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1.
《Climate Policy》2013,13(3):309-326
Abstract

Carbon dioxide emissions from UK energy use have fallen by more than 20% over the last 30 years, and carbon intensity—carbon emissions per unit of GDP—has halved. These reductions have been achieved by a combination of decarbonisation of the energy system and substantial improvements in energy efficiency. Use of natural gas in power generation has been a big factor in recent years, but energy efficiency improvements in households and particularly industry have been more important over a longer period. Government policies designed primarily to address climate change have not been important contributors, until recently.

Future reductions in emissions will require more proactive policies. However, they are possible without any economic difficulties, notably by adopting cost-effective energy efficiency measures, using new renewable energy sources and reducing dependence on private cars. These policies will improve economic efficiency. The new UK Climate Change Programme includes policies that combine regulation, investment, fiscal measures and other economic instruments. By working with the grain of other social, environmental and economic policies, they can achieve far more than a carbon tax alone, set at any politically acceptable level. Modelling the costs of emission reductions using a carbon tax as the only instrument would not only massively over-estimate costs, it would bear little resemblance to real world politics.

The paper demonstrates that a more diverse set of policy instruments is likely to be an effective and politically acceptable approach in a mature industrial economy. It is concluded that the UK's Kyoto target of a 12.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is not challenging. The UK Government's target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010 is also achievable. By 2010 per capita emissions from the UK will be well below 2.5 tC per year. Claims that some countries, notably the USA, could not reduce per capita emissions below 6 tC per year seem inconsistent with this experience.  相似文献   

2.
《Climate Policy》2001,1(3):309-326
Carbon dioxide emissions from UK energy use have fallen by more than 20% over the last 30 years, and carbon intensity — carbon emissions per unit of GDP — has halved. These reductions have been achieved by a combination of decarbonisation of the energy system and substantial improvements in energy efficiency. Use of natural gas in power generation has been a big factor in recent years, but energy efficiency improvements in households and particularly industry have been more important over a longer period. Government policies designed primarily to address climate change have not been important contributors, until recently.Future reductions in emissions will require more proactive policies. However, they are possible without any economic difficulties, notably by adopting cost-effective energy efficiency measures, using new renewable energy sources and reducing dependence on private cars. These policies will improve economic efficiency. The new UK Climate Change Programme includes policies that combine regulation, investment, fiscal measures and other economic instruments. By working with the grain of other social, environmental and economic policies, they can achieve far more than a carbon tax alone, set at any politically acceptable level. Modelling the costs of emission reductions using a carbon tax as the only instrument would not only massively over-estimate costs, it would bear little resemblance to real world politics.The paper demonstrates that a more diverse set of policy instruments is likely to be an effective and politically acceptable approach in a mature industrial economy. It is concluded that the UK’s Kyoto target of a 12.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is not challenging. The UK Government’s target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010 is also achievable. By 2010 per capita emissions from the UK will be well below 2.5 tC per year. Claims that some countries, notably the USA, could not reduce per capita emissions below 6 tC per year seem inconsistent with this experience.  相似文献   

3.
Joint implementation of emission reductions by countries is an important component of the Kyoto Protocol. The calculation of emission reductions from projects requires the definition of baselines that describe what would have happened in the absence of the JI projects. Baselines do not occur and are described as counterfactual. This paper applies a sociological perspective to analyse the arguments used to support different baselines by the actors involved in climate change policy. It concludes that environmental arguments should be given prominence in how baselines are defined to ensure that the environmental objectives of the Framework Convention on Climate Change are preserved.  相似文献   

4.
Drawing on results of a 2003 survey of environmental officers in every Local Authority (LA) in England and Wales, this paper assesses the reception and response of local government to the information being provided through the UK Climate Change Programme. Over three quarters of respondents (n=184) felt they did not have access to the best information about the impacts of climate change on their areas. Although up-to-date information is freely available from a number of official Government sources, those official sources are not consulted as consistently as the media or as intensively as the internet, despite being consistently regarded as much more accurate, credible, and appropriate to LA needs. We interpret this apparent contradiction between LA officer confidence in official sources and their relatively infrequent use as a consequence, first, of technical–cognitive and practical–temporal difficulties accessing and understanding official sources of climate change information and, second, of concerns about the practical relevance of that information for the administrative functions of local government and thus for any meaningful response by LAs to climate change. Our survey recorded considerable levels of stress, cynicism, and futility among LA officials that not only complicate communication efforts but also call into question the central assumption of the UK Climate Change Programme that simply making more locally specific information about climate change impacts available will motivate appropriate action.  相似文献   

