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Monthly Archives: March 2011

Technology & finance are key issues as climate negotiations begin for 2011

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

Climate negotiations for 2011 get under way next week when the first sessions of the Ad-hoc Working Groups on the Kyoto Protocol and Long-term Cooperative Action meet in Bangkok. These negotiations come on the back of what has generally been seen as a successful round of climate negotiations in Cancun late last year.

One observer, however, remarked after Cancun that it “performed the remarkable feat of simultaneously changing nothing, and changing a great deal”. That comment came because the momentum generated by the Cancun agreements has breathed new life into the negotiations process but in reality much still remains to be done. Only if negotiations such as these in Bangkok and others during the course of the year are successful will it be possible to have any substantive outcome from the next Conference of the Parties meeting in Durban, South Africa.

The main focus of these talks will be working out how to effectively progress with the range of tasks allocated to the working groups and other bodies from the decisions taken in Cancun.

Key amongst these will be the issue of technology transfer, which is also the subject of an informal workshop before the actual negotiations get under way. Ensuring that clean technologies that support climate change mitigation and adaptation are available to developing countries will be essential to addressing global challenges relating to both climate change and sustainable development.

Technology transfer is an essential issue for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, as well as the ongoing issue of its inclusion in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Working out the details of how the technology mechanism will operate and how it will interact with the Green Climate Fund (the financial mechanism established in Cancun) is going to be an important point of discussion this year.

Both the technology and financial mechanisms will have meat put on their bones this year after the frameworks were agreed in Cancun. These two mechanisms will be an important tool for ensuring that CCS is successfully deployed in developing countries.

The WCA has already called on the Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund to ensure CCS is included as a key technology in these mechanisms to support the sustainable use of coal, which is the fuel of choice for many developing countries to meet their growing energy needs.

Few observers expect an all-encompassing, legally binding agreement to come out of the Durban conference later this year. But maintaining the momentum from Cancun on key issues such as finance, technology and the inclusion of CCS in the CDM will mean that systems can be established to deploy clean technologies like CCS across the globe.

March 31, 2011 | Categories: Climate change, Coal News, WCA

Need for clear financial commitments on CCS

Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, WCA

Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, WCA

Months of uncertainty over the future of public financing for CCS in the UK ended yesterday when a CCS levy was formally abandoned in the 2011 Budget.

The UK government did renew its commitment to funding four CCS demonstration projects and states that it wants to provide the necessary financial support from general taxation. However, it remains silent on how much money will be available for CCS or in what timeframe.

The UK had been positioning itself as a global CCS champion. In a recent GCCSI report, the UK was revealed to provide the largest source of public financing for CCS. Its commitments were higher than those of Canada and Australia combined. Strong public support for CCS sets a fertile ground for CCS demonstration and eight UK-based projects applied for EU funding under the NER300 scheme, out of a total of 22 projects from around Europe.

Ditching the CCS levy without proposing a concrete replacement means that there is now a high degree of uncertainty over the future of the UK’s CCS demonstration programme.

Most low-carbon technologies expect to benefit from the carbon price floor, also announced in yesterday’s budget, but CCS needs additional public support. Unlike other low-carbon technologies, CCS is at an early stage of demonstration and the first large scale CCS projects will have to overcome regulatory and economic barriers. Carbon prices will have to be as high as €60-€90 to encourage investment in CCS at this early stage. This means that CCS demonstration in the UK will not continue beyond the first CCS demonstration project unless the Government intervenes directly and provides sufficient funding.

In the meantime, there will be no additional revenue to the UK budget from the carbon price floor until 2014.

Going back on the commitment to fund further CCS demonstration projects, or leaving the question of funding open, could seriously undermine the future of CCS demonstration in the UK. With its technological know-how and large CO2 storage potential, the UK should be committed to quickly demonstrating CCS. Backing down on CCS with all these advantages in hand could also send a negative signal to other governments in Europe.

The Government should keep up with its commitments and say how much it is willing to invest in demonstrating CCS and within what timeframe. The forthcoming Energy White Paper will be an excellent opportunity for more solid commitments.

March 24, 2011 | Categories: Climate change, Coal News

EU 2050 Roadmap – Lacking Global Vision?

Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist

Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist

This week the European Commission released its low carbon economy roadmap for 2050, calling for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by 80-95% by 2050. The EC also called for reduction milestones of 40% by 2030 and 50% by 2040.

The power sector is expected to contribute more to the reductions than agriculture or transport, as the roadmap foresees an almost complete decarbonisation of electricity generation by 2050.

Turning these targets into a reality across the EU27 will cost over €1 trillion just in the next decade. This is comparable to the national budget of China, Germany or France.

The good news is that the cost of reducing CO2 emissions can be brought down by deploying the most cost effective technologies at the most cost effective scale and locations. The IEA has calculated that non-deployment of CCS would increase the total mitigation bill by up to 71%.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, international offsetting mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), were designed to bring down the costs of tackling climate change by allowing industrialised countries to invest in emission reductions wherever it is cheapest globally. The CDM also contributes to the ultimate objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is to reduce global CO2 emissions.

To say that the EU’s roadmap does little to reinforce the EU’s potential to address climate change globally through flexibility mechanisms such as the CDM is an understatement! The roadmap actually suggests that the 80-95% GHG emissions reduction target should “largely be met internally”.

Scaling down the importance of the international carbon market should be a matter of concern. The CDM is a cost effective and essential tool for driving investment in low carbon technologies at a global level. It allows developing countries – those where CO2 emissions are projected to grow most over the coming decades – to develop the right regulatory framework and to gain access to the essential technological know-how. It also reduces the global costs of mitigating climate change and provides a useful bridge between developed and developing countries on the issue of climate change.

While the EU’s reduction targets are ambitious, the low carbon economy roadmap for 2050 fails to acknowledge the importance of the world outside of the EU either in terms of its potential to make a real change to GHG emissions or in terms of reducing the global costs of mitigating climate change.

March 11, 2011 | Categories: Climate change, Coal News

WCA Policy Director to Speak at UCG Event

ucgThe World Coal Association’s Policy Director, Benjamin Sporton, is due to speak later this month at the 6th Annual UCG International Conference & Workshop, held in London on 23-24 March.

The event is the leading international conference for the entire UCG industry, attracting over 100 high level delegates, presenters and representatives from across the world’s multidisciplinary UCG community.

The conference will provide the most comprehensive information, updates and overview of the growth and commercial development of UCG technology.

Over the two days, presentations will cover issues such as progress of global UCG projects, geological criteria, global regions of opportuniy for UCG, UCG-CCS, technical developments, research updates and findings,

This is the official conference of the UCG industry, and the only one organised by the Underground Coal Gasification Association.

Benjamin Sporton will be addressing the conference on the morning of the second day.

March 7, 2011 | Categories: Coal News
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