Transcript Climate_Change_&_Devpt_Imran_29April10

Addressing Climate Change
With Development
Imran Habib Ahmad, Visiting Fellow
UKM & Lead Coordinator UNDESA
WESS 2009
Presentation to ISIS/Lestari Forum on Climate and
Development
Email: [email protected]
Luxury or development
Source: Google images
Context
• A combination of a legacy of mistrust, political inertia,
procrastination, and the use of a framework that is
designed to polarize and divide countries and people,
prevents effective climate solutions
• A distorted global agenda on climate and development,
not inclusive; an integrated approach based on
sustainable development is urgently needed.
• How can you bridge the divide with a common agenda?
• Development is a positive-sum game
• Climate change is largely being viewed as a zero sum
game, and this inhibits cooperation and effective
action
• A development-based approach to climate change can
transform it from zero- to positive sum game
An interesting diagnosis……
 We've debated for years about who should control
emissions, by how much, when, and according to binding
or non-binding commitments. Yet we can't settle these
issues without also getting into the details about the
deployment of low-carbon technologies, social behaviours
and the quantitative realities of energy systems, transport
technologies, food production, water scarcity, and
population trends. We will continue to go around in circles
until we are much more systematic in bringing scientific
and engineering realities to the table. Our negotiations
need much greater grounding in our true options and their
costs (Jeffry Sachs, December 2009)
Climate Science – A Primer
• A robust science on anthropogenic climate change established
• CO2 concentrations currently around 390ppm
• Political discussions on a 450ppm range; implies a 50-78%
probability of > 20C increase
• Almost impossible to stabilize at 450ppm without reducing
global emissions by 80-90% by 2050;
• More recent scientific analysis is pushing the boundary
towards 350ppm range (Rockstrom et al, 2009)
• Under business-as-usual phenomenon, climate is set to
warm to 6 degree centigrade {(Global Carbon Project,
IPCC(upper range)}
• many of the trends will accelerate, risks of abrupt or
irreversible changes
Closing gap between
science and politics
little controversy in the science; ad hoc
incremental responses will no longer deliver
safe outcomes
big damage in poor countries and communities
from multiple threats; a warming world will be a
much more unequal world
In the political debate there is insufficient
recognition of the size and nature of economic
adjustments involved in moving to lowemission development pathways
One planet; different
histories
•
if developing countries emulate rich countries carbonfueled growth path climate goals will not be achieved
•
that growth history has left a very uneven development
picture: that growth trajectory cannot fully reconcile
reducing current gaps and inequities with saving the
planet
•
common but differentiated responsibilities
Climate Justice/Equity
• Rich countries presently nowhere near
meeting Kyoto commitments, let
alone higher targets needed
• For every 10C rise in average global
temperature, average annual growth in
developing countries drops 2-3%, but
little –ve impact on rich countries
• Climate justice: consider historical +
current carbon emissions
Overarching Global Challenges
 Trust deficit
 Intergovernmental Process responding to the needs
generated by recent science
http://www.un.org/esa/policy/policybriefs/policybrief17.pdf
http://epress.anu.edu.au/eaf/vol1/03/pdf/whole.pdf
 Reducing (hopefully eliminating) the lag among science,
policy and politics
Key Global Operational Challenges
 Missing & needed elements
 Development still on the margins
http://www.un.org/esa/policy/policybriefs/policybrief24.pdf
 Mainstreaming inertia
 Insufficient finance –mobilization, governance and delivery
 Weak Capacity –institutions, technical, governance ++
 Disparity between global information and assessment and national
and regional level information
 Legal status of Copenhagen Accord
 Developing an appropriate MRV framework that satisfies all parties
 Responding to actual adaptation needs in light of increasing climate
impacts
A more promising
approach
•
•
•
Shift focus from emissions cuts to sustainable
development, i.e. to full employment and energy
security in North and to catch-up growth and energy
access in South
But also a much more frank and open discussion
about burden sharing
A solution based on a low-carbon, high-growth
transformation of the global economy—a
transformation that can keep temperature increases
consistent with environmental stability, while at the
same time fostering the strong growth and economic
diversification in developing countries that would
allow convergence of incomes worldwide is required.
Development Approach
• Joint Goals:
– North: full employment and energy security
– South: catch-up growth and energy access
• Elements: investment, policy guidance,
strategic direction
• Focus: Consensus, Momentum, Transparency
• Results:
– Enable developing countries to leapfrog
– Stimulate private sector in North as well as South
– Promote cooperation
Rising living standards driven
by massive energy push
1800
2000
Factor
Population
(billion)
1.0
6.0
x6
GDP PPP
(trillion 1990 $)
0.5
36.0
x72
Primary Energy
(EJ)
13.0
440.0
x34
CO2 Emissions
(GtC)
0.3
6.4
x21
Energy (for electricity,
manufacturing and transportation)
Land-use change
and forestry
18%
Waste International bunkers
2%
3%
Electricity and heat
24%
Agriculture
14%
Industrial processes
3%
Fugitive emissions
4%
Other fuel
combustions
9%
Transportation
12%
Manufacturing and
construction
11%
Investment is key to
adjustment
•
•
•
•
•
•
To break business-as-usual path needs long-term
planning and investments that begin sooner not later
Transforming energy services to substantially reduce
carbon emissions is key
The relevant technologies exist (energy efficiency;
renewables), but costs are still a major constraint
Essential to achieve scale and learning economies:
avoid carbon lock-in: a “Big Push” is needed
This will require policy shifts at macroeconomic and
sectoral levels
Investment+technology; need a climate technology
programme with augmented R&D and flexible IP rules
Energy story
Two-thirds to three-quarters of emissions from the
energy sector
Energy challenge is different for developing countries
• Developing countries must expand electricity and transport
infrastructure three to four times just to provide whole
population with access and reach basic growth targets
• Expansion is constrained not by demand (efficiency, population)
but by supply (investment capacity).