5.
This paper assesses the forces working for and against the political sustainability of the UK 2008 Climate Change Act. The adoption of the Act is seen as a landmark commitment to action on climate change, but its implementation has not been studied in any depth. Recent events, including disagreements over the fourth carbon budget and the decarbonisation of the electricity sector, shows that while the Act might appear to lock in a commitment to reducing emissions through legal means, this does not guarantee political lock-in. The assumption, made by some proponents of the Act, that accountability of political leaders to a public concerned about climate change, via Parliament, would provide the main political underpinning to the Act is criticised. An analysis of alternative sources of political durability is presented, drawing on a framework for understanding the sustainability of reform developed by Patashnik. It is argued that the Act has helped create major institutional transformations, although the degree to which new institutions have displaced the power of existing ones is limited. The Act has produced some policy feedback effects, especially in the business community, and some limited investment effects, but both have been insufficient to withstand destabilisation by recent party political conflicts. The Climate Change Act remains at risk.  相似文献   

6.
《Climate Policy》2013,13(4):293-301
Abstract

This article summarises the results of an evaluation of the Climate Change Initiative launched by President Bush in February 2002. The policy target to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the US economy by 18% between 2002 and 2012 can be considered modest at best. The Initiative is likely to result in a 32% increase in US greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 compared to the 1990 levels. The effort also falls considerably short of efforts of the EU, Japan and Canada under the Kyoto Protocol. The Bush Initiative advocates using intensity targets in the international climate change regime, but overlooks fundamental problems associated with this approach. All the same, the Bush Initiative is of political significance as it recognises the importance of the climate change problem and may improve the longer-term prospects for US participation in a global climate regime.  相似文献   

7.
Institutional investors have two important roles to play in encouraging companies to address the risks and take advantage of the opportunities presented by climate change. The first is through using their influence as shareholders to encourage companies to adopt more proactive approaches to managing the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. The second is through explicitly factoring climate change risks and opportunities into ‘mainstream’ investment analysis processes. While there is growing investor activity on the former, the integration of climate change into investment analysis remains confined to sectors where there are strong government incentives (e.g. for renewable energy) or where greenhouse gas emissions have a market price. This article reviews the evolution of UK institutional investor interest in climate change from 1990 to 2005, focusing in particular on the relative contributions of ‘soft’ policy measures such as information-disclosure and awareness raising, and ‘hard’ policy measures such as regulation and market-based instruments. The article concludes that, over this period, soft policy measures played an important role in encouraging investors to discuss climate change issues with companies, but had minimal influence on investment decisions. It was only with the introduction of hard policy measures that climate change started to be systematically factored into investment analysis. The article canvasses the implications of these findings for government efforts in the UK and elsewhere to encourage investors to play a more proactive role in the climate change debate. It also considers the role that institutional investors themselves can play in strengthening public policy measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  相似文献   

8.
Should energy projects to extend the use of natural gas be considered for funding under public climate finance commitments? This article provides an overview of evidence for and against climate finance for natural gas projects. The argument focuses on a case study, the UK’s International Climate Fund (ICF). This synthesis concludes that gas-related projects will rarely be eligible for funding under public climate finance, save a few exceptions in which they provide energy access to households directly. Although gas power plants have generally lower emissions than those which use other fossil fuels such as coal, their impact will depend on the material constraints to calculate emissions reductions, the context of implementation, and the political economy of the target country. Three case studies demonstrate that energy access projects need to be understood as providing a whole range of sustainable benefits, from improving local health to reducing emissions. Overall, gas-related projects are complex interventions that require context-specific knowledge of both the effects of technology and the possible business models that can work in context.

POLICY RELEVANCE

This article investigates whether projects related to natural gas constitute an appropriate use of public climate finance, with a particular focus on the UK’s International Climate Fund. Policy makers in developed countries will decide in the coming years how to use public climate finance; that is, the fraction of overseas development assistance (ODA) for climate change mitigation and adaptation. In the UK, for example, the ICF is the most important instrument to provide climate finance for developing countries. In 2013, the UK set out a clear position ‘to end support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas, except in rare circumstances.’ This ban has fostered debate about whether similar positions should follow for other fossil fuels such as natural gas, specifically in the context of ICF funding. Similar debates are taking place in other countries such as Germany and Norway, and are informing the implementation of international facilities such as the Green Climate Fund.  相似文献   

