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Technology cooperation : update on the technology mechanism and options for using carbon markets
(2014)
This policy brief provides a general overview on the setup of the UNFCCC's Technology Mechanism, exploring potential synergies between the mechanism and carbon market instruments such as the CDM.
There are two branches of the Technology Mechanism: the Technology Executive Committee (TEC), which is tasked to give political advice, and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), providing support and fostering the operationalization of technology transfer. Both institutions strongly focus on capacity building.
The CDM, instead, has contributed to technology transfer in practice. However, the transfer has largely focused on equipment and basic operational knowledge. The transfer of knowledge to adapt, advance and innovate has been limited so far.
Therefore, the two mechanisms could well complement each other. In theory, Programmes of Activities and Standardized Baselines under the CDM could be a means for developing country governments to strategically address financial barriers to technology transfer.
This policy brief discusses the opportunities and obligations of host country DNAs within the Standardized Baselines framework and identifies options for strategic intervention. Host countries can, for example, intervene by selecting the right sectors for which they develop an SB in the first place. DNAs can also tailor their SBs to some extent to support certain technologies, fuels or feed- stocks over others by choosing the right level of aggregation of the sector to be covered. Last but not least, the paper discusses the DNAs' role in managing the data for the development and maintenance of the SB. Host countries should take full advantage of potential synergies between data collection for SBs and other data intensive processes such as national greenhouse gas inventories or national statistics. SBs and the data gathered in the process of developing them can also be a basis for the development of other mitigation instruments such as Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) or New Market Mechanisms (NMM).
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.
From 7 to 18 November 2016, the twenty-second Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Marrakech. Due to the early entry into force of the Paris Agreement, Marrakech also hosted the first Conference of the Parties serving as Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA1). Researchers from the Wuppertal Institute observed the conference and elaborated a detailed analysis of the results. The report starts by discussing developments regarding the implementation of the Paris Agreement, in particular the detailed "rulebook" and cooperative mechanisms. Next, the article discusses developments in the various avenues for raising climate ambition that have been put in place by the Paris conference: the 2018 facilitative dialogue, the engagement of non-state and sub-national actors, and the elaboration of mid-century climate strategies. In addition, the article discusses other Marrakech developments, in particular on issues of climate finance and adaptation, as well as recent developments in the wider world that have an impact on the UNFCCC, in particular developing alliances, developments in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and under the Montreal Protocol, and possible repercussions of the US presidential election.
Global climate
(2017)
On 12 December, the twenty-first Conference of Parties (COP-21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement. This marked the conclusion of the long process of crafting a new international climate regime that began with the adoption of the Bali Roadmap in 2007, failed spectacularly in Copenhagen in 2009, and resumed with a new approach in Durban 2011. This article summarizes and analyzes the main contents of the Paris Agreement.
US-Präsident Donald Trump verkündete am Nachmittag des 1. Juni 2017 im Rosengarten des Weißen Hauses, dass er das Pariser Klimaabkommen aus dem Jahr 2015 kündigen wolle. Was bedeutet dieser Schritt der USA für den globalen Klimaschutz? Dieser in brief zeigt, in welcher Weise die an Klimaschutz interessierten Staaten sich am besten organisieren, um das Pariser Klimaabkommen und die globale Klimapolitik erfolgreich weiterzuführen.
On 8 November 2016, Donald Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States of America. In his campaign, he repeatedly expressed his intention to "cancel the Paris Agreement". How can the course set with the adoption of the Paris Agreement be continued independently of the developments in the US? Lukas Hermwille and Wolfgang Obergassel sketch possible consequences of the sea change of US climate policy for the international negotiation process and identify options for a "Trump-resilient" way forward.
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.
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.
The international governance landscape on climate change mitigation is increasingly complex across multiple governance levels. Climate change mitigation initiatives by non-state stakeholders can play an important role in governing global climate change. The article addresses the relationship between intergovernmental and transnational governance processes in global climate governance. Particularly, the article aims to complement existing research on the role of "orchestration" by and through the UNFCCC process by focusing on how successful transnational initiatives can resonate within the intergovernmental negotiation process in order to inspire more ambitious climate action also on the part of national governments. This issue is addressed by systematically analysing interdependencies between transnational and international governance. Building on a structurational regime model, the article develops a theory of change of how and through which structuration channels non-state initiatives can contribute to changing the politics of international climate policy, traces existing UNFCCC processes and the Paris Agreement with a view to identifying inroads for a more direct feedback from non-state initiatives and derives recommendations on how and under which agenda items positive experiences can resonate within the UNFCCC negotiation process.
Quo vadis voluntary markets? : new Paris Agreement architecture puts business model to the test
(2018)
Wie viel Gestaltungsmacht haben das Pariser Klimaabkommen und die in der Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung formulierten Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) als internationaler Bezugsrahmen für die globale Energietransformation? In der vorliegeneden Studie analysiert Lukas Hermwille die beiden Agenden und stellt deren Komplementaritäten heraus.