• Without investing in renewable energy, projected developing
country energy growth per year (3% to 5%) means more
emissions even with rising energy efficiency
• At 10 cents per kWh, even a household with an income of $10
per capita per day could not achieve energy security
• Investment and consumption will need to be subsidized initially
Understanding Energy Focus
• Contribution to human progress
• Energy access
– Strongly correlated with HD indicators
– 3-4 fold expansion needed in developing countries
– Affordability (Energy share, HDI)
• Over 75% emissions
– Rising faster than aggregate emissions, especially
developing country because of energy growth (3 to 5%)
outrunning rising efficiency
• A sector over which there is consensus,
momentum, transparency, and clarity
Energy consumption & HDI
Energy Affordability at various
income levels
Moving Forward
Pressure on developing countries to mitigate—
by some calculations more than developed
countries.
• Challenge is to reconcile this demand with the
need to maintain growth
• Two approaches:
– Sovereign commitments: The Adjustment Model
– Joint commitment: The Investment Model
Strategy
Sovereign Commitments: The unifying strategy
under this approach is to raise conventional
energy costs (by raising carbon costs (carbon
tax or cap and trade).
• Joint commitment: Since developing countries
need to lower the costs of energy especially
for low income groups to address energy
poverty and HD, the unifying strategy is the
promotion of investment.
A Win-Win Option
•
•
•
•
•
Environmental Investment as Driver: Enable
developing countries to leapfrog—not “pollute
first clean up later”.
Set common targets for renewable energy
investment costs ($1/W!)
How to lower costs
How to make renewable energy affordable
• Global partnership on RE
The Global Feed in Tariff
Approach
• Definition of feed in tariffs policy
– Guarantee that any renewable energy generated
will be purchased (“fed into”) by the power grid at
given rates (tariffs), different for different
technologies, and declining in future years
• Over 50 countries have such policies
• In developing countries, low final energy prices
require subsidies, but these are constrained by
limited public resources
• A global regime will supplement national
commitments with global resources
Clear Advantages
• Common and shared goals
– Renewable addresses economic and human
development goals as well as climate objectives
– Global subsidy pays only incremental costs
– Reduction in unit costs helps both North and South
• Demonstrable results
– Output based funding: payment is made only when
renewable energy is delivered to consumers
• Time bound commitments
– As unit costs fall (depending on how quickly scale is
ramped up) and incomes rise, subsidy disappears
Global Finance
• There is broad agreement over the need to scale up
existing funds and combine with innovative new sources of
financing. Options include:
• Official development assistance
• Carbon credits (but need higher emissions
commitments to bring about deeper cuts)
• International taxes (e.g., on financial speculation,
• aviation, or a progressive global levy on incomes)
• Reallocation of existing spending
A new Green Deal
• Global Feed-in-Tariffs: Support for all technologies,
and poor consumers. A fund of $100 bn annually
2010-20. Channeled through energy systems on the
basis of output delivered.
• Global Climate Corps: Patterned on the Civilian
Conservation Corps during the New Deal and the
Peace Corps from the 1960s, a cadre of professionals
to support energy efficiency and renewable energy
initiatives
• National Support: Patterned on the Green Revolution,
support for institutions of research, extension, credit,
and inputs provision in the energy sector.
WESS Key messages
• lower emissions and rising living standards are
necessary and feasible; long-term, integrated, inclusive
and sustainable approach to resource management
• but big adjustments involved; these must not hold back
development goals
• can’t rely on markets need a revitalised public policy
agenda (and more active states)
• a global investment programme for both mitigation and
adaptation
• finance is key to marrying climate and development
agendas; predictable and significant
• Strategic public investment to crowd-in private
investment through integrated policies
• Concentrate the international transfers (finance +
technology) on the big push
Analysis of Climate Policy
Integration literature
• Climate Policy on its own will not solve the climate problem,
future research has to increasingly focus on development (IPCC
4AR) ;
• Case for mainstreaming/integration established in literature incorporation of climate across policy sectors
• A lot of research is required at the local and national levels to
identify policy options that work best within the context of
specific regions, countries and localities (IPCC 4AR)
 Research is needed to establish the conditions under which the
process of mainstreaming can be most effective (Lein et al
2003).
Thank you
World Economic and Social Survey 2009:
Promoting Development, Saving the Planet
Please visit the following websites:
UN-DESA www.un.org
Research papers, policy briefs, others
Acknowledgements:
UN system contributions, especially DPAD, DSD, FfDO, FoFO
Richard Kozul-Wright, Tariq Banuri,, Robert Vos
Manuel Montes, David O’Connor, Australian National University,
UN system, WWF, UKM, ISIS and many others