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Mixed signals from Durban

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

The Durban climate talks closed two days late in the early hours of Sunday morning to great acclaim on the adoption of the Durban Platform. The agreements reached in Durban foresee a second commitment under the Kyoto Protocol and a negotiating framework to achieve a new legal consensus on climate action by 2015, which would be implemented by 2020.

The coming weeks will no doubt see extensive analysis and debate over the outcomes from COP17. 2012 will see discussion commence under the auspices of the Durban Platform where no doubt the last minute compromises made to get the agreement through in the early hours of Sunday morning will complicate negotiations in the months ahead.

The real debate will revolve around the legal nature of the final outcome from the Durban Platform process. The definition of “legal force” will cause difficulties into the future, as will the provision that the result of the Durban Platform process will apply to all countries. The Kyoto Protocol applies to all countries, but then differentiates between developed and developing. Indeed while the Durban decision text lacks reference to the concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” it is highly implausible to assume that developing countries will now see themselves on an equal standing with developed countries in terms of emission reduction responsibilities. The right of developing countries to grow their economies will still (as it should) be considered paramount and there will no doubt be continued expectation that the historic responsibility for climate change sits with the developed world who will still be expected to contribute the lion’s share of the emission reduction effort.

It seems likely all countries will consider they got what they wanted out of the final decision in Durban, but that does not mean they all agreed. 2012 will see the formalisation of the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and it will set the ground-work for the agreement due to be reached in 2015. However many of the issues that have been under negotiation for the past few years remain on the table and these will need to be resolved for agreement to be reached in 2015, especially if that agreement is to be a more formal treaty rather than simply a set of legal decisions.

While there is a lot of triumphalism in the immediate aftermath of the conference, only time will tell whether the agreement reached can result in a treaty being agreed.

One a positive note, the decision to establish the framework for the Green Climate Fund is a huge positive, as is the specific reference to carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the governing instrument as having an identified role in the fund. Another plus for CCS from the conference was its inclusion in the Clean Development Mechanism, which was covered in a previous blog. Inclusion of CCS in the CDM and the Green Climate Fund will provide strong support for deploying this essential mitigation technology in the developing world.

December 12, 2011 | Categories: Coal News, WCA, WCA at Durban

CCS in CDM gets green light in Durban

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

Earlier today in a landmark decision the CMP decided to include carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This decision comes after five years of campaigning by the WCA and other organisations when some had said it was a dead issue. There has been extensive debate at UN negotiations in recent years and a year of tough negotiations in 2011 following the preliminary decision at COP16/CMP6 in Cancun last year.

The decision comes on a day when negotiators are still struggling late on the final day of the COP to find solutions on other issues, including the future of the Kyoto Protocol. The uncertain future of the protocol also leaves some doubt over the future of the CDM although most observers and legal experts believe the CDM will continue regardless of whether there are further commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

Regardless of that, inclusion of CCS in the CDM this reflects final international acceptance that CCS is as legitimate a low carbon technology as wind and solar. It support use of the technology in developing countries, bringing clean, reliable, base load electricity to the developing world which struggles with 1.3 billion people lacking access to electricity.

The decision also provides a set of internationally accepted rules for CCS projects, dealing with key issues such as site selection, liability and environmental assurance. It also sets an important precedent for the inclusion of CCS into other financing and technology support mechanisms.

December 9, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

Debate on energy access takes off in the corridors of COP17

Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist

As we approach the last hours of this year’s climate change negotiations, informal bilateral and multilateral meetings multiply until early morning hours.

At the same time many interesting side events are taking place and provide a good forum for the WCA to engage with the UN, the World Bank and businesses on issues such as energy access and the expected role of coal, along with other fuels and technologies, in providing alleviating energy poverty.