Die Studie kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass ein Fokus allein auf innovative Ansätze und den Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien nicht ausreicht. Nimmt man die Ambition des Zwei-Grad-Limits oder gar des 1,5-Grad-Ziels ernst, reicht es nicht aus, darauf zu warten, bis Kohle, Öl und Gas von alleine obsolet werden, sondern es wird nötig werden, den Ausstieg aus fossilen Energieträgern aktiv politisch zu gestalten. In diesem Sinne empfiehlt die Studie mit Hilfe von "Exnovationsstrategien" auch die potenziellen Verlierer der Energietransformation in den Blick zu nehmen, so Widerstände abzubauen, um den Ausstieg aus der Nutzung fossiler Energieträger rechtzeitig und gleichzeitig sozial gerecht zu erreichen.
Sustainable energy
(2017)
This paper analyses the risks to environmental integrity associated to the transfers of mitigation outcomes in the context of Art. 6 of the Paris Agreement and provides an overview on approaches and tools that could be used for addressing them. The analysis shows that some of the environmental integrity risks can be dealt with at the technical level. This relates, inter alia, to the risks of mitigation outcomes being unreal or non-permanent as well as to carbon leakage and rebound effects. Here, robust MRV provisions should be established. Other risks will be difficult to address without touching the new and open structure of the Paris Agreement. This applies, for example, to risks associated to the diverse nature of NDCs, and requires further investigation.
The international governance landscape on climate change mitigation is increasingly complex across multiple governance levels. Climate change mitigation initiatives by non-state stakeholders can play an important role in governing global climate change and contribute to avoiding unmanageable climate change. It has been argued that the UNFCCC could and should play a stronger role in "orchestrating" the efforts of these initiatives within the wider climate regime complex and thus inspire new and enhanced climate action. In fact, the Lima-Paris Action Agenda supporting cooperative climate action among state and non-state actors was supposed to be a major outcome of COP21.
There is little doubt that successful mitigation initiatives can create a momentum for climate protection. What is missing, is a systematic analysis of how this momentum can feed back into the UNFCCC negotiation process, inspiring also enhanced and more ambitious climate mitigation by states in future iterations of the cycle of nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. This paper aims to close this gap: building on a structurational regime model, the article [1] develops a theory of change of how and through which structuration channels non-state initiatives can contribute to changing the politics of international climate policy; [2] traces existing UNFCCC processes and the Paris Agreement with a view to identifying entry points for a more direct feedback from non-state initiatives; and [3] derives recommendations on how and under which agenda items positive experiences can resonate within the UNFCCC negotiation process.
On 12 December 2015, the Parties to the UNFCCC adopted the "Paris Agreement". With this step, the world community has agreed on a collective and cooperative path to fight human-induced climate change: After 25 years of UN climate diplomacy, the world's governments have for the first time in history negotiated a treaty which envisages climate action by all nations. The Agreement sets the world on a path that might lead to a decarbonised economy in the second half of the century. Researchers from the Wuppertal Institute have observed COP 21 and elaborated a detailed analysis of the results. The assessment provides an overview of the most important negotiation outcomes, assesses their results as well as shortfalls and provides an outlook of the next steps needed to implement the Paris Agreement's goals and to set the world firmly on a non-fossil based development path.
On 12 December 2015, the Parties to the UNFCCC adopted the "Paris Agreement". With this step, the world community has agreed on a collective and cooperative path to fight human-induced climate change: After 25 years of UN climate diplomacy, the world's governments have for the first time in history negotiated a treaty which envisages climate action by all nations. The Agreement sets the world on a path that might lead to a decarbonised economy in the second half of the century. Researchers from the Wuppertal Institute have observed COP 21 and elaborated a detailed analysis of the results. The assessment provides an overview of the most important negotiation outcomes, assesses their results as well as shortfalls and provides an outlook of the next steps needed to implement the Paris Agreement's goals and to set the world firmly on a non-fossil based development path.
This Policy Brief outlines the "identity crisis" in which voluntary carbon standards find themselves after the adoption of the Paris Agreement. It describes how the new international legal framework threatens to undermine the legitimation and credibility of voluntary carbon standards and discusses first ideas how the arising challenges could be dealt with.
Carbon markets in a <2 °C world : will there be room for international carbon trading in 2050?
(2016)
This JIKO Policy Paper analyses a series of very ambitious mitigation scenarios and complements this analysis with a review of several sectoral technology roadmaps. The results are quite clear: there is no reason to believe that international carbon trading will become obsolete any time soon. Whether or not international carbon trading is to play a role in international climate protection efforts is in the end not a physical or economic question, but a political one.
