ECO Newsletter

Earlier this year, ECO was delighted to read submission upon submission referencing the potential for removing fossil fuel subsidies to contribute substantially to pre-2020 mitigation ambition. In fact, it was so exciting that we counted the countries represented by these submissions. Turns out, over 110 countries supported submissions calling on fossil fuel subsidy reform to be included as an option for raising mitigation ambition.

Well, Thursday morning it seemed as though many parties had forgotten about these submissions, only a few months after they were sent in. Despite hours of discussion, fossil fuel subsidies seemed to not have made it into the morning’s ADP workstream 2 discussions.

Fortunately, not all countries have fully forgotten this issue, though, and yesterday afternoon’s ADP session provided some hope. ECO would like to thank the Philippines, Costa Rica and Switzerland for recognizing this important opportunity for additional pollution reductions. (ECO would also note rumours that the US and Mexico referred to fossil fuel subsidy reform in other sessions in recent days as well).

The IEA has told us that removing fossil fuel subsidies could close the mitigation gap by nearly one half between existing pledges and what’s needed by 2020 to put us on a path to limit global warming to 2 degrees.
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It is no secret that the future of the CDM looks grim. According to the High Level Panel on the CDM Policy Dialogue, the CDM will produce an excess of roughly 1.25 billion offset credits because of low ambition by developed countries. This has driven the prices in the cellar and stirred creativity on how to keep the market flourishing. In the CMP opening plenary, India suggested setting up a stabilisation fund to buy up excess offset credits – something that has also been recommended by the High Level Panel on the CDM. A large chunk of the excess offset credits will come from HFC-23 destruction facilities in India and China. Credits form such HFC-23 projects have been banned by major buyers (EU, Australia and New Zealand) for their lack of environmental integrity and sustainable development benefits. With a lack of buyers, such a fund would provide a convenient new source of money!

Even if HFC-23 credits were not allowed in such a fund, there is more to worry about. New findings from the CDM Policy research team show that large-scale power supply CDM projects, which are expected to generate the majority of CDM credits until 2020, are rarely additional and therefore increase global emissions.
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L’Afrique cherche toujours sa solution pour faire face à un double défi : donner accès à l’énergie à l’ensemble de ses populations tout en anticipant la finitude des ressources fossiles et l’impact croissant des changements climatiques.

La pauvreté, insécurité et précarité énergétique qui caractérisent le continent conditionnent sa croissance et influencent son développement. La demande d’énergie en Afrique n’est pas satisfaite et freine le développement économique, la création d’entreprises et d’emploi, l’accès à l’éducation et aux systèmes de santé performants. Pire, une grande partie des communautés n’ont toujours pas accès à l’électricité pour leurs besoins vitaux. Peut être parce que dans les dernières décennies, les choix énergétiques sur le continent donnent la priorité aux énergies fossiles – charbon et pétrole – qui contribuent à dégrader l’environnement, à renforcer la pauvreté énergétique et ne permettent pas de faire face aux changements climatiques.

Pourtant les sources ne manquent pas sur le continent, et le potentiel est infini pour répondre aux besoins énergétiques de l’Afrique et même au-delà. C’est pour faire face à ce défi que les ONG se sont mobilisées à Rio+20 pour proposer des solutions: les énergies renouvelables et l’efficacité énergétique! Energie pour tous ou Energy for all, ce slogan devenu le credo de toutes les institutions trouvera-t-il exécuteur, dans un monde de plus en plus aveugle aux sources d’énergies les moins polluantes, les plus sobre en carbone mais entreprenant pour le gaz de schiste ?
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