Yesterday, the UN Foundation organised a session on “Cleaner and more affordable energy access”. It brought together representatives from the Norwegian Government and the Global Network for Energy and Sustainable Development, as well as academics from universities in Zambia and Ghana. During question time WCA presented the IEA’s statistics on the expected role of coal in delivering electricity access in energy poor areas. I asked the panellists if their initiatives would support coal projects in developing countries, knowing that their assistance could facilitate cleaner use of coal, in more efficient power plants. Most panellists seemed not to know that coal was expected to play any role in the electrification challenge and most had nothing to say about the use of coal for electricity access. The Norwegian representative of the Energy-Plus initiative said that financing coal projects was controversial and for this reason his fund would say no to any coal projects. He also questioned the credentials of the Medupi power plant on the grounds that international donors were not happy with controversial projects.

A similar event was organised earlier by the International Chamber of Commerce and the Global Electricity Initiative. Representatives from Schneider Electric and the Global Sustainable Electricity Partnership shared their experience and recommendations on the role of renewables in the energy access challenge. Vincent Mazauric from Schneider Electric also pointed out that there is a problem of low reliability when renewables account for a significant share of the grid, especially in isolated areas. This event had a much more balanced panel of experts and also included representatives from ESKOM. In fact the utility’s representative, Erica Johnson, showed that the company’s electrification programme in South Africa focused on building two coal and one hydro power plants. With this programme ESKOM has managed to achieve the rate of one additional grid connection every 30 seconds!

Having side events on energy access is a useful way of reminding delegates and observers at COP17 that as we address the climate change challenge we have to remember that 1.3 billion people still have no access to electricity. For the WCA these events are an opportunity to remind the international community working on energy access issues that coal is part of the solution and to encourage them to be pragmatic and consider sustainable use of coal in energy poor areas as part of their funding strategies. Hopefully, WCA statements will encourage some experts to look at their statistics again and make sure they can help cleaner use of coal in energy poor areas through their energy access funding strategies.

December 9, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

Mixed messages on last day at COP17

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

Well here we are two weeks on; it’s the final day of negotiations at COP17 in Durban. It’s been a busy two weeks with delegates trying to bring together different streams of negotiations into a final outcome. There have been some late nights for delegates as they try to reach compromises on a range of draft decision texts and provide options for Ministers. Meanwhile, Ministers have been locked away in meetings trying to reach political consensus on issues that negotiators have struggled to resolve. Time is quickly running out for an outcome to be agreed – so much so that the South African Presidency is rumoured to be suggesting extending the COP by hours or even days, unlikely though this is.

Where do we hope to see progress though? Before it began, this COP was sold as the one that would be about the developing world, but in the areas where an outcome could be possible by tonight, there are mixed messages.

Getting financing and technology for mitigation and adaption to developing countries is key to ensuring a positive outcome from this COP. Media reports indicate an agreement could be reached later today on the architecture for the Green Climate Fund, which will facilitate billions of dollars in climate finance to developing countries but talk on the ground doesn’t seem quite so enthusiastic. If an agreement can be reached it will be good news because agreeing the mechanics of the fund are essential – although at this stage it looks unlikely that there will be any agreement on exactly where the money will come from. The Copenhagen Accord called for $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020 and pledges are running well short of that target in a tumultuous global economic environment. Meanwhile there seems to have been good progress in negotiations on the technology mechanism which will help transfer low-carbon technologies to developing countries, but some key issues remain unresolved.

On the major issue we have been following, including of CCS in the CDM, it looks like there will be a positive outcome. Later today the CMP is expected to sign off on a decision to adopt the modalities and procedures (rules) that will allow carbon capture and storage projects to be included in the Clean Development Mechanism. This will be a major win in supporting the deployment of this essential mitigation technology in the CDM.

Finally, everyone at the conference is looking towards the future and the prospect of some kind of road map to agree a comprehensive climate agreement being agreed in the years to come. The role of the Kyoto Protocol and any second commitment period is also tied up in this discussion. A number of countries previously seen to be blocking the road map idea such as the United States and China have made positive noises in the past day or so. There has been talk of some kind of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, though exactly what that might look like is unclear. With many parties setting a range of conflicting pre-conditions for agreement on these issues to be reached it will be a challenge to bring that all together in the remaining hours.