9.
In the context of the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its accompanying Kyoto Protocol, participating nations have recognized the need for formulating Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). These NAMAs allow countries to take into account their national circumstances and to construct measures to mitigate GHG emissions across economic sectors. Israel has declared to the UN that it would strive to reduce its GHG emissions by 20% in the year 2020 relative to a ‘business as usual' scenario. With its growing population and an expanding economy, the national GHG mitigation plan was developed to draw a course for steering the Israeli economy into a low-carbon future while accommodating continued economic growth. The article describes relevant policy measures, designed to aid in the implementation of the plan and compares them with measures being undertaken by different countries. Emphasis is placed on analysing the progress to date, opportunities and barriers to attaining the ultimate GHG emissions reduction goals. The objective of this article is to contribute to the knowledge base of effective approaches for GHG emissions reduction. We emphasize the integrated approach of planning and implementation that could be especially useful for developing countries or countries with economies in transition, as well as for developed countries. Yet, in the article we argue that NAMAs’ success hinges on structured tracking of progress according to emerging global consensus standards such as the GHG Protocol Mitigation Goals Standard.

Policy relevance:

The study is consistent with the NAMA concept, enabling a country to adopt a ‘climate action plan’ that contributes to its sustainable development, while enabled by technology and being fiscally sound.

The analysis shows that although NAMAs have been framed in terms of projects, policies, and goals, current methodologies allow only the calculation of emission reductions that can be attributed to distinct projects. Currently, no international guidance exists for quantifying emissions reduction from policy-based NAMAs, making it difficult to track and validate progress. This gap could be addressed by an assessment framework that we have tested, as part of a World Resources Institute pilot study for an emerging voluntary global standard.  相似文献   

10.
The stakes for alleviating poverty and avoiding unbridled climate change are inextricably linked. Climate change impacts will slow down and may even reverse trends in poverty reduction. The pathways consistent with global warming of no more than 2?°C require strategies for poverty alleviation to make allowance for the constraint of low-carbon development. Existing climate funds have failed to target poverty alleviation as a high-priority strategy for adaptation or as a component of low-carbon development. This article proposes a funding window as part of the Green Climate Fund in order to foster synergies targeting greater satisfaction of basic needs, while making allowance for adaptation and mitigation. This financial mechanism is based on indicators of the satisfaction of basic needs and could respond to the claims of the developing countries, which see alleviating poverty as the first priority in climate negotiations. It defines a country continuum, given that there are poor people everywhere; all developing countries are therefore eligible with a mechanism of this sort.

Policy relevance

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls for substantial emissions reductions and adaptation strategies over the next decades to reduce the high risks of severe impacts of climate change over the 21st century. Industrialized countries and developing countries alike recognize the need to mitigate climate change and to adapt to it. But they face many challenges that lead to an ‘emissions gap’ between an emissions level consistent with the 2?°C increase limit and the voluntary pledges that they have made thus far in the climate negotiations (United Nations Environment Programme. (2014). The Emissions Gap Report 2014. A UNEP synthesis report). In this arena, many developing countries underline that their first domestic priority is the satisfaction of basic needs. In the run-up to the next climate negotiations at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, the proposed poverty-adaptation-mitigation funding window could contribute to alleviate the conflict between development and climate goals in developing countries. In this sense, it could spur developing countries to integrate more ambitious emissions limitations pledges into their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. This could in turn entice industrialized countries to act similarly. In the end, it could pave the way to an ambitious climate agreement in Paris at COP 21.  相似文献   

11.
Despite the recent proliferation of national climate change advisory bodies, very little is known about what advice they provide, to whom, and when. To address these gaps in the literature, this article systematically analyses all 700 of the recommendations made by the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) in the period 2009–20. The CCC is one of the oldest climate change advisory bodies of its kind in the world and its design has been widely emulated by other countries. For the first time, this article documents how the CCC’s mitigation and adaptation recommendations have changed over time with respect to their addressee, sectoral focus and policy targets. It reveals that they became: more numerous per year; more cross-sectoral in their nature; clearer in targeting a specific addressee; and more focused in referring to specific policy targets. By drawing on Fischer’s synthesis of policy evaluation to derive a measure of policy ambition, it also reveals that despite many of its recommendations being repeated year after year, the CCC has become more willing to challenge the policy status quo. It concludes by identifying future research needs in this important and fast-moving area of climate governance, notably understanding the conditions in which the recommendations of advisory bodies (do not) impact national policy.  相似文献   