Quo vadis voluntary markets? : new Paris Agreement architecture puts business model to the test
(2017)
Die internationale Klimapolitik tritt in ein neues Zeitalter unter teils widersprüchlichen Vorzeichen ein: Während das US-Wahlergebnis auf erschwerte Rahmenbedingungen für die Bekämpfung des Klimawandels hindeutet, konnten auf der UN-Ebene bei der COP22 in Marrakech einige Fortschritte erzielt werden. Lukas Hermwille und Wolfgang Obergassel zeigen die verschiedenen Szenarien auf, die sich damit für eine ambitionierte internationale Klimapolitik ergeben.
On 8 November 2016, Donald Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States of America. In his campaign, he repeatedly expressed his intention to "cancel the Paris Agreement". How can the course set with the adoption of the Paris Agreement be continued independently of the developments in the US? The authors sketch possible consequences of the sea change of US climate policy for the international negotiation process and identify options for a "Trump-resilient" way forward.
In the Paris Agreement, the governments of the world have pledged to attain climate neutrality in the second half of this century. More precisely, in Art. 4.1 parties agreed to "achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases". However, the collective as well as the majority of measures by individual countries fall short of embarking on a pathway towards that objective. But nevertheless, an increasing number of actors - countries, sub-national entities, as well as corporations - have stepped up their efforts and set themselves carbon neutrality goals.
In this Policy Brief Lukas Hermwille and Markus Gornik portray the commitments of Costa Rica, Norway, Sweden, the City of Melbourne, Australia and the corporation Microsoft. All cases have set themselves ambitious neutrality goals and have implemented measures to achieve them. However, none of the cases will be able to achieve accomplish neutrality on their own, at least not on short-term. The remaining emissions will be compensated using carbon credits either from domestic offset schemes (Costa Rica) or from international schemes.
For the time being, voluntary carbon neutrality goals, as presented in this Policy Brief, are an effective way to demonstrate leadership in climate protection. For the near future, pioneering actors that set voluntary carbon or climate neutrality goals could provide a significant source of demand for international carbon credits.
Out of the comfort zone! : Governing the exnovation of unsustainable technologies and practices
(2017)
Innovations are important for sustainability transformations, yet often prove insufficient for replacing established unsustainable structures. The promotion of renewable energy, for example, has been insufficient for pushing coal out of the energy market. The prevalent "innovation bias" should be overcome by complementing innovation politics and research with a stronger occupation with the purposive termination of unsustainable technologies, products and practices. This article therefore introduces the concept of "exnovation" and discusses the need of, as well as different approaches for, the governance of exnovation processes.
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.
There is general agreement that preventing dangerous climate change requires a fundamental transformation of the global economy. Regarding carbon markets, the EU, for example, has called for the new market-based mechanism (NMM) to be established under the UNFCCC to "facilitate transition towards low carbon economy and attract further international investment". This JIKO Policy Paper discusses the transformative potential of the NMM and how it should be structured to maximize transformative impact.
The analysis shows that details in the arrangements of the scheme, such as allocation of allowances can significantly influence the incentive structure of the instrument and hence its potential to contribute to transformational change. The authors conclude that carbon pricing is necessary but is by itself not sufficient to redeem the various types of market failures that have led to the unsustainable global socio-economic system we are deemed to change. An NMM should therefore be tailored to complement other national policies.
Many have hoped that the CDM's Additionality, if applied to the wider climate finance domain, can contribute to standardizing the funding criteria. This JIKO Policy Brief therefore explore options of applying the CDM's to do just that. The authors highlight issues of environmental system integrity and efficient allocation of funding, and discuss potential limits of the CDM's Additionality concept in its current form, if applied to climate finance.
The prospects are limited, because a clear attribution of emission reductions is almost impossible in a system that does not have as well-defined borders as the zero-sum-game of tradable emission reductions under a capped environment.The authors propose some inroutes to adapting the current approach to Additionality in this context, and pose a number of questions that can help to further discuss and refine the CDM's Additionality concept to make it better applicable for a future, globally inclusive climate regime.
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.
Standardised Baselines (SBs) shall improve the opportunities for least developed countries and other underrepresented regions to participate in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). SBs allow for shifting the effort of developing baseline scenarios and additionality testing from the individual project to the sectoral level. This research project followed two separate approaches in order to gather experiences with the development of SBs and to contribute to the advancement of the SB regulatory framework. Under the first approach, an SB for rural electrification in Ethiopia was developed in cooperation with the Ethiopian Designated National Authority, which submitted the SB to the UNFCCC Secretariat. In the second part of the project, a scoping study assesses how SBs can be developed to cover complex integrated production processes. The Indonesian cement sector was chosen as case for this study.
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.
