Energy Savings Man swoops on Parliament

POLICY WORK >> ENERGY SAVINGS

Energy Savings Man paid a visit to the European Parliament to ensure MEPs were serious about energy efficiency

CAN Europe General Assembly April 2012

Members met in April to discuss EU Climate and Energy policy

Adaptation against the odds

Climate adaptation photo exhibition at Mundo-B, in conjunction with Practical Action, Feburary 2011

CAN Europe Directors Past and Present

CAN Europe Directors past and present

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Bonn: The clock is ticking

14 May 2012

man walking infront of UN sign (Photo credit: Neil Palmer, CIAT)

The latest round of UN climate negotiations have officially started in Bonn and negotiators have two weeks to focus on moving the process forwards. Broadly speaking, it presents an opportunity for either two weeks of genuine progress on climate action or two weeks of frustration and disappointment. There will be five working groups running in parallel in 2012, and keeping them all on course will be no easy feat, but it’s vital that the process remains on course this year. We don’t want to see any backtracking on the good will and progress that was accomplished last year in Durban.

European politicians and the media seem more concerned with the changes in governments and power than with climate change as the Euro-crisis continues. Regardless of media interest, CAN Europe and many other groups representing civil society will be in Bonn pushing for progress on both the pledges made so far, while calling for countries to increase climate action between now and 2020 to match what the science calls for.

For this to occur, delegates in Bonn must deliver results in several areas:

Bloomberg report: Clever with numbers but what does their 30% equal?

27 April 2012

Bloomberg New Energy Finance launched its new report yesterday in Brussels, analysing the costs of moving toward a 30% GHG cuts in the EU. The report lays out a number of different possible cost scenarios if the EU moved beyond the current 20% climate target. Unfortunately the report is far from thorough and falls short of presenting an adequate picture of the true costs and benefits. CAN-Europe notes for example that the Bloomberg report does not analyse the health or social benefits of enhanced climate action, such as improved air quality or a boost to the job market, which would of course have a direct effect on costs.

The report does not propose additional financial mechanisms to support emission reductions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) besides trading in allowances from non-ETS sectors such as agriculture and transport. CEE countries would still benefit from this situation while moving towards a 30% emissions reductions target.

CAN-Europe is especially concerned that the report assumes that only 21% out of 30% target will be achieved domestically. The remaining 9% is expected to be delivered through clean development mechanisms (CDM) offsets.

In the “simplest scenario” the annual costs of moving from 20 % to 30% are expected to reach 3.5 bn per year on average. These are additional costs, on top of the costs of existing climate and RES target implementation. Under this scenario the ETS price is assumed to reach 33 euro per tonne while the price of non-ETS allowances is assumed to reach 8 euro.

CAN-Europe welcomes the new analysis as an important contribution in the debate about increased climate ambition. At the same time we call on Bloomberg to further develop the new study, exploring costs and benefits of 30% domestic emissions reductions.

Sandbag: New data adds pressure to rescue Europe's emissions trading scheme

02 April 2012

*** Press release (EU) for immediate release ***

New data released today from the European Commission find the emissions covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) were 1.7 billion tonnes in 2011, down 2.45% on the previous year [1]. This reduction is unlikely to be a result of the ETS which, including auctions, assigned 163 million excess carbon allowances in 2011 [2], and is most likely a reflection of lower than expected economic output and other climate policies.

This brings the total surplus accrued by the ETS over the current carbon budget to 355 million allowances with auctions included. The largest of these surpluses continue to accrue to the highest emitting manufacturing sectors, steel and cement, which now account for 279 million and 195 million spare allowances respectively [3]. As these surpluses continue to accrue, most analyst now agree that the European carbon market will be oversupplied out to at least 2020, depressing the carbon price, and reducing the market incentives for low-carbon investment for nearly a decade.