Climate Regime Beyond 2012: Key Perspectives (Long-Term Targets), 2nd Interim Report

This report presents the international developments related to Long-Term Targets for controlling climate change, the significance of establishing Long-Term Targets, the conditions precedent to debating Long-Term Targets, temperature increases and related impacts due to climate change, the approaches to establishing Long-Term Targets, and the agenda for the future

Energy recovery from waste in India:an evidence-based analysis

The uptake of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) in India has not been successful and the majority of plants have failed to sustain operations. There is a lack of detailed on-the-ground research examining the causes of plant failures and the issues regarding the WtE supply chain. Thus, this study set out to identify how WtE practices in India can be improved by gathering and evaluating empirical evidence. Local government officers, industry practitioners and academics involved in waste management in India were consulted. Quantitative data were collected on three case study plants: an incinerator, a gasification plant and a plant co-firing waste with coal. The gathered information was evaluated by making a comparison with two European waste incinerators. The major problem with WtE in India has typically been perceived to be poor source segregation; however, the case study plants highlight that severe contamination has been occurring during transport and storage. In comparison to the European incinerators, the WtE plants in India had a low capital cost (around 1–2 million €/MW), but total particulate matter emissions were a hundred times higher, ranging from 65 to 75 mg/Nm3. We conclude with recommendations for delivery contracts, financial incentives and regulations on dumpsites, ash disposal and stack emission measurements

Low emission development strategies in agriculture. An agriculture, forestry, and other land uses (AFOLU) perspective

As countries experience economic growth and choose among available development pathways, they are in a favorable position to adopt natural resource use technologies and production practices that favor efficient use of inputs, healthy soils, and ecosystems. Current emphasis on increasing resilience to climate change and reducing agricultural greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions strengthens the support for sustainable agricultural production. In fact, reducing losses in soil fertility, reclaiming degraded lands, and promoting synergistic interaction between crop production and forests are generally seen as good climate change policies. In order for decision-makers to develop long-term policies that address these issues, they must have tools at their disposal that evaluate trade-offs, opportunities, and repercussions of the options considered. In this paper, the authors combine and reconcile the output of three models widely accessible to the public to analyze the impacts of policies that target emission reduction in the agricultural sector. We present an application to Colombia which reveals the importance of considering the full scope of interactions among the various land uses. Results indicate that investments in increasing the efficiency and productivity of the livestock sector and reducing land allocated to pasture are preferable to policies that target deforestation alone or target a reduction of emissions in crop production. Investments in livestock productivity and land-carrying capacity would reduce deforestation and provide sufficient gains in carbon stock to offset greater emissions from increased crop production while generating higher revenues

Contributing Authors (CA)

Jos é Roberto Moreira (Biomass Users Network, Brazil) Wim Sinke (Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands) Virginia Sonntag-O’Brien (REN21, France) Bob Thresher (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA

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