Final steps towards Paris?

The last ten days have seen a rush by nations to publish their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), with the much anticipated INDC from India amongst those submitted. On Monday October 5^th, the Co-Chairs of the ADP also released a proposal for a first draft of a new climate change agreement for Paris. So it has been a very busy few days, but are we any closer to a deal and could that deal have sufficient ambition to bend the emissions curve?

The India INDC is telling as an indicator of where the developing world really is, versus where the rapidly emerging economies such as China now find themselves. In the case of the latter group, there is thinking towards an emissions peak with China indicating that this will be around 2030 and continuing signals from the academic and research community in that country indicating that it may well be earlier. One such article appeared recently in the Guardian. But for the much poorer developing countries the story remains very different.

The submissions from India is 38 pages long, but of this some 28 pages is supporting evidence and context, explaining the reality of Indian emissions, the need to grow the economy to take hundreds of millions out of poverty and the expected use of fossil fuels to power industry, including areas such as metal smelting, petrochemicals and refining. With a focus on efficiency in particular, India expects to achieve a 33 to 35 percent reduction in CO2 intensity of the economy, but in reality that means a rise in energy related emissions to around 4 billion tonnes or more by 2030, up from some 2+ billion tonnes per annum at present (1.954 Gt in 2012, IEA). This could be tempered by a further element of their contribution which aims to increase forest sinks by some 3 billion tonnes of CO2 in total through to 2030.

There has been considerable speculation as to the renewable energy component of India’s INDC, with a hope that this would show enormous progress in solar deployment in particular. The INDC took the somewhat unusual route of talking in capacity additions, rather than generation (and therefore emissions). India aims to achieve 40% cumulative electric power capacity from non-fossil fuel based resources by 2030. This is significant, but less than it might appear. In a very simple example where 100 GW of generating capacity is comprised of 40 GW solar PV and 60 GW coal, the generation mix might be around 14% renewables and 86% coal. This is assuming a 20% capacity factor for the solar PV (maximum is 50% with day-night) and 80% capacity factor for the coal.

India has also put a considerable price tag on their INDC, with a mitigation effort of some US$ 834 billion through to 2030. In a previous post I looked at the costs assumed in the Kenyan INDC, which came to some $25 billion, but for a population of ~60 million (average through to 2030). With a projected population of some 1.5 billion by 2030, the finance side is in the same ballpark as the Kenyan INDC, albeit on the higher side.

Finally, the last few days have seen new draft text appear – shortened dramatically from some 80 pages to a manageable 20. But references to government led carbon markets, carbon pricing systems or even the use of transfer mechanisms between parties are largely missing. Article 34 of the Draft Decision does hint at the need to rescue the CDM from the Kyoto Protocol by referring to the need to build on Article 12 of the Protocol, but it will be of little use if there isn’t substantial demand for credits in developing and rapidly emerging economies. Simply creating a new crediting mechanism or even bringing the CDM into the Paris agreement won’t on its own direct the finance to the likes of Kenya and India. That demand and related finance flow will only come if the developed and emerging economies are building emissions trading systems (such as in China) and have the ability and confidence to transfer units related to it across their borders. So a great deal of work remains to be done.