12.
Climate policies must consider radiative forcing from Kyoto greenhouse gases, as well as other forcing constituents, such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone that result from air pollutants. Non-Kyoto forcing constituents contribute negative, as well as positive forcing, and overall increases in total forcing result in increases in global average temperature. Non-Kyoto forcing modeling is a relatively new component of climate management scenarios. This paper describes and assesses current non-Kyoto radiative forcing modeling within five integrated assessment models. The study finds negative forcing from aerosols masking (offsetting) approximately 25 % of positive forcing in the near-term in reference non-climate policy projections. However, masking is projected to decline rapidly to 5–10 % by 2100 with increasing Kyoto emissions and assumed reductions in air pollution—with the later declining to as much as 50 % and 80 % below today’s levels by 2050 and 2100 respectively. Together they imply declining importance of non-Kyoto forcing over time. There are however significant uncertainties and large differences across models in projected non-Kyoto emissions and forcing. A look into the modeling reveals differences in base conditions, relationships between Kyoto and non-Kyoto emissions, pollution control assumptions, and other fundamental modeling. In addition, under climate policy scenarios, we find air pollution and resulting non-Kyoto forcing reduced to levels below those produced by air pollution policies alone—e.g., China sulfur emissions fall an additional 45–85 % by 2050. None of the models actively manage non-Kyoto forcing for climate implications. Nonetheless, non-Kyoto forcing may be influencing mitigation results, including allowable carbon dioxide emissions, and further evaluation is merited.  相似文献   

13.
All sectors face decarbonization for a 2 °C temperature increase to be avoided. Nevertheless, meaningful policy measures that address rising CO2 from international aviation and shipping remain woefully inadequate. Treated with a similar approach within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), they are often debated as if facing comparable challenges, and even influence each others’ mitigation policies. Yet their strengths and weaknesses have important distinctions. This article sheds light on these differences so that they can be built upon to improve the quality of debate and ensuing policy development. The article quantifies ‘2 °C’ pathways for these sectors, highlighting the need for mitigation measures to be urgently accelerated. It reviews recent developments, drawing attention to one example where a change in aviation mitigation policy had a direct impact on measures to cut CO2 from shipping. Finally, the article contrasts opportunities and barriers towards mitigation. The article concludes that there is a portfolio of opportunities for short- to medium-term decarbonization for shipping, but its complexity is its greatest barrier to change. In contrast, the more simply structured aviation sector is pinning too much hope on emissions trading to deliver CO2 cuts in line with 2 °C. Instead, the solution remains controversial and unpopular – avoiding 2 °C requires demand management.

Policy relevance

The governance arrangements around the CO2 produced by international aviation and shipping are different from other sectors because their emissions are released in international airspace and waters. Instead, through the Kyoto Protocol, the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) were charged with developing policies towards mitigating their emissions. Slow progress to date, coupled with strong connections with rapidly growing economies, has led to the CO2 from international transport growing at a higher rate than the average rate from all other sectors. This article considers this rapid growth, and the potential for future CO2 growth in the context of avoiding a 2 °C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. It explores similarities and differences between these two sectors, highlighting that a reliance on global market-based measures to deliver required CO2 cuts will likely leave both at odds with the overarching climate goal.  相似文献   

14.
Climate change policies currently pay disproportionately greater attention to the mitigation of climate change through emission reductions strategies than to adaptation measures. Realising that the world is already committed to some global warming, policy makers are beginning to turn their attention to the challenge of preparing society to adapt to the unfolding impacts at the local level. This two-part article presents an integrated, or `co-evolutionary', approach to using scenarios in adaptation and vulnerability assessment. Part I explains how climate and social scenarios can be integrated to better understand the inter-relationships between a changing climate and the dynamic evolution of social, economic and political systems. The integrated scenarios are then calibrated so that they can be applied `bottom up’ to local stakeholders in vulnerable sectors of the economy. Part I concludes that a co-evolutionary approach (1) produces a more sophisticated and dynamic account of the potential feedbacks between natural and human systems; (2) suggests that sustainability indicators are both a potentially valuable input to and an output of integrated scenario formulation and application. Part II describes how a broadly representative sample of public, private and voluntary organisations in the East Anglian region of the UK responded to the scenarios, and identifies future research priorities.  相似文献   