What can reasonably be expected from the UNFCCC process and the climate conference in Paris 2015? To achieve transformative change, prevailing unsustainable routines embedded in socio-economic systems have to be translated into new and sustainable ones. This article conceptualizes the UNFCCC and the associated policy processes as a catalyst for this translation by applying a structurational regime model. This model provides an analytical distinction of rules (norms and shared meaning) and resources (economic resources as well as authoritative and allocative power) and allows us to conceptualize agency on various levels, including beyond nation states. The analysis concludes that the UNFCCC's narrow focus on emission targets, which essentially is a focus on resources, has proven ineffective. In addition, the static division of industrialized and developing countries in the Convention's annexes and the consensus-based decision-making rules have impeded ambitious climate protection. The article concludes that the UNFCCC is much better equipped to provide rules for climate protection activities and should consciously expand this feature to improve its impact.
In order to reconfigure global socio-economic systems to be compatible with social imperatives and planetary boundaries, a transition towards sustainable development is necessary. The multi-level perspective (MLP) has been developed to study long-term transformative change. This paper complements the MLP by providing an ontological framework for studying and understanding the role of narratives as the vehicle of meaning and intermediation between individual and social collective in the context of ongoing transitions. Narratives are established as an analytical entity to unpack how disturbances at the level of the socio-technical landscape are translated into and contribute to the transformation of socio-technical regimes. To illustrate and test the approach, it is applied to the case of the Fukushima catastrophe: The narratives in relation to nuclear power in Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are scrutinized and it is explored how these narratives have co-determined the policy responses and thus influenced ongoing transformation processes in the power sectors of the respective countries.
The Paris Agreement marks a milestone in international climate policy. Though, the positive appraisal was not unanimous. This article will argue that the Paris Agreement embraces a new paradigm. Climate change is no longer seen as a clear-cut environmental problem, nor as a developmental issue, but as a challenge to fundamentally transform global societies. While criticism through the lens of the former paradigms is worthwhile, the Paris Agreement should be acknowledged as a pacemaker for the transformation processes that lay ahead of us.
Offsetting for international aviation : the state of play of market-based measures under ICAO
(2016)
This JIKO Policy Brief summarizes the state of play of the negotiations on a global market-based mechanism (global MBM) under ICAO. It specifies the respective responsibilities and different approaches of ICAO and the UNFCCC. It traces the historic activities in regard of climate protection under ICAO and provides an overview of the current negotiation process that is to culminate at the upcoming ICAO General Assembly in autumn 2016. Furthermore, the Policy Brief reflects on the CDM experience and derives recommendations.
Limiting global warming to below 2 °C or even 1.5 °C requires a fundamental transformation of global socio-economic systems. This need for transformation has been taken up by international climate policy. This article synthesizes criteria of transformational change from transition research and climate finance agencies. On this basis, the article conducts a multi-criteria evaluation of the transformative potential of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), currently the world's largest market-based climate policy. From this case it can be inferred that emissions trading can "destabilize" incumbent high-emission practices, but its effectiveness in fostering innovation is limited. Furthermore, the analysis shows that details in the arrangements of the scheme such as allocation rules can have a strong detrimental impact on its outcome. If a global carbon market with a uniform price were introduced, this could lead to developing countries "buying in" with large amounts of freely allocated allowances. This, however, has been shown to thwart transformational effects and instead contribute to further carbon lock-in.
Africa and in particular African Least Developed Countries have to a large extent been neglected by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This article reviews the mechanism's performance in the region and highlights current developments. The analysis is based on a quantitative breakdown of data provided by the United Nations Environment Programme and Technical University of Denmark (UNEP/DTU) CDM Pipeline and was complemented by interviews with selected investors. The findings indicate that despite the various support measures for underrepresented regions, the overall share of African CDM activities continues to be low. The significant rise in the share of Programmes of Activities of recent years cannot make up for the continuing low numbers of African stand-alone projects. Further, the collapse of the compliance market has proved fatal in terms of timing: ongoing efforts to support the development of a genuine African carbon market were suffocated by the lack of demand for Certified Emission Reductions at a moment when capacity building had started to bear fruit. Consequently, instead of being a mitigation tool with significant scale, the future role of the CDM in Africa might be limited to the voluntary market, while at the same time serving as a tool to foster sustainable development, with mitigation benefits.
Global climate
(2016)
This article summarises the main outcomes of the Lima UN Climate Conference (COP20 / CMP10). It starts with the discussions under the Durban Platform on developing a new comprehensive climate agreement and increasing short-term ambition and subsequently covers the issues relating to near-term implementation of previous decisions in the areas of transparency, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, loss and damage, adaptation, finance, and carbon markets.
Combating climate change requires a fundamental simultaneous transformation of various sectoral systems that are key to the functioning of our economies and societies, such as energy, industry, transport, housing, and agriculture. This report by the COP21 RIPPLES project examines sector-specific challenges to decarbonisation and what contribution international governance could make to overcoming these challenges.
Taking a sectoral perspective, the report identifies the key governance challenges that exist internationally towards the deep transformations required, and specifies the resulting key governance functions to be fulfilled by means of international cooperation/international institutions.
