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Global climate
(2014)
In what has become normal procedure at the international climate negotiations, the 2013 United Nations climate conference in Warsaw (the nineteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 19) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the ninth Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 9)) once again seemed on the brink of collapse and concluded more than one day behind schedule, in the evening of Saturday 23 November 2013. However, on most of the key issues it made only scant progress.
This report lays out the main developments in Warsaw and assesses the main outcomes. It starts with the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement by 2015 and increasing short-term ambition and subsequently covers the issues relating to near-term implementation of previous decisions in the areas of emission reductions and transparency, adaptation, loss and damage, finance and technology.
The 2010 UN climate conference in Cancún emphasized that "Parties should, in all climate change related actions, fully respect human rights". However, so far there is no further guidance. This article discusses the relevant legal human rights norms and two case studies from the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The first case (Bajo Aguán, Honduras) shows that the current absence of any international safeguards can lead to registration of highly problematic projects. The second case (Olkaria, Kenya) suggests that safeguards, introduced here as a side effect of World Bank involvement, can have a positive impact, but that it is necessary to have them based on human rights. It therefore seems recommendable that the UN climate regime develop mandatory human rights safeguards. In addition or alternatively, individual buyer countries or groups of countries, such as the European Union, could introduce their own additional requirements for CDM projects.
The paper examines policies and measures that promote the usage of pedelecs and that contribute to climate friendly passenger transportation thereby. As pedelecs allow the rider to pedal at lower efforts, pedelecs provide the potential to increase the share of bicycle trips in metropolitan regions with hilly landscapes and with a significant share of medium commuting distances. The paper develops attitude-based mobility types and defines their specific pedelec affinity based upon differentiated reasons to use a pedelec. Thereafter policies and measures are examined that foster purchase and usage of pedelecs, and factors influencing the modal behaviour of (potential) attitude-based target groups are defined. Quantification of climate protection effects is conducted based on two scenarios for the German city of Wuppertal, a city known for its steep slopes. The first scenario assumes business as usual, and the second scenario is based on the introduction of ambitious policies and measures to encourage purchase and usage of pedelecs. Following a mixed-method approach, qualitative scenario assumptions are calculated by a quantitative model, which incorporates the analyses on attitude-based mobility types respective pedelec affinities.The results indicate that ambitious promotion of pedelecs significantly contributes to climate change mitigation. Compared to business as usual, ambitious policies and measures to purchase and use pedelecs reduce CO2-emissions of passenger transport in Wuppertal by 11 per cent in 2050. A spatially inclusive and comprehensive 30 kph speed limit proves to be particularly effective. In the scenario of ambitious promotion of pedelecs, interventions solely fostering the purchase of pedelecs significantly increase the modal share of pedelecs, whereas in a business as usual case such efforts remain ineffective. The traditional bicycle profits from the promotion of pedelecs, but its increased usage does not bring about similar climate protection effects.
Was erreicht eine engagierte Förderung von Pedelecs im städtischen Personenverkehr für den Klimaschutz? Diese Frage wird in zwei Szenarien für die Stadt Wuppertal beantwortet. Während das erste Szenario von einem business as usual ausgeht, nimmt das zweite Szenario eine ambitionierte Förderung von Anschaffung und Nutzung des Pedelecs an. Es stellt sich heraus, dass eine ambitionierte Förderung des Pedelecs deutlich zum Klimaschutz beiträgt. In Wuppertal reduzieren sich die CO2-Emissionen pro Kopf in der Personenmobilität bis 2050 gegenüber einem business as usual um 11%. Als besonders wirksam zur Erhöhung des Anteils des Pedelecs erweist sich die Einführung einer flächenhaften Regelgeschwindigkeit von 30 km/h innerorts inklusive aller Hauptverkehrsstraßen.
This paper analyses the results of the climate conference in Lima 2014 in the light of the coming climate summit in Paris by the end of this year (COP21). The authors from the Wuppertal Institute make recommendations for the improvement of the current cooperation in the context of the climate convention and they suggest to complement the existing UN regime with a club of forerunner countries in order to provide new breath for international climate policy.
