Testing Global Sectoral Industry Approaches to Address Climate Change: Interim report of a CEPS Task Force. CEPS Task Force Reports, 4 December 2007

Successful global sectoral industry approaches could become an effective means of broadening the range of contributions by all parties to greenhouse gas reductions, and of addressing competitiveness concerns in trade-exposed industries. This report puts these two hypotheses to the test and identifies the key requirements for global sectoral industry approaches to work. The analysis is based on ongoing work within a CEPS multi-stakeholder Task Force on “Sectoral industry approaches to address climate change”, supported by the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The Final Report will be published in spring 2008

The ICAO Assembly Resolutions on international aviation and climate change: Historic agreement, breakthrough deal and the Cancun effect

In what the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) heralds as a 'historic agreement' and the European Union (EU) calls a 'breakthrough deal', the recent ICAO Assembly Resolutions A37-18 and 19 mark the end of the Assembly Resolution A36-22 'mutual agreement' stalemate on emissions trading, which represents a significant achievement with respect to aviation and climate change. Although Assembly Resolutions A37-18 and 19 are non-binding, the as yet 'aspirational' goals that they set out demonstrate the collective will of the civil aviation industry and ICAO Member States to work together towards the common objective of limiting and reducing the global impact of aviation noise and emissions. The texts of Assembly Resolutions A37-18 and 19 prompt closer analysis vis-à-vis questions of whether ICAO is (still) the appropriate forum for addressing international aviation emissions and on the legitimacy of its manifesto for continuous leadership. ICAO's general approval for use of market-based mechanisms to establish a viable global framework mechanism for aviation emissions is also noteworthy, particularly in the context of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the position of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention), and recent legal challenge against inclusion of aviation in the scheme. This article suggests that on emergence from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)'s 16th Conference of the Parties (COP-16) in Cancun in December 2010, the ICAO Member States and the aviation sector should feel proud that the spirit of cooperation and sense of success they promoted in the wake of the recent ICAO Assembly Resolutions may have contributed to the most recent progress in the global campaign against climate change: the Cancun Agreements. Thus, this article argues it is foreseeable that the latest progress under the UNFCCC process will have a reverse demonstrative effect on future ICAO dialogue and resolution

A distinctive energy policy for Scotland?

This paper explores the emergence of a distinctive energy policy for Scotland and raises the issue of the desirability of any differentiation from UK energy policy. This requires an examination of both UK and Scottish energy policies, although we adopt a rather broad-brush overview rather than a very detailed analysis

Disaggregating the dependent variable in policy feedback research: An analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System

The literature on policy dynamics has long argued for a better conceptualization and measurement of the dependent variable (“policy”), but this fundamental point has often been neglected in the policy feedback literature. In this paper we explore how far disaggregating policy into different elements (policy instruments, objectives, and settings) addresses this gap. We do so by examining the world’s largest market-based climate policy instrument – emissions trading in the European Union – and reveal a number of valuable new insights. First, even if positive policy feedback locks in a policy instrument, actor contestation does not disappear, but narrows down to the more detailed level of policy settings. Second, feedback may operate differently at each policy level: the policy instrument and its settings may strengthen at the same time as support for broader objectives weakens. Finally, positive feedback may simultaneously strengthen opposing actors’ support for multiple policy elements, leading to a form of “policy stability by stalemate”. These findings highlight the need for a new, interdisciplinary phase of policy feedback research that more fully disaggregates the dependent variable across a wider range of policy areas and policy instrument types. Policy scientists are well equipped to contribute to and benefit from such a debate

Implications of and possible responses to climate change

Climate change is expected to worsen food insecurity and seriously undermines rural development prospects. It makes it harder to achieve the Millenium Development Goals and ensure a sustainable future beyond 2015. Findings from the recent 4th assessment report of IPCC, Working Group II indicate that already towards 2050 with respect to food crops yield losses between 10 and 30 % can be expected as compared to current conditions in large parts of Africa, including Western, Eastern and southern Africa. Climate change is likely to increase disparities between developed and the developing world, while many uncertainties remain. It is, for instance, estimated that developing countries would need to bear 75-80 % of the costs of damages caused by a changing climate. The prevention of such threats cannot rely on economic growth, but requires climate policies that combine enhancement of development with reduction of vulnerabilities and effective financing mechanisms that support the transition to low-carbon economics. The major strategies to reduce the potentially harmful effects of global changes, especially climate change are 1) adaptation of food and farming systems to climate change, 2) enhancing their resilience and adaptive capacity to changes in climate variability and extremes that are difficult to predict, and to global change more generally (including socio-economic changes), and 3) mitigation of climate change and trading the options to mitigate in low-income countries on the global carbon markets to create a substantial financial flow from the North to the South

Climate change: towards policy coherence

The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, being released in sections from late 2013 through 2014, is rekindling public interest in climate change. With controversies over the previous report (2007) out of the way, advances in knowledge since then and some improvement in procedures, the findings of the latest report appear more robust. Even though many uncertainties remain, the evidence base for policy is compelling

Making the most of the G8+5 Climate Change Process: Accelerating Structural Change and Technology Diffusion on a Global Scale. CEPS Task Force Reports, 5 June 2008

Under the chairmanship of Gunnar Still, Senior Vice President and Head of Environment Division at ThyssenKrupp, CEPS organized a Task Force to explore possible initiatives within the context of the G8+5 dialogue on tackling climate change. This report identifies a number of concrete measures that could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while at the same time stimulating structural change and technology development and diffusion. It calls for supporting action-based approaches, which are essential to achieve the necessary reductions in GHG emissions, inform the post-2012 negotiations and address the most urgent issues such as surging energy demand and the need for clean energy technologies in emerging economies. An action-based approach can be regarded as a way of integrating targets and timetables, as they are agreed, with consistent and comparable policies and measures. With a view to a long-term climate strategy, this report attempts to present a portfolio of actions that can be implemented and accelerated on a global scale – especially in the G8+5 countries and the EU, and could become a basis on which developed and developing countries can cooperate