafür plädiert, den Stellenwert des Verkehrssektors zu den Klimaschutzanstrengungen zu erhöhen. Dafür werden mehrere konkrete Vorschläge gemacht: So sollten vorhandene Elemente des Emissionshandels verbessert werden, die eigentlich angemessene Lösung sei jedoch ein neues Instrument: Um die Entwicklungsländer in die Lage zu versetzen Maßnahmen in der Verkehrspolitik umzusetzen und Politiken und Projekte vor Ort zu fördern, sollte ein von den Industrieländern finanzierter Klimaschutzfonds unter dem UN-Klimaregime eingerichtet werden. In Strategien für eine kohlenstoffarme Entwicklung sind dabei die Politikinstrumente einer nachhaltigen Verkehrsentwicklung zu integrieren.

Thirteen Plus One: A Comparison of Global Climate Policy Architectures

We critically review the Kyoto Protocol and thirteen alternative policy architectures for addressing the threat of global climate change. We employ six criteria to evaluate the policy proposals: environmental outcome, dynamic efficiency, cost effectiveness, equity, flexibility in the presence of new information, and incentives for participation and compliance. The Kyoto Protocol does not fare well on a number of criteria, but none of the alternative proposals fare well along all six dimensions. We identify several major themes among the alternative proposals: Kyoto is “too little, too fast”; developing countries should play a more substantial role and receive incentives to participate; implementation should focus on market-based approaches, especially those with price mechanisms; and participation and compliance incentives are inadequately addressed by most proposals. Our investigation reveals tensions among several of the evaluative criteria, such as between environmental outcome and efficiency, and between cost-effectiveness and incentives for participation and compliance.Policy architecture, Kyoto Protocol, Efficiency, Cost effectiveness, Equity, Participation, Compliance

On the feasibility of collaborative green data center ecosystems

The increasing awareness of the impact of the IT sector on the environment, together with economic factors, have fueled many research efforts to reduce the energy expenditure of data centers. Recent work proposes to achieve additional energy savings by exploiting, in concert with customers, service workloads and to reduce data centers’ carbon footprints by adopting demand-response mechanisms between data centers and their energy providers. In this paper, we debate about the incentives that customers and data centers can have to adopt such measures and propose a new service type and pricing scheme that is economically attractive and technically realizable. Simulation results based on real measurements confirm that our scheme can achieve additional energy savings while preserving service performance and the interests of data centers and customers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A socio-technical evaluation of the impact of energy demand reduction measures in family homes

Energy consumption in the home depends on appliance ownership and use, space heating systems, control set-points and hot water use. It represents a significant proportion of national demand in the UK. The factors that drive the level of consumption are a complex and interrelated mix of the numbers of people in the home, the building and system characteristics as well as the preferences for the internal environment and service choices of occupants. Reducing the energy demand in the domestic sector is critical to achieving the national 2050 carbon targets, as upward of 60% reduction in demand is assumed by many energy system scenarios and technology pathways. The uptake of reduction measures has been demonstrated to be quite ad hoc and intervention studies have demonstrated considerable variation in the results. Additionally, a limitation of many studies is that they only consider one intervention, whereas a more holistic approach to the assessment of the potential of reduction measures in specific homes may yield a better understanding of the likely impact of measures on the whole house consumption and indeed would shed light on the appropriateness of the assumptions that underpin the decisions that need to be made regarding the future energy supply system and demand strategies. This work presents a systematic approach to modelling potential reductions for a set of seven family homes, feeding back this information to householders and then evaluating the likely reduction potential based on their responses. Carried out through a combination of monitoring and semi-structured interviews, the approach develops a methodology to model energy reduction in specific homes using monitoring data and steady-state heat balance principles to determine ventilation heat loss, improving the assumptions within the energy model regarding those variables affected by human behaviour. The findings suggest that the anticipated reductions in end use energy demand in the domestic sector are possible, but that there is no `one size fits all' solution. A combination of retrofitting and lifestyle change is needed in most homes and smart home technology may potentially be useful in assisting the home owner to achieve reductions where they are attempting to strike a balance between energy efficiency, service and comfort

Reconciling Climate Change and Trade Policy

There is growing clamor in industrial countries for additional border taxes on imports from countries with lower carbon prices. While this paper confirms the findings of other research that unilateral emissions cuts by industrial countries will have minimal carbon leakage effects, output and exports of energy-intensive manufactures are projected to decline, potentially creating pressure for trade action. A key factor affecting the impact of any border taxes is whether they are based on the carbon content of imports or the carbon content of domestic production. The paper's quantitative estimates suggest that the former action when applied to all merchandise imports would address competitiveness and environmental concerns in high income countries but with serious consequences for trading partners. Border tax adjustment based on the carbon content in domestic production would broadly address the competitiveness concerns of producers in high income countries and less seriously damage developing country trade.trade, trade policy, environment, climate change

A framework for translating Sustainable Development Goals into national energy planning in developing countries: The case of Indonesia

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are the 2030 global agenda to end poverty and hunger, enjoy peace and prosperity, and protect the Earth. The SDGs are set in a global context but only executable locally and nationally. Consequently, mainstreaming them into national development planning is essential, and integrating the SDGs into national planning constitutes revisiting the national energy plan. Any action aimed at achieving SDG targets may have direct and indirect effects on energy. Unfortunately, the national energy supply and demand projection is usually developed based on demographic and economic assumptions without considering SDG mainstreaming impacts. Therefore, a framework was developed for translating the SDGs into national energy planning in developing countries. The research used Indonesia’s data to test the framework. The study mapped the links between the SDG targets and energy demand and provided methods to translate those targets to energy demand. It also evaluated the impacts of energy policy on achieving the SDG on energy. The implications of SDG implementations on the national energy supply and demand of Indonesia were also assessed. Finally, the study offers scenarios for Indonesia to achieve its Paris Agreement goal beyond nationally determined contribution (NDC) commitments. This study identifies 25 targets associated with energy demand and proposes a solution for estimating the energy demand associated with the targets. The SDGs implementation in the context of Indonesia will anticipate a 5% increase in energy demand above the reference scenario. Indonesia is on track to meet universal access to electricity by 2025 under the current policy support. However, universal access to clean fuels and technology and renewable energy targets will be missed. In contrast, the 2.6% annual increase in energy efficiency improvement has been achieved by Indonesia since 2015. Finally, the NDCs of Indonesia will be easily reached by 2030. A more ambitious carbon emissions reduction compatible with the Paris Agreement goal is achievable by remarkably increasing the adoption of renewable energy technology and applying strong energy efficiency measures

Accelerating the transition to heat pumps: measuring real-world performance and enabling peer-to-peer learning - An Energy Futures Lab Briefing Paper

Major challenges exist for decarbonising heat in buildings through mass adoption of heat pumps. These include consumer uncertainty and gaps in evidence, data and installer skills. This Energy Futures Lab briefing paper explores in detail the potential impacts and feasibility of one approach to supporting the transition: leveraging early adopters by measuring in-situ heat pump installation outcomes and sharing these as case studies to enable peer-to-peer learning among consumers and installers. Topics discussed include: the role of advice and support in the heat pump adoption customer journey; methods of assessing heat pump and building performance; stakeholder benefits from sharing data; and the context for implementing these recommendations