To this end, the report first clarifies a number of key concepts, including international (climate) governance, international and transnational institutions, institutional complexes and poly-centricity. It then derives a number of functions that international institutions can fulfil from the relevant literature: providing guidance and signals, setting rules, providing transparency and accountability, providing capacity building, technology and finance, and facilitating knowledge and learning. This is the basis for an investigation into the key governance challenges and the potential of international governance in 14 key sectoral systems.
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.
Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain. Combined national climate commitments fall far short of the Paris Agreement's 1.5/2°C targets. Similar political ambition gaps persist across various areas of sustainable development. Many therefore argue that actions by nonstate actors, such as businesses and investors, cities and regions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), are crucial. These voices have resonated across the United Nations (UN) system, leading to growing recognition, promotion, and mobilization of such actions in ever greater numbers. This article investigates optimistic arguments about nonstate engagement, namely: (a) "the more the better"; (b) "everybody wins"; (c) "everyone does their part"; and (d) "more brings more." However, these optimistic arguments may not be matched in practice due to governance risks. The current emphasis on quantifiable impacts may lead to the under-appreciation of variegated social, economic, and environmental impacts. Claims that everybody stands to benefit may easily be contradicted by outcomes that are not in line with priorities and needs in developing countries. Despite the seeming depoliticization of the role of nonstate actors in implementation, actions may still lead to politically contentious outcomes. Finally, nonstate climate and sustainability actions may not be self-reinforcing but may heavily depend on supporting mechanisms. The article concludes with governance risk-reduction strategies that can be combined to maximize nonstate potential in sustainable and climate-resilient transformations.
Dieses Wuppertal Paper dient dazu, a) die mögliche Klimaschutzwirkung eines CO2-Preises zu analysieren, allein und im Gesamtpaket von Instrumenten zum Klimaschutz, b) die Möglichkeiten der Mittelverwendung zu analysieren und zu bewerten, c) dadurch den Dschungel der Argumente und Motivationen in den bestehenden Vorschlägen zu lichten und d) aus der Analyse ein Modell zu skizzieren, das den Anforderungen von Klimaschutz und sozialer Gerechtigkeit sowie Erhalt der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit am besten gerecht wird und damit der Bundesregierung als Anregung bei der Entscheidung über Einführung und Ausgestaltung eines CO2-Preises dienen kann.
In dem Papier werden diese Fragen anhand von neun Thesen mit einem abschließenden Fazit ergründet. Daraus wird deutlich:
Ein CO2-Preis kann sektorale Ziele und Instrumente nicht ersetzen. Seine volle Wirkung kann er nur entfalten, wenn er komplementär zu sektorspezifischen Klimaschutzinstrumenten eingeführt wird. Nur wenn für diese Instrumente ein guter Teil der Einnahmen aus der CO2-Steuer eingesetzt wird, sind die Klimaziele erreichbar. Die Ziele werden dadurch mit weitaus geringerem CO2-Preis bei gleichzeitig höheren Kostenentlastungen für Verbraucherinnen und Verbraucher, Unternehmen und sogar die öffentlichen Haushalte erreichbar, als wenn die Politik allein auf einen CO2-Preis setzen würde.
The impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and the global response to it will co-determine the future of climate policy. The recovery packages responding to the impacts of the pandemic may either help to chart a new sustainable course, or they will further cement existing high-emission pathways and thwart the achievement of the Paris Agreement objectives. This article discusses how international climate governance may help align the recovery packages with the climate agenda. For this purpose, the article investigates five key governance functions through which international institutions may contribute: send guidance and signals, establish rules and standards, provide transparency and accountability, organize the provision of means of implementation, and promote collective learning. Reflecting on these functions, the article finds that the process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), together with other international institutions, could promote sustainable recovery in several ways.
Die Wirtschaftsleistung von Deutschland ist durch die Corona-Pandemie stark beeinträchtigt. Um die Wirtschaft zu beleben, einigten sich die Regierungsparteien am 3. Juni 2020 in ihrem Koalitionsausschuss auf ein "Konjunktur- und Krisenbewältigungspaket" sowie ein "Zukunftspaket" in Höhe von insgesamt 130 Milliarden Euro. Für 2020 und 2021 sind fast 60 Maßnahmen vorgesehen, die von steuerlichen Vergünstigungen bei der Mehrwertsteuer bis hin zu konkreten Investitionen in Zukunftstechnologien reichen. Mit Blick auf den Klimaschutz beinhaltet das Maßnahmenpaket der Großen Koalition zwar gute Ansätze und viele wichtige Impulse, die allerdings zu verpuffen drohen, wenn sie nicht durch eine konsequente und nachhaltig ausgerichtete Klimapolitik flankiert werden. Zudem fehlen für den Klimaschutz wichtige Bereiche, wie Investitionen in die Kreislaufwirtschaft. Außerdem werden Maßnahmen zur Steigerung der Energieeffizienz nur unzureichend berücksichtigt. Gerade in diesen Bereichen hätten sich konjunkturbelebende Effekte und Klimaschutz in idealer Form ergänzen können, kritisiert das Wuppertal Institut. Dieses Diskussionspapier reagiert auf die vorliegenden Vorschläge und fasst zusammen, welche Maßnahmen im Rahmen der jetzt anstehenden Umsetzungsphase nachgebessert werden sollten und wo Ergänzungen notwendig sind.
