Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (97) (remove)
Year of Publication
- 2013 (97) (remove)
Document Type
- Peer-Reviewed Article (33)
- Contribution to Periodical (21)
- Report (17)
- Conference Object (14)
- Part of a Book (5)
- Book (4)
- Working Paper (3)
Industrialized countries have committed to providing "new and additional" funding to developing countries for climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, lack of a common definition of "new and additional" undermines the climate process. This article aims to contribute to the discussion on the principle of additionality by assessing possible definitions. The article first contextualizes the guiding principles that led to the endorsement of "new and additional" finance within the history of international climate negotiations. Second, we survey definitions of "new and additional" put forward by industrialized countries as well as further proposed definitions put forward by scholars. Third, we assess the respective strengths and weaknesses of these definitions.
Our analysis shows that there is no singular formula that would resolve the problem of how to define additionality. Definitions that would be politically acceptable to developed countries are subject to gaming while definitions that are technically robust are politically difficult. We conclude that a combination of using innovative sources and defining specific future levels of development assistance ex ante may offer the best prospects for resolving the climate finance conundrum.
Aufgabenstellung des "Folgeprojekts CCS-Kommunikation" war es, die Bedeutung unterschiedlicher Einflussfaktoren und deren Wechselwirkungen für die Akzeptanz mit Hilfe multivariater statistischer Analysen zu untersuchen. Dabei standen folgende zentrale Fragestellungen im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen: Welche Faktoren sind ausschlaggebend für die 1. spontane Einstellung zu CCS? 2. Stabilität spontaner Einstellungen zu CCS? 3. Risiko- und Nutzeneinschätzungen von CCS? 4. Akzeptanz der drei CCS-Prozessschritte?
Diese Fragestellungen wurden mit unterschiedlichen multivariaten statistischen Verfahren und differenziert für unterschiedliche Ebenen oder Sachverhalte untersucht.
Der angestrebte starke Ausbau Erneuerbarer Energien (EE) für die Stromerzeugung wird bisher hauptsächlich mit der Frage verbunden, wie schnell und umfangreich die Stromnetze ausgebaut werden müssen und in welchem Umfang es welcher neuer Energiespeicher bedarf. Die mögliche große Bedeutung, die die bestehenden Gasnetze und -speicher für den EE-Ausbau und ihre Integration via Einspeisung von Wasserstoff oder auch synthetischem Methan aus EE-Strom haben können, findet dagegen nur wenig Berücksichtigung. Es wird zwar z. B. in der dena Netzstudie II für das heutige Erdgasnetz ein sehr großes, noch unerschlossenes Potenzial als "Stromspeicher" in Höhe von umgerechnet 130 Mrd. kWhel ausgewiesen. Gleichwohl wurde das Erdgasnetz nicht in die Berechnungen der dena Netzstudie mit einbezogen. Durch eine synchrone aber räumlich getrennte Kombination von "Stromspeicherung" (Power-to-Gas) und Stromerzeugung (Gas-to-Power) könnten die bestehenden Gasinfrastrukturen prinzipiell aber auch für einen weiträumigen "Stromtransport" genutzt werden. Diese Option wird vor dem Hintergrund des stockenden Stromnetzausbaus auf ihre Machbarkeit und Synergieeffekte mit dem Stromnetzausbau hin untersucht.
Dazu werden im Rahmen dieser Studie folgende Leitfragen bearbeitet:
Wie wird aus heutiger Sicht (Metaanalyse) der Bedarf für den Ausbau des Stromnetzes und an Energiespeichern sowie die Rolle von Power-to-Gas gesehen? Welche technischen Potenziale und Synergieeffekte bietet die bestehende Gasinfrastruktur in Deutschland für eine Entlastung des Stromnetzausbaus? Welche Kosten sind damit heute und in Zukunft verbunden und welche Kosten können dadurch ggf. reduziert werden? Welche Hemmnisse sind zu beachten und wie können sie ggf. überwunden werden?