I expect negotiators will be burning the midnight oil tonight to try and bring all this together. It’s going to be a challenge, but a positive outcome could be within reach.

December 9, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

Getting our priorities right

Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, WCA

Voltaire once said “the perfect is the enemy of the good”. I can’t help but think that if he attended the annual COP/CMP climate negotiations he would tell us that any action aimed at addressing the climate challenge is better than waiting around for the perfect solution. This COP has been held in a country that struggles with poverty, can only provide electricity to three-quarters of its population and so must integrate its sustainable development priorities with action of climate change.

These challenges exist in developing countries the world over and they have been highlighted time and again at this conference. But as delegates strive to find the ultimate solution to climate change, they seem to forget that positive action can be taken now on both climate and development.

As an example, in the midst of these meetings, I met with a delegate from Sri Lanka, a country where only 76% of the population have access to electricity. They have long exceeded their capacity to generate electricity from their hydro resources and for the past 20 years have been one of a handful of countries to use expensive oil resources for electricity generation – but they are now looking to coal to secure their energy future. They’ve done that because coal is an affordable, accessible and reliable source of electricity.

At a conference such as this one many other delegates will criticise such a decision, but Sri Lanka can combine action on its climate and development objectives. Deployment of modern high efficiency, low emission coal-fired power generation technology will help significantly reduce the emissions profile of Sri Lanka’s electricity supply while helping their economy grow. Climate financing, such as through the Clean Development Mechanism, can support them in achieving these goals.

While we’re focussed on the longer term in these negotiations, this is a reminder that action such as this can balance energy security, poverty eradication and environmental considerations now. Many delegates here might want to live in a world without coal but they ignore the fact that coal is the backbone of modern electricity and will be for decades to come.

December 8, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

WCA hosts official side event at COP17

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

Last night WCA hosted its official side event at the COP17 negotiations. On the panel were Nelisiwe Magubane, Director-General of the South African Energy Department who was representing Minister Dupio Peters; Jennifer Morgan, Director of the World Resource Institute’s Climate and Energy Program; and Norman Mbazima, Chief Executive of Thermal Coal at Anglo American. Norman is also Chair of the WCA’s Energy Poverty and Sustainable Development Committee. WCA Chief Executive Milton Catelin chaired the panel and contributed to the debate.

There were around 50 people in the audience, not a bad attendance for a side event starting at 8.15pm especially with the UNFCCC decision not to provide catering at this COP! Also in the audience was a contingent from the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign team in their bright yellow t-shirts.

With the event being themed as “the role of coal in the context of action on climate change and sustainable development” it was of course going to be an interesting debate. Each of the speakers took a different perspective. Norman Mbazima highlighted the world’s growing coal demand and the significant role clean coal technologies can play in addressing the world’s energy and climate challenges. Jennifer Morgan took a different view, arguing that without the deployment of CCS technology there is no future for coal, especially given the growth in renewables. Nelisiwe Magubane highlighted the important role coal continues to play in the South African economy but also addressed the need to reduce emissions through clean coal technologies and deployment of renewable energy.

Perhaps not surprisingly many in the audience didn’t see a future for coal in a carbon constrained world. There were questions about the environmental impact of coal mining, can coal really be clean, is CCS a pipe dream, shouldn’t we be investing more in renewables.

Jennifer Morgan argued that significant investment was needed to turn CCS into a reality, saying that coal can only be clean if 100% of CO₂ emissions are captured. Milton Catelin highlighted that efficiency plays a key role in greenhouse gas mitigation highlighting that replacing or upgrading old, inefficient plants globally could reduce CO₂ emissions by more than the intended effect of the Kyoto Protocol. Nelisiwe Magubane said coal still has a significant role to play in South Africa but that governments would be working with industry to reduce coal’s emissions profile. She also said renewables would have a significant role to play and would likely take up some of coal’s share of electricity generation in the future.