Last year's conference of the global climate change regime took place from 2 until 15 December 2019 in Madrid, Spain. Despite marking a new record for overtime in the history of the UNFCCC, the conference did not only fail to meet the increasing public demand for swift and strong climate action, it also failed on its formal mandate to finalise the Paris rulebook. A record number of issues were left unresolved and shelved for the next session. COP25 thereby highlighted how much work still lies ahead both domestically and internationally if 2020 is to see a step-up in climate action that is consistent with the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement.
Much of the current literature on climate clubs sees mitigation costs creating free rider incentives as the main problem of climate policy. Climate clubs are supposed to solve this problem by creating additional incentives for mitigation. Looking more in detail, one sees that the situation differs from sector to sector. Some industry sectors indeed have substantial cost and competitiveness issues. In others such as electricity and transport, there are costs at micro level but balance for economy and society as a whole is rather positive. International climate policy in general and clubs in particular should therefore be tailored to sectoral specifics.
Global climate
(2020)
The annual Climate Change Conference took place on 2-15 December in Katowice, Poland. It included the twenty-fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-24) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the fourteenth Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP-14), the resumed first Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (MOP-1), and their subsidiary bodies. The conference had two main objectives: operationalizing the Paris Agreement by adopting detailed rules for its implementation and starting the process of strengthening the parties' climate protection contributions.
Theoretical advances suggest that international governance in general and the Paris Agreement in particular provide a strong signal guiding sociotechnical systems toward decarbonization. We assess this signal and its effects empirically, by examining the struggle of competing narratives as present in the communications of leading US fossil fuel industry associations and companies. The results are then discussed in the context of the national and international climate and energy policy debates in a study period from late 2014 until the announcement of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in June 2017. We find that the Paris Agreement has institutionalized a narrative paradigm that is surprisingly resilient. While the election of Donald Trump and his climate and energy policy led to a narrative shift in the coal industry, the oil and gas industry remained conspicuously silent in its immediate response and maintained its narrative strategies despite its alignment with the Paris Agreement.
While the Paris Agreement (PA) has enshrined ambitious long-term objectives, the current level of action of the Parties to the Agreement falls far short of this ambition, as is recognised in the very COP decision adopting the Agreement. The Global Stocktake (GST) established in Art. 14 of the PA is a key element to address this problem. Its purpose is to review the implementation of the PA and to assess the progress made towards the collectively agreed goals.
The aim of this report is to develop recommendations on how to maximise the potential impact of the GST. The report starts from a perspective of what the GST could ideally do, irrespective of decisions already taken under the UNFCCC and other political constraints. In the second step, the report takes these limitations into account and suggests ways for how to nonetheless work towards the desired outcome.
This paper discusses options to increase mitigation ambition in crediting mechanisms that serve the Paris Agreement (PA), such as the Article 6.4 mechanism. Under the Clean Development Mechanism and other crediting mechanisms, baselines have been specified in the form of greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity factors and linked to business-as-usual developments. This means that with increasing production of goods and services through carbon market activities, absolute emissions may increase or fall only slowly. At a global level, such an approach widens the "emissions gap". To enable continued use of emissions intensity baselines in crediting mechanisms while being in line with the PA’s goal to pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5˚C, we propose to apply an "ambition coefficient" to emissions intensities of technologies when establishing the baseline. This coefficient would decrease to reflect increasing ambition over time, and reach zero when a country needs to reach net zero emissions. Due to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, the coefficient would fall more quickly for developed than for developing countries. The latter would be able to generate emission reduction credits well beyond 2050, while for the former, crediting would stop around 2035 or before. An ambition coefficient approach would generate certainty for carbon market investors and preserve trust in international carbon markets that operate in line with the agreed, long-term ambition of the international climate regime.
