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The study analyses the country background, emissions trends, ongoing activities and barriers relating to the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of Ethiopia under the UNFCCC. A special emphasis is laid on further mitigation potentials in the fields of agriculture, forestry and low-emission transport.
With the adoption of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, former debates about generating carbon credits on the basis of national policies have resurged. National policies have not been eligible as project activities under the Kyoto Protocol's flexible mechanisms. The Paris Agreement opens the possibility for such policy crediting but also provides an entirely new context: Universal participation, ambitious long-term targets and nationally defined contributions (NDCs) that are to be made more ambitious over time. As this paper shows, these changes in the framework conditions add an additional layer of complexity to policy-based cooperation.
The paper explores the potential for policy-based cooperation by first briefly presenting the regulatory basis provided by the Paris Agreement before outlining a prototype for policy-based cooperation and its key challenges.
Implementation of nationally determined contributions : Islamic Republic of Iran country report
(2018)
The study analyses the country background, emissions trends, ongoing activities and barriers relating to the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the UNFCCC. A special emphasis is laid on further mitigation potentials in the fields of demand-side efficiency through energy-price reform, upstream oil and gas efficiency (with an emphasis on gas flaring) and a sustainable energy mix (with an emphasis on renewable energies).
Much mitigation-related governance activity is evident in a range of sectoral systems, and regarding particular governance functions. However, there is a tendency for this activity to relate to the easiest functions to address, such as "learning and knowledge building", or to take place in somewhat limited "niches". Across all sectoral systems examined, the gap between identified governance needs and what is currently supplied is most serious in terms of the critical function of setting rules to facilitate collective action. A lack of "guidance and signal" is also evident, particularly in the finance, extractive industries, energy-intensive industries, and buildings sectoral systems.
Of the sectoral systems examined, the power sector appears the most advanced in covering the main international governance functions required of it. Nevertheless, it still falls short in achieving critical governance functions necessary for sufficient decarbonisation. Significantly, while the signal is strong and clear for the phase-in of renewable energy, it is either vague or absent when it comes to the phase-out of fossil fuel-generated electricity. The same lack of signal that certain high-carbon activities need actively to be phased out is also evident in financial, fossil-fuel extractive industry and transport-related sectors.
More effective mitigation action will need greater co-ordination or orchestration effort, sometimes led by the UNFCCC, but also from the bodies such as the G20, as well as existing (or potentially new) sector-level institutions. The EU needs to re-consider what it means to provide climate leadership in an increasingly "polycentric" governance landscape.
The study analyses the country background, emissions trends, ongoing activities and barriers relating to the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of Morocco under the UNFCCC. A special emphasis is laid on further mitigation potentials in the fields of urban environment, the mineral sector and the transport sector. A chapter is dedicated to the relevance and perspectives of coal use.
Measure or management? : Resource use indicators for policymakers based on microdata by households
(2018)
Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) requires sustainable production and consumption. One indicator named in the SDG for resource use is the (national) material footprint. A method and disaggregated data basis that differentiates the material footprint for production and consumption according to, e.g., sectors, fields of consumption as well as socioeconomic criteria does not yet exist. We present two methods and its results for analyzing resource the consumption of private households based on microdata: (1) an indicator based on representative expenditure data in Germany and (2) an indicator based on survey data from a web tool. By these means, we aim to contribute to monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals, especially the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources. Indicators based on microdata ensure that indicators can be disaggregated by socioeconomic characteristics like age, sex, income, or geographic location. Results from both methods show a right-skewed distribution of the Material Footprint in Germany and, for instance, an increasing Material Footprint with increasing household income. The methods enable researchers and policymakers to evaluate trends in resource use and to differentiate between lifestyles and along socioeconomic characteristics. This, in turn, would allow us to tailor sustainable consumption policies to household needs and restrictions.
Although it is not part of what has been called the "ambition mechanism" or "ratchet mechanism", Article 6 of the Paris Agreement also has an explicit requirement to promote ambition. Article 6 specifically highlights that some Parties choose to pursue voluntary cooperation in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions. Despite the common purpose, the two elements have to date been discussed mostly in isolation, both in the negotiations as well as in the wider literature. This JIKO Policy Paper sets out to change this by exploring the relationship between Article 6 and the Global Stocktake.
Alternative power initiatives are socio-ecological innovations that substantially contribute to city's sustainable development and, therefore, are of particular societal benefit and value. Cities should, consequently, have an inherent interest in their existence and proliferation. This, however, asks for strategic innovation management. While, acknowledgement of the project's innovativeness constitutes the precondition for management, in the further process of steering activity the tasks to reduce hurdles, create open space and support the project's capacities need to be mastered. Thereby, cities are increasingly asked to become innovative themselves in order to find ways to optimally make use of their available tools and capacities.