An Assessment of the First Multilateral Assessment:
What went on during the 1st multinational assessment working group meeting on December 6, 2014
My morning started today with a frantic run to my dorm’s dining hall to try to get breakfast before the exciting events of the COP20 kicked off at 10AM. With a dining hall that opens at 10AM, I did the fastest run-through of the continental breakfast with my big tupperware container to dash back up to my room to follow this historic event by 10:05.
Of course, things ended up actually starting around 10:15. However, the events that followed the late start were really insightful and showed monumental advances in national efforts.
Why was this a big deal?
Today marked the 1st ever multilateral assessment working group session. “Multilateral assessment” is a fancy way to refer to a comprehensive review of the policies, actions, and results of individual nation’s progress in combating global climate change.
In short, 17 developed countries gave very extensive technical reviews of their national reports of climate and emissions statistics and progress. They showed their history of emissions, projected future emissions, and pledged overall emissions targets. Country representatives talked about specific policies, energy resource plans, and international cooperation efforts to show that they are working for global change. After their presentations, the floor was opened for questions from any governmental party present.
This morning, we got to hear from the European Union, Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Denmark before the closing of the working group around 12:30.
European Union
Foremost, the European Union pledges an economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction of 20% (relative to 1999) by 2020, and talked about the potential to move to 30% if developing countries commit themselves to comparable levels. When later asked about why they’re not just committing to this higher pledge, they responded that the 20% level is hard enough already given their financial recession and other social and economic factors. They did also stress that the EU member countries have been so helpful at working to achieve 20% reductions that they do see a potential for 30% with enough motivation.
The EU also mentioned that it currently has functional policies and working implementation both in its EU Climate and Energy Package and within the member countries. The EU is currently implementing both KP CP2 (the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol)- and Convention-based policies, with the only inherent difference between the two as the exclusion of LULUCF (Land use, land-use change, and forestry) sectors and NF3 in the Convention policies. One of the main ways that the EU has seen successes is through an emissions trading system in which it has capped the amount of emissions any particular member state can emit. It also stressed that individual member states have made a huge contribution by setting their own targets for 2020 for non-ETS sectors (transportation, buildings, agriculture, waste, small businesses).
An interesting area of discussion brought up was the EU’s “overachieving.” The EU projects that its emissions will actually be reduced even more than its target of 20% by 2020. In 2012, for example, the GHG emissions were already 18% below 1990 levels.
Austria
Austria kicked off its presentation with an overview of Austrian history and how it impacted their GHG emissions. Even though there has been an increase in the number of households and national GDP, there has been a fairly constant GHG total that is very close to EU average, showing that CO2 emissions per capita and per unit are therefore steadily decreasing. This shows great promise for Austria, however it will need to pick up the pace even more if it wants to eventually outpace population and economic growth.
However, Austria has committed itself under both the convention and the EU to a target of 20% reductions and an additional reduction of 16% in non-ETS sectors by 2020. Austria is doing this by focusing predominantly on the transportation and building sectors. To curb emissions in the transportation sector, Austria is implementing fiscal incentives and methods of mobility management (lowering emissions by reducing travel demands). One of the methods it talked about explicitly was the implementation of registration tags on vehicles that show how energy-efficient they are. In the building sector, Austria focuses on support and legislation for more energy-efficient buildings and heating systems.
Austria was the first of the parties to really talk about changing the source of its energy supply by increasing the share of renewable energy. It calls to do so with an increased amount of biomass-created energy, which was echoed by the remainder of the parties I saw speak this morning.
Croatia:
In Croatia, GHG emissions have experienced significant fluctuations over time, but overall it claims very low emissions per capita. It also concentrates mostly in the energy sector and transportation sector and really showed its promised growth in renewable energy sources.
Croatia pledges an increase to 20% renewable energy sources in 2020 and showed the current progress in this sector. In 2005, Croatia got 12.8% of its energy from renewable sources; in 2012 this number grew to 15.5%. Croatia also cited biomass as its preferred renewable fuel choice going forward and even pledged to increase the growing and planting of fast-growing biomass species.
As far as other methods of GHG emission reductions, Croatia talked about financial support for alternative fuels, more energy-efficient vehicles, and a few methods of personal energy consumption reductions. These would include energy labeling — allowing the consumer to know how much energy went into producing a product — and heat energy consumption reductions by stricter building standards.
Cyprus
Cyprus is one of the newer countries to get on board with the international community’s actions. Though it just joined the European Union in 2012, it has made significant leaps as an individual island nation. During the 2013–2020 period, Cyprus commits to 20% reductions in GHG emissions, a very steep decrease for only 7 years. By 2020, it also pledges a 5% reduction in the non-ETS sectors
“Cyprus is on its way to meet its national emission reduction target.”
One of the main ways that Cyprus is meeting and will meet these reductions is through a transition to using natural gas for electricity production. It plans to expand this to also using natural gas for heating and cooling of buildings and transportation, as well as promoting biomass as an additional alternative fuel.
A notable figure that stood out to me during Cyprus’s presentation was that they attributed a large spike in the emission reductions to the nation’s economic recession. I wonder if economic growth will lead them to higher rates of emissions going forward.
Denmark
Denmark also pledged to a 20% reduction compared to 1999 levels in GHG by 2020 and will contribute to the joint EU target under the convention. Over the past years, Denmark has had very significant emissions reductions.
One of the most striking features of Denmark’s presentation was its commitment to renewable fuels. Denmark has ambitious longterm targets: 100% renewable electricity production in 2035 and a 100% phase out of fossil fuels by 2050. It plans to achieve these goals through increased use of biomass and wind power using more efficient technologies that are becoming more readily available.
During the Q&A, China called for Denmark to share its methodology for success with the rest of the world, asking if Denmark had specific policies that it would want to promote. In response, Denmark said that it was both willing and excited to cooperate with many partners globally. Denmark’s model for achieving significant emissions reductions as well as increased renewable energy sources could be implemented by countries around the world.
Conclusions
The chair of the SBI closed the session after Denmark. The SBI resumed at roughly 3pm today.
Throughout the rest of the day, as well as a little into next week, more countries will step up to show how they have been making progress reducing GHG emissions.
The progress that many of these countries have made could serve as incredible models for countries around the world. So far the multilateral assessment process has brought really enlightening ideas to the forefront, and I’m excited to see what other countries have to say during the remainder of the SBI working group meetings during the rest of COP20.
Listening and processing the progress of these countries and the goals they are striving to really made me feel optimistic about the fate of global GHG emissions. If these models are followed and their goals are reached, I believe that there may be hope still for a minimal global average temperature increase.