Importantly however Magubane noted that renewables needed support from base load power generation from sources like coal. She said off-grid renewable generation was not an ideal solution because it was “not right that rural people should get inferior intermittent access to electricity.” Interestingly she mentioned that some communities come to resent solar electricity because it’s not reliable.

What became clear in the discussion was that significant investment, by both the private and public sectors is needed to support the deployment of clean energy. It’s clear coal, along with CCS, along with renewables will all play a role.

Finally, one participant kindly bemoaned the UNFCCC for scheduling the event so late in the evening. He said “this is one of the most important sessions I’ve been in” because it got down to the reality of dealing with climate change in the context of the energy challenges that face the world.

In that sense I suppose the climate negotiations at these COPs are really a proxy debate for transforming energy policy. I think this side event told the story about how coal can be part of the climate solution, hopefully we made some of the “Beyond Coal” team think twice about that.

December 6, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

EU behind China on improving efficiency of power plants

Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist

Yesterday I participated in a press conference with the Chinese delegation. Tian Chengchuan, Director of Strategy and Planning Division at the Department of Climate Change and Wu Guihui, Deputy Director General of the Energy Bureau in China’s National Development & Reform Commission answered questions on policies and actions of China to address climate change during the eleventh five year plan period (2006-2010).

One of the key topics of the press conference was GHG emissions from China’s coal power plants. Wu Guihui said that China will continue developing coal-based power generation, with a big focus on cleaner coal power plants as a way to reduce the GHG emissions.

Over the last five year plan China retired 76 GW of small coal power plants to replace them with larger, more efficient plants and now 80% of coal plants in China have a capacity of over 300MW. As a result of this government-led programme, from 2005 to 2010, coal consumption per unit of electricity generated dropped by over 10%, from 370 to 333 g/kwh. This is a very good efficiency rate! Globally, an average coal plant consumes 480 grams of coal per kwh, or over 50% more. Even in the EU average coal power plants need 379 grams of coal to generate a kwh of electricity.

Instead of hoping that fuel switching and renewable technology support policies can alone cope with the climate change challenge, policy makers the EU, USA, Australia and other industrialised countries should look again at the potential to improve energy efficiency in their coal power plants. It is surprising that many governments ignore these low-cost options for reducing their GHG emissions, especially in the context of growing coal consumption, both in the OECD countries and emerging economies.

December 6, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

COP17 week 2 begins

Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director

We are now at the beginning of the second and final week of negotiations here in Durban. At this point it is difficult to see where we will end up by Friday. That’s not unusual for this stage of the conference however as many delegations are still finalising their positions ahead of the arrival of their Ministers for the beginning of the High-Level Segment tomorrow. There is a noticeable change in the atmosphere here as we get to the point where there myriad of issues talked through last week need to be brought together to get an outcome from Durban.

There are a number of big unresolved issues left to be addressed. Most significant among those is the role of the Kyoto Protocol and whether there will be a second commitment period. Clearly the European Union is interested in seeing a second commitment period agreed but it’s unclear whether their pre-conditions for that are being met and it’s not clear how many other developed countries might be willing to sign on.

There has been good progress on another major issue, the Green Climate Fund. Agreed in Cancun last year, it’s essential that the framework for this Fund is finalised here in Durban so that the money can start following to support climate financing in the developing world – it’s seems like that could happen here. Likewise there has been good progress on issues relating to technology and technology transfer, though it’s not yet clear if an agreement can be reached to move forward with the Climate Technology Centre and Network.