Apart from the much-debated question of what legal form the 2015 climate agreement is supposed to have, another core issue is the substantive content of countries' commitments. While the climate regime has so far mostly been based on emission targets, literature has identified a broad range of other possible types of mitigation commitments, such as technology targets, emission price commitments, or commitments to specific policies and measures (PAMs). The nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) submitted by developing countries under the Cancún Agreements also show a broad range of different forms of participation. This article surveys the possible commitment types that have so far been discussed in literature and in the UNFCCC negotiations and assesses their respective advantages and disadvantages against a set of criteria: environmental effectiveness, cost effectiveness, distributional aspects and institutional feasibility. The article finds that no commitment option provides a silver bullet. All options have several advantages but also disadvantages. The environmentally most effective way forward may lie in pursuing a multi-dimensional approach, combining emission targets with other commitment types to compensate for the drawbacks of the emission-based approach. However, such an approach would also increase complexity, both in terms of the negotiations and in terms of implementation and administration.
Urbane Suffizienz
(2013)
The relationship between large-scale metal mining and its impacts is a topic of growing discussions in Argentina. Multinational mining corporations publish sustainability reports in order to show their social responsibility and contributions to sustainable development. These reports promote a higher transparency but doubts remain as to its usefulness to improve relationships with communities. By using a descriptive-explanatory method, this study analyses the 2009 Sustainability Report of Bajo de la Alumbrera mine so as to assess its quality and compare the "reality" painted by the company with the views of conflict by critical stakeholders. Results, validated with reports from other years, show the need to improve the information reported for conflictive indicators and, along with local governments, to implement a significant change in the way of making decisions, especially by engaging critical stakeholders.
This report analyses the international climate negotiations at the UN climate conference in Warsaw in November 2013. The report covers the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement by 2015 and increasing short-term ambition as well as 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 report concludes that Warsaw once again starkly highlighted the sharp divisions and lack of trust among countries. Industrialised countries' collective lack of leadership strongly contributed to re-opening the traditional North-South divide. As a result, on many issues the outcomes hardly go beyond the lowest common denominator. The conference only agreed on the bare minimum to move the 2015 process forward and also made no headway in strengthening short-term ambition. Some progress was made with the establishment of the "Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts" and the completion of the rules for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. However, here as well further substance, in particular financial support from industrialised countries, is required to actually fill these mechanisms with meaning. If countries want to escape from groundhog day, they will have to start seeing and utilizing the UN climate process rather differently.
Economy of sufficiency : essays on wealth in diversity, enjoyable limits and creating commons
(2013)
Another summit of change, known as Rio+20, has passed in summer 2012, nourishing the rumours of a green economy. Building up a green economy seems to be the all over recipe for different crises of capitalism, among them climate change and resource scarcity. Yet efficiency and consistency, as their main strategies, do not suffice to reach sustainable levels, as they cause rebound effects and keep stimulating economy growth. Obviously, there are limits to green growth, too. Can we conceive an economy, and respective economic institutions, that serve human needs and wealth without a built-in necessity to grow? What kind of political, mental, and individual changes does a sufficiency economy require? And what are perspectives and policies to actually start implementing it?
Just before Rio +20 the symposium "Economy of Sufficiency", devoted to Wolfgang Sachs on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 2011, examined these questions in three dimensions. Accordingly this selection of contributions to the symposium follows the chapters "Wealth in diversity" (Ashok Khosla, Marianne Gronemeyer, Vandana Shiva), "Enjoyable limits" (Richard B. Norgaard, Tim Jackson) and "Creating commons" (Ezio Manzini, Silke Helfrich).
The essays indicate the historical development of the ideas on a sufficiency economy. Wandering through discourses of sustainable development for several decades, the authors map the range of perspectives, practices as well as barriers and bridge them between cultures, agencies and schools.
While strategic studies on natural resources usually focus on the criticality of certain single materials, our paper starts from the inter-linkages between and among resources (called "the resource nexus"). It examines the impact any food and water stress may have on extraction activities in fragile states and regions. According to our approach, conflicts are likely to increase and may escalate in a number of countries, many of which are of relevance for the global supply of strategic materials. Future criticality for European and other industries, thus, is more likely to result from particular regions surpassing their adaptive capacities, and not mainly from limited availability or bottlenecks in the supply chain. The paper first develops a heuristic model of drivers for stress in resource-rich regions. Applying this approach, our paper then develops a global three-layered map along the dimensions of (i) future regional food and water stress, (ii) fragility of countries, and (iii) resource-rich countries with relevant reserves of strategic materials. As a result our paper tentatively identifies 15 countries at high risk and some 30 other countries being at relevant risk of causing resource supply disruptions. The conclusions underline the need to analyse those global inter-linkages and institutional mechanisms for strategic futures studies at a regional scale. As this may go beyond the capacities of actors on commodity markets, our paper also draws conclusions towards the establishment of an international data hub on the global resource nexus and for futures research. The paper points to some of the long-term implications of these issues.