Research on environmental behaviour is often overlooked in literature on regime destabilization in energy transitions. This study addresses that gap by focusing on socio-political and demographic factors shaping support for carbon regime destabilization policies in one of the most carbon-intensive regions of Europe. Carbon-intensive industries, especially coal mining and coal-based power generation, are often concentrated in a few carbon-intensive regions. Therefore, decarbonization actions will affect those regions particularly strongly. Correspondingly, carbon-intensive regions often exert significant political influence on the two climate mitigation policies at the national level. Focusing on Poland, we investigate socio-political and demographic factors that correlate with the approval or rejection of the two climate mitigation policies: increasing taxes on fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal and using public money to subsidize renewable energy such as wind and solar power in Poland and its carbon-intensive Silesia region. Using logistic regression with individual-level data derived from the 2016 European Social Survey (ESS) and the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), we find party-political ideology to be an important predictor at the national level but much less so at the regional level. Specifically, voting for right-wing party is not a divisive factor for individual support of the two climate mitigation policies either nationally or regionally. More interestingly, populism is a strong factor in support of increasing taxes on fossil fuel in the carbon-intensive Silesia region but is less important concerning in support of using public money to subsidize renewable energy in Poland overall. These results show the heterogeneity of right-wing party and populism within the support for the two climate mitigation policies. Socio-demographic factors, especially age, gender, education level, employment status, and employment sector, have even more complex and heterogeneous components in support of the two climate mitigation policies at the national and regional levels. Identifying the complex socio-political and demographic factors of climate mitigation policies across different national versus carbon-intensive regional contexts is an essential step for generating in situ decarbonization strategies.
The gap between the internationally agreed climate objectives and tangible emissions reductions looms large. We explore how the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Conference of the Parties (COP), could develop to promote more effective climate policy. We argue that promoting implementation of climate action could benefit from focusing more on individual sectoral systems, particularly for mitigation. We consider five key governance functions of international institutions to discuss how the COP and the sessions it convenes could advance implementation of the Paris Agreement: guidance and signal, rules and standards, transparency and accountability, means of implementation, and knowledge and learning. In addition, we consider the role of the COP and its sessions as mega-events of global climate policy. We identify opportunities for promoting sectoral climate action across all five governance functions and for both the COP as a formal body and the COP sessions as conducive events. Harnessing these opportunities would require stronger involvement of national ministries in addition to the ministries of foreign affairs and environment that traditionally run the COP process, as well as stronger involvement of non-Party stakeholders within formal COP processes.
A sectoral perspective can help the Global Stocktake (GST) to effectively achieve its objective to inform Parties' in enhancing subsequent NDCs and in enhancing international cooperation. Specifically, granular and actionable sectoral lessons, grounded in country-driven assessments, should be identified and elaborated. To be effective, conversations on sectoral transformations need to synthesise key challenges and opportunities identified in the national analyses and link them to international enablers; focus on systemic interdependencies, involve diverse actors, and be thoroughly prepared including by pre-scoping points of convergences and divergence across transformations. We specifically recommend that:
the co-facilitators of the Technical Dialogue use their (limited) mandate to facilitate an effective conversationon sectoral transformations e.g. by organising dedicated informal seminars in between formal negotiation sessions;
key systemic transformations necessary toachieve net-zero by mid-century should be spelled out and included in the final decision or political declaration of the GST; and
the political outcome of the GST should mandate follow-up processes at the regional level and encourage national-level conversations to translate the collective messages from GST into actionable and sector-specific policy recommendations.
Ambition coefficients : aligning baselines for international carbon markets with net zero pathways
(2021)
The Glasgow climate conference marked a symbolic juncture, lying half-way between the adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992 and the year 2050 in which according to the IPCC special report on the 1.5°C limit net zero CO2 emissions need to be reached, globally, in order to maintain a good chance of achieving the 1.5°C limit. This article undertakes an assessment of what the UNFCCC and in particular the Paris Agreement and its implementation process have actually achieved so far up to and including the results of the Glasgow conference. The article discusses efforts at ambition raising both within and outside the formal diplomatic process, the finalization of the implementation rules of the Paris Agreement, as well as progress on gender responsiveness, climate finance, adaptation and loss and damage. In summary, the Paris Agreement and its implementation can be considered a success as it is having a discernible impact on the behavior of parties as well as on non-party actors. However, significant further efforts will be required to actually achieve the objectives of the Agreement.
This paper examines the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA) and discusses options to improve sub- and non-state involvement in post-2020 climate governance. A framework that stimulates sub- and non-state action is a necessary complement to national governmental action, as the latter falls short of achieving low-carbon and climate-resilient development as envisaged in the Paris Agreement. Applying design principles for an ideal-type orchestration framework, we review literature and gather expert judgements to assess whether the GCAA has been collaborative, comprehensive, evaluative and catalytic. Results show that there has been greater coordination among orchestrators, for instance in the organization of events. However, mobilization efforts remain event-driven and too little effort is invested in understanding the progress of sub- and non-state action. Data collection has improved, although more sophisticated indicators are needed to evaluate climate and sustainable development impacts. Finally, the GCAA has recorded more action, but relatively little by actors in developing countries. As the world seeks to recover from the COVID-19 crisis and enters a new decade of climate action, the GCAA could make a vital contribution in challenging times by helping governments keep and enhance climate commitments; strengthening capacity for sub- and non-state action; enabling accountability; and realizing sustainable development.