There continues to be a lot of talk about the potential for a road map towards a comprehensive future agreement, possibly to be in place by 2020. It seems that there is some sort of understanding beginning to emerge as to how that future agreement might come about, and this is being helped by the Presidency’s informal discussion process being held alongside the formal negotiations. This process, known as Indaba, has helped negotiators express their ideas in a more free and open way with a view to moving the process forward. It will be important for these discussions to move forward to address the pre-conditions many parties have so there can be an agreement to work towards a more comprehensive future treaty.

On a more specific issue, There has been good progress in the last week on CCS in CDM. Negotiators have been working very hard on this issue with five meetings being held in one day and one meeting lasting until 4.00am on Saturday morning! A text has now been agreed by the SBSTA that deals with most of the issues and concerns that were outlined in last year’s decision in Cancun. In fact there is only one issue left to be addressed, which is how to deal with climate liabilities should there be leakage at a storage site. This issue is being left to Ministers and it is important for a compromise on that to be reached here in Durban. A mechanism for financing this essential mitigation technology in developing countries being agreed in Durban will be a major achievement.

December 5, 2011 | Categories: Coal News, WCA, WCA at Durban

COP17 side-event -coal, climate and sustainable development

The World Coal Association will be hosting a COP17 side event on Monday 5 December 2011 at 20.15 in the Orange River (BINGO) Room at the Durban Exhibition Centre.

The South African Government has indicated that they wish to focus discussion at COP17 more on issues regarding sustainable development in the context of climate change, highlighting the importance of poverty alleviation alongside the need for climate action. 2012 has been declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All and in June the Rio+20 Summit will convene to consider the key themes of green economy and the institutional framework for sustainable development. This is in the context of figures from the International Energy Agency that show 1.3 billion people across the world lack access to electricity.

Questions to be explored at the side event include:

Are sustainable development and climate change competing or integrated priorities What is the role of energy in sustainable development What is the role of climate and other financing mechanisms in achieving energy access?

What role can clean coal technologies such as CCS play in achieving energy access for all?

Speakers include: South African Energy Minister Dupio Peters, Anglo American Thermal Coal CEO Norman Mbazima and World Resources Institute Climate and Energy Director Jennifer Morgan. The panel will be chaired by WCA CEO Milton Catelin.

We look forward to seeing you there!

December 4, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban

Emissions trading in China

Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist

Yesterday I attended a side event in Durban on the prospects for an emissions trading scheme in China. Seven cities and provinces in China are expected to launch pilot emissions trading schemes from 2013. Among the issues discussed were the future design of the pilot schemes, timetable for implementation, obstacles and challenges remaining and perspectives for a nation-wide emissions trading scheme.

Jiang Kejun, one of the leading Chinese delegates, said that pilot emissions trading schemes will vary across cities and regions, in terms of caps and targeted sectors. In fact, most schemes will most probably not cover the power sector which is traditionally covered by cap-and-trade schemes elsewhere. Instead building sector efficiency would be the main focus.

There are major challenges for introducing cap-and-trade principles in China’s power sector. China’s recent five year plan foresees that 30 GW of additional coal-fired capacity will be brought online. Beyond this period, China intends to use its coal resources to fuel economic growth and satisfy growing energy demand. From this perspective, emission reduction targets would have to take a different form than that chosen in the EU. For example, instead of having an absolute cap on emissions, China might consider a cap on emissions growth.

Schemes are intended to be launched in 2013 but panellists seem to agree that this date in only indicative and introducing the right policy frameworks could actually take much longer. On the other hand, if the schemes were introduced in 2013, China could consider introducing a nation-wide emissions trading scheme in its next 5 year plan, covering the period from 2016.

Making cap-and-trade a reality in China will be challenging. According to Jian Kejun inter-departmental negotiations could take years. There are also institutional challenges which could make it difficult for the scheme to be implemented across the whole country.

There was a general agreement that the future success or failure of the emissions trading scheme in China will have major implications on the future of carbon trading globally.

December 3, 2011 | Categories: WCA, WCA at Durban