17 November 2015, Washington Post, In a major step on the road to Paris, rich countries agree to slash export subsidies for coal plants. After a concerted push from the United States, members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development agreed Tuesday to slash subsidies aimed at exporting technology for coal-fired power plants. The decision by the world’s wealthiest countries to eliminate export credits for the least efficient coal plants, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2017, and can be strengthened four years later, marks a major negotiating success for the Obama administration in the run-up to U.N. climate talks later this month. The U.S. and several other key global players–including France, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development–have already limited its export financing for coal plants and had been pressing other nations, including Japan and South Korea, to follow suit. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters about the agreement reached in Paris on the condition of anonymity, said that under the new rules OECD countries would still provide export credits for coal plants using ultra-supercritical technology and help finance slightly less-efficient plants in the world’s poorest countries. But the policy would effectively cut off public financing for 85 percent of coal plants currently in the pipeline, he said. Jake Schmidt, who directs the international program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, estimated that these export agencies typically fund between five and seven coal plants a year. A large number of private banks follow the OECD guidelines for their own lending practices, he added, so the move could have “a ripple effect.” Read more here
Category Archives: Global Action Inaction
13 November 2015, The Conversation, Australia’s climate targets still out of reach after second emissions auction. The government’s Clean Energy Regulator yesterday announced the results of the second “reverse auction”. It spent A$557 million to buy emissions cuts of some 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Australia needs to cut its CO₂ emissions by 236 million tonnes to meet its current 2020 mitigation target of -5% below 2000 levels. The Direct Action Plan and its Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is the Turnbull government’s major program for doing so. The first auction, in April this year, spent A$660 million for 47.3 million tonnes. So far, then, almost half of the A$2.55 billion allocated to the ERF has been used and some 92.8 million tonnes of emissions reduction “bought” at an average rate of almost A$13.12 per tonne of CO₂. The ERF will also form part of efforts to achieve Australia’s 2030 climate target. The latest round of UN climate negotiations begins in Paris in three weeks’ time. These talks aim to produce tougher national greenhouse targets for the decade to 2030. Ironically, the focus on Paris is drawing attention away from the urgency of emissions cuts that need to be delivered beforehand. In Australia, the Paris talks encourage us to accept as given our 2020 target of -5% below 2000 emissions levels, although it is among the weakest of national mitigation efforts for that period. They encourage us to ignore the fact that – according to criteria accepted by both Labor and Coalitions governments and now met because of the rising ambitions and efforts of major emitters elsewhere – Australia’s target should have increased to -15% by 2020. It is against this second benchmark that the Turnbull government’s efforts should now be measured. Read More here
13 November 2015, Carbon Brief, Explainer: The legal form of the Paris climate agreement. The aim of the UN summit in Paris is to seal a universal, international agreement on avoiding dangerous climate change, that has legal force. In broad terms, this means the Paris agreement is almost certain to include a legally binding treaty at its core, despite headlines to the contrary. Yet the treaty’s precise legal form remains unclear. What will the treaty bind countries to do? Will it even be called a treaty? Carbon Brief has read the lengthy legal texts and spoken to the experts on the legal form of the Paris climate agreement — and whether the legal form matters.
Read More here
12 November 2015, Common Dreams, France Wonders If Kerry ‘Confused’ on Upcoming Climate Talks. Kerry’s comments that there will be no legally binding agreement from COP21 puts him at odds with voices around the world. John Kerry’s statement that the upcoming United Nations climate talks in Paris will result in no “legally binding” agreement on emissions reductions is being met with rebuffs on Thursday, including a retort that the U.S. Secretary of State must be “confused.” In an interview with the Financial Times Wednesday, Kerry said the outcome of the talks known as COP21 was “definitely not going to be a treaty,” and would not include “legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto,” referring to the 1997 Protocol that did call for such binding targets. Kerry said later on Wednesday speaking at Old Dominion University that “we are seeking to reach an ambitious, durable, and inclusive agreement at the UN climate conference next month in Paris. That’s our goal.” Kerry’s French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, shot back at Kerry’s take. “Jurists will discuss the legal nature of an accord on whether it should be termed as a treaty or an international agreement,” Reuters quotes Fabius as telling press. “But the fact that a certain number of dispositions should have a practical effect and be legally binding is obvious so let’s not confuse things, which is perhaps what Mr Kerry has done,” he said. The EU made its position clear in September, stating that the bloc “is pressing for a global, fair, ambitious and legally binding international treaty that will prevent global warming from reaching dangerous levels.” Read More here