A sectoral perspective on international climate governance : key findings and research priorities
(2021)
This concluding article derives six major findings from the contributions to this special issue. First, the barriers and challenges to decarbonisation vary significantly across sectoral systems. Second, and similarly, the need and potential for the five functions of international governance institutions to contribute to effective climate protection also vary widely. Third, while the pattern is uneven, there is a general undersupply of international climate governance. Fourth, the sectoral analyses confirm that the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement play an important overarching role but remain limited in advancing effective sectoral governance. Fifth, while non-environmental institutions may present important barriers to decarbonisation, more synergistic effects are possible. Sixth, our sectoral approach provides a sound basis on which to identify sector-specific policy options. The paper then offers reflections on the merits and limitations of the sectoral approach, before identifying avenues for future research to further advance the agenda.
This article develops a sectoral approach to the analysis of global climate governance. This approach advances the assessment of global climate governance by focusing on complexes of intergovernmental and transnational institutions co-governing key socio-technical sectoral systems. The actual and potential contribution of these sectoral institutional complexes to advancing decarbonization can be assessed according to five key governance functions: (1) providing guidance and signal to actors, (2) setting rules to facilitate collective action, (3) enhancing transparency and accountability, (4) offering support (finance, technology, capacity-building), and (5) promoting knowledge and learning. On this basis, we can assess the potential of international cooperation to address the challenges specific sectoral systems face in the climate transition as well as the extent to which existing sectoral institutional complexes deliver on this potential. This provides a solid starting point for developing options for filling identified gaps and enhancing the effectiveness of global climate governance.
On the one hand, a large number of companies have committed to achieve net zero emissions and many of them foresee to offset some remaining emissions with carbon credits, suggesting a surge of future demand. Yet, the supply side of the voluntary carbon market is struggling to align its business model with the new legal architecture of the Paris Agreement. This article juxtaposes these two perspectives. It provides an overview of the plans of 482 major companies with some form of neutrality/net zero pledge and traces the struggle on the supply side of the voluntary carbon market to come up with a viable business model that ensures environmental integrity and contributes to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Our analysis finds that if carbon credits are used to offset remaining emissions against neutrality objectives, these credits need to be accounted against the host countries' Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to ensure environmental integrity. Yet, operationalizing this approach is challenging and will require innovative solutions and political support.
Key policy insights:
There is a growing mismatch between the faith placed in carbon credits by private sector companies and the continued quest for a common position of the main suppliers of the voluntary carbon market.
The voluntary carbon market has not yet found a way to align itself with the new legal architecture of the Paris Agreement in a credible and legitimate way.
Public policy support at the national and international level will be needed to operationalize a robust approach for the market’s future activities.
2020 was meant to be the year of climate ambition. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the Glasgow conference was postponed to November 2021, and climate policy generally appeared to have been put on the backburner. But towards the end of the year prospects seemed to brighten with a series of zero-emission pledges and the election of Joe Biden as US President. This article analyses what the year of the pandemic achieved in terms of combating climate change. This article first summarizes the virtual events that were organised to substitute for the physical UNFCCC conferences and what progress was or was not made on the outstanding items of the "Paris rulebook", implementation of the Gender Action Plan, and other items. Subsequently, the article surveys the status of NDC updates and to what extent recovery programmes have been used to advance climate action. Finally, the article takes a closer look at the current dynamics among non-Party actors. In summary, while formal negotiations essentially stopped in the year of the pandemic, the conservation did not. However, implementation is still lagging far behind the ambitious targets that have been set. While implementation is mostly the domain of national policy, the international process has a number of options at its disposal to foster climate action.
Last year's conference of the global climate change regime took place from 2 until 15 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. The conference had two main objectives: operationalising the Paris Agreement by adopting detailed rules for its implementation, and starting the process of strengthening Parties' climate protection contributions. This article covers the negotiations on these two sets of issues and also includes a discussion of other recent climate activities by Parties and non-Party actors. Success of the negotiations in Katowice was far from assured, but in the end COP24 concluded with the adoption of the "Katowice Climate Package" setting out detailed guidelines on how to implement its various elements. However, the conference fell short on the first objective, none of the major emitting countries was ready to step up its climate ambition. The most important aspect of the Katowice outcome is therefore that it has brought the wrangling about implementation procedures to a close, making way for the true task at hand: the strengthening of national and international activities to protect the climate and the implementation of the existing pledges. Arguably, a key factor that has been slowing down climate policy is the power of entrenched interests. The article therefore concludes with a reflection on how such barriers to climate action may be overcome and what role future COPs may play in this regard.
Global climate
(2019)
The twenty-third Conference of the Parties (COP-23) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Bonn on 6-17 November 2017, under the presidency of Fiji. COP-23 focused, in particular, on developing rules to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement and on raising ambition for climate protection. Since this was the first "Oceanic" COP, special attention was given to supporting the countries of the Global South in their efforts to reduce emissions, adapt to climate change, and deal with the unavoidable impacts of climate change. This article summarizes the main developments and results of COP-23.