Global climate
(2013)
The eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 18) 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 8) came to a close in the evening of 8 December 2012. This report lays out the main developments in Doha and assesses the main outcomes. The first chapter outlines the overall situation coming into Doha. The subsequent chapters cover the negotiations on the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement by 2015 and increasing short-term ambition, and further near-term action under the UNFCCC.
Die Entscheidung für ein von volatilen Erzeugungsquellen dominiertes Stromsystem stellt an die Stabilisierung des Systems neue Anforderungen. Zugleich bieten sich neue Optionen. Die bisherige Asymmetrie, nach der für die Stabilisierung die Kraftwerksseite verantwortlich sei, ist überkommene Praxis, deswegen auch heute habituell naheliegend, aber vermutlich nicht länger effizient. Die im Titel genannten nachfrageseitigen Ausgleichsoptionen (SE & DSM) bieten sich an. Im Beitrag wird deren Potential abgeschätzt. In vier Gestaltungsfeldern wird zudem gefragt, ob die bislang von der Politik gegebenen rechtlichen Mandate konsequent SE & DSM als Option berücksichtigen. Das Ergebnis ist viermal (weitgehende) Fehlanzeige.
Pumpspeicherkraftwerke sind technisch gut für ein Angebot auf Regelenergiemärkten geeignet. Die Vorhaltung von Regelleistung schränkt jedoch die Handlungsspielräume des Speicherbetreibers auf dem regulären Spotmarkt ein. Bisherige Berechnungsmethoden erlaubten es dem Speicherbetreiber nicht, Strategien für einen zweiten Markt zu entwickeln. Die Opportunitätskosten der eingeschränkten Angebotsflexibilität auf dem Spotmarkt bestimmen deswegen die Kapazitätskosten für Gebote auf Reservemärkten, woraus sich Konsequenzen für einen optimierten Speicherbetrieb ergeben.
Die Einsicht, dass es notwendig wäre, ihr Konsumverhalten zu ändern, bringt nur die wenigsten dazu, weniger Fleisch zu essen oder das neueste Produktmodell zu ignorieren. Suffizienten Konsumpraktiken stehen unterschiedliche innere und äußere Hindernisse im Weg. Die gute Nachricht: Sie lassen sich beseitigen.
Arbeit, Gesundheit und Verbraucherschutz sind nur drei Beispiele für Bereiche, in denen die Politik aktiv dazu beitragen kann, dass Menschen ein gutes Leben führen und mitgestalten können. Bislang geschieht das zu wenig, weil das Wachstumsmantra des Bruttoinlandsprodukts den Blick auf soziale und ökologische Notwendigkeiten verstellt.
This report provides an overview of current activities regarding climate change mitigation in six emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. We cover the institutional set up, measurement, reporting and verification systems for greenhouse gases and mitigation policies and measures. The analysis also addresses existing barriers to mitigation and considers where the international community could provide support to remove these.
The Sino-German project "Low Carbon Future Cities" (LCFC) aims to develop a low carbon strategy for its Chinese pilot city Wuxi. The strategy primarily focuses on carbon mitigation, but also considers links with the issues of resource efficiency and adaption to climate change. This report written by Daniel Vallentin, Carmen Dienst and Chun Xia offers strategic examples of good practice and makes recommendations to Wuxi city government about the changes that key sectors can adopt in order to comply with its low carbon targets. The recommendations are based on scientific analyses which were undertaken earlier in the LCFC project.
Improving material efficiency in the manufacturing industry is a sustainability imperative for companies due to economic and environmental advantages such as the reduction of material costs and resource use. Innovative solutions in terms of material efficiency measures are diverse and widespread. As a systematic assessment of efficiency approaches and their effects are likely to support dissemination and deployment, this paper aims to develop an approach that helps to classify material efficiency measures. The classification approach presents different dimensions and properties of material efficiency measures based on a literature analysis regarding existing classification approaches as well as on work that has been conducted for the Eco-Innovation Observatory. The classification has been designed as basis for an empirical impact assessment of material efficiency measures based on a data sample that stems from the German Material Efficiency Agency.