This week the organisation known as GLOBE (The Global Legislators’ Organisation supports national parliamentarians to develop and agree common legislative responses to the major challenges posed by sustainable development) met in London and launched its biannual review of national climate legislation. The GLOBE Climate Legislation Study is up to its third edition and covers the ongoing efforts in 33 countries. Of these, GLOBE claims that 18 countries have made substantial progress, 14 have made limited progress and one country has been singled out for taking a backwards step, Canada, but more on that later.
In their press release, GLOBE state that:
“The tide is beginning to turn decisively on tackling climate change, the defining material challenge of this century. In the past year alone, as described in this latest study by GLOBE International and the Grantham Research Institute, 32 out of 33 surveyed countries have introduced or are progressing significant climate-related legislation. In 2012 alone, 18 of the 33 countries made significant progress. This is a game-changing development, driven by emerging economies, but taking place across each and every continent. Most importantly it challenges how governments look at the international negotiations up to 2015 requiring much greater focus by governments to support national legislation.”
The report is a substantial piece of work and it steps through the programmes in each country in considerable detail, although the pages of tables raise the question as to what exactly is “climate legislation”. Legislation is categorised under the headings “Pricing carbon”, “Energy Demand”, “Energy Supply”, “Forests/Land Use”, “Adaptation” and so on. Of these, “Energy Demand” is largely energy efficiency measures and “Energy Supply” focuses principally on renewables (and nuclear in some countries). These two categories alone cover all but one of the countries (Nepal) surveyed, yet for the most part none of this is “climate legislation”. Rather, this is legislation that impacts the energy mix, but this does not necessarily translate into a reduction in emissions on a global basis and in many instances does not even lower national emissions. It simply augments the energy mix or lowers the energy and CO2 intensity of certain processes, which in turn can lead to greater overall use of energy and therefore increased emissions over the longer term. I have explored both these issues in previous postings, here and here.
This is not the case for the carbon pricing category, which GLOBE link to 11 of the 33 countries covered. But 4 of these are part of the EU and of the remaining countries only Australia has actually implemented the carbon price (arguably so has Japan, but the level is close to insignificant at about $1.50 per tonne). GLOBE also claim India has carbon pricing, but there is no such mechanism within the economy (there is a heavy focus on efficiency and a certificate trading system to drive it). Others include Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and China, all of which are in various stages of developing carbon pricing but none actually have.
Finally, there is the story around Canada. They are singled out as the only country to take a step backwards because of their decision to abandon the Kyoto Protocol (the same treatment is not given to Japan and Russia though) and the absence of a nationally implemented policy framework. Perversely, Canada is one country that made real and tangible advances last year, although emissions continue to rise in this resource rich economy. Quebec implemented its cap-and-trade system, carbon pricing continued in British Columbia and Alberta and the Federal Government did introduce its carbon standards for power stations, which will mean no new coal plants (without CCS) – even the EU cannot claim such an achievement. Most importantly, Canada managed to get a large scale CCS project approved and construction started – similar attempts in the EU failed disastrously in 2012. This point is worthy of note, although GLOBE don’t mention it, given the critical role that CCS needs to play in mitigating emissions throughout this century.
The steps being taken in many countries to better manage energy supply, demand and mix are welcome, but to argue that this marks a “decisive turn” on tackling climate change and is “game changing” seems to be overly optimistic. BP released their latest Energy Outlook 2030 this week as well, which sees CO2 emissions rising sharply to 42 billion tonnes per annum by 2030, this despite non-hydro renewable energy nearly quadrupling over that time period. In total, nuclear/hydro/renewables/bio moves from 16% to 23% of the energy mix.
Finally, a P.S. to my previous post on the observation by many that “global warming has stopped”. James Hansen has just published a good analysis of this and finds that a number of factors are contributing to the lack of change in overall global average temperature. This includes the behaviour of the El Nino/La Nina system (ENSO) and aerosol loading in the atmosphere. But he also concludes that natural variability must be playing a role. Worth a read.
David,
I am sure you realize how difficult this conclusion regarding natural variability must have been for Hansen, Schmidt and company.
Imagine how difficult acknowledging the reality shown in the attached link will be for Hansen, Schmidt and company and for the IPCC, assuming that it survives the review and editing process and makes it into the Summary for Policymakers.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/19/an-animated-analysis-of-the-ipcc-ar5-graph-shows-ipcc-analysis-methodology-and-computer-models-are-seriously-flawed/ipcc-ar5draft-fig-1-4/
At least the acknowledgement of natural variability might lead to improvement of the models.
I can assure you that this sort of voodooscience won’t get through.
One of the lead authors of the 3rd GLOBE Climate Legislation Study responds to your post on the GLOBE Blog here: http://www.globeinternational.org/index.php/blog/item/a-response-to-shell
David doesn’t care about national law. He needs carbon trading at $100 per tCO2. Only this ensures commercial CCS. The only way how to get there is a scheme above national law. National carbon trading or national carbon tax can be changed any time. There is too much money involved to take such risk. CCS needs guaranteed money to develop and save us from beeing fried. Unfortunately, feed-in tariffs are such a negative experience that many national governments might not survive another round.
In fact Jiri it is you that needs commercial CCS, otherwise there will be a worrying accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and therefore a significant risk of further changes in the climate.
Thanks for the comment.
David
No David, you are mistaken. I don’t need commercial CCS and I explain why. Doubling of current concentration will most likely take another two centuries at the current growth of 20ppm per decade. This would take us to 800ppm concentration which has positive effects on photosynthesizing plants and no or very little effect on other living creatures. I personally spend most of the day breathing several times higher CO2 concentration and I feel fine. If we consider effect on global warming than IPCC states range between 1.5-4.5C. Based on last 100y of observations there is a very good chance that the climate in next 200 years will warm by 1.5 C if we don’t see significant acceleration. At the moment we even observe deceleration. The current rates of sea level increase is 1.5mm observed by land base observation and 3.4mm by satellite observation. I certainly use land base series which I consider more accurate and more appropriate to assess potential damage to the shore. This gives 30cm raise over next 200 years (60cm at worst case).
Now, what I said is a liner extrapolation of last 100 years of observations over next 200 years. The things might or might not be different. However, the society over next 200 years will be very different. The fossil fuels are likely to become more expensive while it is for sure that some alternatives will become relatively cheaper. This fact on its own will significantly change energy mix in quite predictable way.
Based on above I’m not convinced at all that we need commercial CCS right now. I guess that this is approach of many countries which implement carbon laws but delaying their effective impact until they are convinced we really need them. At the moment carbon tax/trading is doing more damage than good.