15.
Climatic impact assessment is generally conducted by reference to numerical models, from which most estimates of climatic change are derived, and to the policy developers, by whom the impact assessments are demanded. The propagation of estimates derived from numerical climate model predictions of greenhouse-induced climate change through impact models into policy advice is a precariously uncertain process which compounds the considerable uncertainties already inherent in policy development. Clear statements of scientific confidence in the greenhouse phenomenon in the mid-1980s prompted demands for policy, and hence for policy advice. In Australia, as in many other countries, public and political awareness of the possibility of greenhouse-induced climatic change increased. These developments led to the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992; and to the review of the World Climate Programme in April 1993. This special issue ofClimatic Change illustrates some aspects of the difficulties surrounding projections of climatic impacts at a national scale where policy development almost always occurs under conditions of uncertainty. It may be valuable to identify uncertainty issues which could benefit from additional research and also sensitive points in the policy development process at which uncertainty can be used and abused. In this paper, the role of uncertainty in the greenhouse debate is reviewed from the perspective of a natural scientist working in a developed country. The aim is to offer a framework for the rest of this special issue ofClimatic Change. Uncertainty is by no means the only factor which influences views on climate change but increased understanding and more informed debate of all aspects of the uncertainties relating greenhouse-induced climatic change to policy development and implementation would be beneficial.  相似文献   

16.
湖北省应对气候变化的方案分析与政策含义   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  
 应对全球气候变化需要地方采取应对措施。根据湖北省"十一五"规划纲要提出的目标和《中国应对气候变化国家方案》提出的具体任务,通过分析论证气候变化的脆弱性以及经济发展对能源需求的增长,提出了湖北省适应和减缓气候变化的应对方案,并分析了湖北省温室气体排放的3种情景。湖北省作为国家能源和经济格局的组成部分,需要协同国家战略及布局,不仅为湖北省自身,也要为国家的低碳发展做出贡献。  相似文献   

17.
应对全球气候变化需要地方采取应对措施。根据湖北省"十一五"规划纲要提出的目标和《中国应对气候变化国家方案》提出的具体任务,通过分析论证气候变化的脆弱性以及经济发展对能源需求的增长,提出了湖北省适应和减缓气候变化的应对方案,并分析了湖北省温室气体排放的3种情景。湖北省作为国家能源和经济格局的组成部分,需要协同国家战略及布局,不仅为湖北省自身,也要为国家的低碳发展做出贡献。  相似文献   

18.
按照欧盟法律,自2012年1月1日起在欧盟境内起降的航班排放将被纳入欧盟排放交易系统。通过详细解读欧盟这一法律,指出欧盟排放交易体系是典型的"上限-交易"系统,即通过规定排放上限与进行配额交易实现减排目标。欧盟此举本质目的是强化气候变化主导权,最终为经济谋利,加快完善欧盟碳交易市场以建设欧元货币权力体系。其结果可能引发其与《联合国气候变化框架公约》及《京都议定书》等国际法之间的法律冲突,购买配额将对民航运输发展造成制约,"可测量、可报告和可核实"将对发展中国家能力建设提出挑战,并将一定程度影响《联合国气候变化框架公约》下的行业减排谈判走向。  相似文献   

19.
Abstract

The methods, tools and outputs of the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) show how building adaptive capacity to climate change can be embedded within a wide range of organizations. UKCIP has been operating since 1997 to support decision-makers' assessments of their vulnerability to climate change so that they can plan how to adapt. Whilst stakeholder engagement is now generally regarded as vital to ensure that research meets the needs of decision-makers for information, this usually means that stakeholders are positioned in a ‘consultative’ role in research. In contrast, the UKCIP aims to bridge the gap between research and policy so that decision-makers take control to produce research in ways that are useful to them. The Programme has been flexible and was developed incrementally, with increased scientific understanding, taking advantage of collaborative funding and facilitating long-standing partnerships. Whilst the core framework of scenarios and tools has been developed centrally, most studies have been stakeholder-funded and led. The Programme's results suggest that if decision-makers are supported, capacity is built for assessments, and crucially, research outputs are directly applicable to their ongoing work and strategic planning. This capacity-building has worked across scales and sectors and is an effective route to mainstreaming climate change adaptation. The implication, therefore, is that more support should be given by funding agencies to develop institutional capacity to support adaptation to climate change in both the private and public sectors.  相似文献   

20.
The existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has failed to deliver the rate of low-carbon technology transfer (TT) required to curb GHG emissions in developing countries. This failure has exposed the limitations of universalism and renewed interest in bilateral approaches to TT. Gaps are identified in the UNFCCC approach to climate change TT: missing links between international institutions and the national enabling environments that encourage private investment; a non-differentiated approach for (developing) country and technology characteristics; and a lack of clear measurements of the volume and effectiveness of TTs. Evidence from econometric literature and business experience on climate change TT is reviewed, so as to address the identified pitfalls of the UNFCCC process. Strengths and weaknesses of different methodological approaches are highlighted. International policy recommendations are offered aimed at improving the level of emission reductions achieved through TT.  相似文献   

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