Suchergebnisse

A growing number of GHG emissions trading schemes are being implemented at regional or national levels. However, even as the number of different schemes grows, few linkages exist between them. Major cap-and-trade proposals are currently at important stages in their development, especially in the United States, Japan and Australia, some of which explicitly emphasize the aim of linking with other schemes. One of the strategic goals of European climate policy is linking the EU ETS with other comparable schemes. The research presented in this volume is on actual economic, political and institution.

The Cancun Agreements in December 2010 have set the basis for the continuing availability of market mechanisms to assist developed countries in meeting their mitigation commitments in a post-2010 climate regime. They provide that the introduction of new Market Based Mechanisms ("NMMs") will be examined at the next COP in Durban. NMMs refer, in particular, to sector based crediting. There is not yet sufficient consensus on how new market mechanisms could be governed and which role the United Nations ("UN") should play. While some countries including Japan and Australia favour more decentralized governance models with only minimum criteria defined by the UN and a strong role for bilateral cooperation, the EU still has a preference for more centralized UN based governance. This paper gives an overview of current country positions, discusses pro and cons of different accounting and governance frameworks for NNMs, and examines inasmuch the Clean Development Mechanism ("CDM") provides a suitable model for centrally governed sectoral crediting mechanisms. It concludes that even if decentralized approaches also have their strengths compared to centralized governance models, minimum requirements need to be agreed upon under the UN to guarantee the environmental integrity of the mechanism.

Climate change mitigation efforts have been underway in the EU for many years. EU Member States (MS) have acknowledged the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and have developed strategic national plans aimed at achieving the environmental goals set by the EU, and by the worldwide community through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is widely acknowledged that the energy sector is responsible for a major proportion of the total GHG emissions, and the EU is focusing on actions to decarbonise it, including the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades. However, despite careful planning, using best available knowledge, energy and climate policy makers often face situations in which actual policy outcomes differ from policy expectations. Such deviations can occur due to unexpected impacts of the social, economic or political context on the deployment of mitigation technologies and relevant policy outcomes. Throughout this report the focus is set on the factors that broadly hinder the deployment of energy and climate mitigation policies and technologies, and on suggestions for policy makers on how these can be overcome. More specifically, to provide more concrete suggestions and guidelines for national and EU policy makers and to make the scope more operational, accounting also for the aforementioned inherent limitations, the main research question was narrowed down to the following complementary inquiries: What are the most inhibiting contextual factors reported for selected case-studies? How did their influence manifest? How has the country under assessment dealt with identified influences thus far (policy actions, practices considered)? Can examples of different countries which addressed similar influences be of aid? The aim is to synthesise the influence of contextual factors hindering mitigation policy and technology options across different MS contexts and to derive (more) concrete suggestions for policy makers on how to deal with the contextual ...

The Durban Climate Conference agreed on the creation of a new market-based mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to consider the establishment of an overall framework for various mitigation approaches, including opportunities for using markets ("Framework"). This development is taking place against the background of increasing numbers of parties developing market mechanisms outside the UNFCCC. The creation of such a Framework is therefore of high political significance, as it should ensure on the one hand that new market-based mechanisms contribute to global climate change mitigation and to achievement of targets and on the other hand that different market-based approaches can be integrated in a global carbon market. As there is yet little clarity as to the roles and design of such a framework. This paper contributes to the debate by discussing and evaluating inter alia several design options, ranging from decentralised to centralised. The paper concludes that a strong central oversight at the level of the UNFCCC is probably the only option that could comfortably assure the vast majority of UNFCCC Parties that the environmental integrity of new market-based mechanisms is in fact ensured.