The 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference had been scheduled from 1 to 12 December in Lima/Peru. While in the run-up to the conference, China and the US in a surprise bilateral move had announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions that exceeded expectations, the conference was characterised once again by a deep division between key players from the former so-called "developed" and "developing" world. The negotiations thus took 32 hours longer than planned and ended on Sunday morning at 1.22 am. More importantly, the conference failed almost completely to resolve the tasks it was supposed to do in order to prepare the last round of negotiations before next year's conference in Paris 2015, which is supposed to deliver a comprehensive future climate agreement. A team of researchers from the Wuppertal Institute attended the conference and have compiled a first assessment of the results.
Rund ein Jahrzehnt wurde in der Wissenschaft nur wenig über Suffizienz diskutiert. Im Jahr 1996 sorgte das Motto "Gut leben statt viel haben" aus der Studie "Zukunftsfähiges Deutschland" noch für Schlagzeilen und regte intensive Diskussionen an. Doch in den 2000er Jahren wurde der Suffizienzdiskurs nur noch von wenigen Institutionen vorangetrieben - zu unattraktiv schien eine Debatte über Verzicht. Inzwischen hat eine Gemengelage aus verschiedenen Ereignissen und Erkenntnissen zu einer Vitalisierung des Suffizienzdiskurses geführt. Ein Auslöser von vielen ist der Anstieg der Öl- und Ressourcenpreise. Ein zweiter wichtiger Treiber: Es haben sich Zweifel über die Heilskraft von "grünen Technologien" breit gemacht. Denn die Wirklichkeit sieht, trotz beeindruckender Ausbauerfolge bei den Erneuerbaren im Stromsektor und gutem Willen der Verbraucher, nicht sehr ermutigend aus - der Ressourcenbedarf ist in Deutschland kaum gesunken, die CO2-Emissionen steigen neuerdings sogar. Suffizienz als Konzept des achtsamen Umgangs mit Ressourcen kann dazu beitragen, Verbrauchs- und Emissionsziele dennoch zu erreichen.
Prepaid vor dem Rollout?
(2014)
Moderne Vorkassezähler sollten eher als "Sparzähler" bezeichnet werden, denn mehr noch als Smart Meter motiviert das Zahlen nach Bedarf nachweisbar zum sparsamen Umgang mit Energie. Das in der "et" 11/2012 diskutierte und in Großbritannien millionenfach bewährte Konzept wurde jetzt in den schwarz-roten Koalitionsvertrag aufgenommen. Der Vorschlag traf auf breite Zustimmung, rief aber auch kritische Rückmeldungen hervor.
Policy evaluation is widely considered important for assessing policies for effectiveness and impact. Municipalities are among the political actors implementing energy and climate policy. Yet, few municipalities have introduced adequate instruments to monitor the effectiveness of their actions. Often, municipal actors consider local greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories to be sufficient to monitor the impact of their actions. This paper points out why the expectations placed on local GHG inventories as a monitoring instrument can rarely be met in practice. On the basis of German examples, it shall be shown that a thorough calculation of actual local energy and GHG reductions attributable to local efforts is often only partially possible, and is complicated by external factors. A supplementary approach to the top-down method is to evaluate local programmes from the bottom-up. This paper discusses efforts to develop an instrument for a bottom-up monitoring of the city of Hamburg's Climate Action Plan.
The lack of suitable tools to assess sustainable mobility measures' costs, benefits and overall impacts is a significant factor impeding their implementation. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is often applied to large-scale infrastructure projects, but does not capture all relevant socio-economic impacts. Small-scale but potentially highly cost-effective measures often do not have the critical mass to warrant a thorough cost-benefit analysis. This paper reviews existing assessment methodologies, including their advantages, limitations and application to different urban mobility measures, and current assessment practice in cities based on survey results. Based on these analyses, a holistic approach for project appraisal is proposed, consisting of aspects of a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and CBA and applicable to a variety of urban mobility measures.