News from Geneva:
Consumption-based Carbon Accounting
Mauricio López Dardaine
In Argentina, understandably, most of my
colleagues concerned with Climate Change have their attention focused on the
final presidential election round to be held on November 22nd.
However, I feel that because the Paris November COP is also approaching, one
ought not to wait to comment on some relevant aspects related to green house
gas emissions, Trade and Climate Change.
I was invited by ICTSD[1]
to an experts workshop held in Geneva, Switzerland, on October 8th. The
workshop dealt on “Consumption-based Carbon Accounting and Policies:
Opportunities, Barriers and Implementation”. I must say the quality of the
event was most rewarding for those of us present. The venue could not have been
better chosen, within Parc Mon Repos by Lehman Lake. Plus the perfect sunny
autumn day.
As our readers know, our comments tend to
be rather short, so it would be impossible to comment on all the valuable
presentations[2] this group made, which in
turn resulted in rich questions and comments from most of the experts present.
This said, let me just touch on one of the
workshop presentations related to what has been the Leitmotiv of our blog [3] since our start-up
in September 2012: Trade and Climate Change. The other panellists ought to forgive me
for my professional bias.
I here refer to “Consumption-based Climate
Policy Instruments: Interactions with Trade” by Sonja Hawkings from ICTSD. My
notes may not do justice to the actual presentation. And as a Power-Point presentation is not exactly
the kind of thing that can be reproduced in a short space such as this one, and
much less without some expanding or explanation, let me focus on an article by
Ms. Hawkins, Doug Crawford-Brown and Michael Grubb where the authors explore
the trade impacts occasioned by consumers. Because trade impacts, both indirect
and direct, are at the core of the workshop presentation by Ms. Hawkins.
CLIMATE CHANGE - Exploring the trade impacts of consumer-facing climate policies
Sonja Hawkins, Doug Crawford-Brown and Michael Grubb
“Climate change is one of the biggest challenges
facing mankind today and responding to it will require a significant scale-up
of climate action through a wide range of mitigation tools. To date, however,
the majority of mitigation policies target production patterns. This is in part
a reflection of current accounting frameworks that are based on assessments of
domestic emissions. In other words, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are
attributed to the countries in which they occur during given production
processes. This focus on mitigation policies that target certain production
patterns is also partly due to the lack of reliable information about the
effectiveness of consumer-facing policies in delivering global emissions
reductions. The focus on production, however, fails to take into account the
significant flows of carbon embedded in goods and services traded
internationally and the role consumers play in driving these flows. Carbon
embedded in international trade accounts for almost one quarter of global
emissions.
A pure production focus misses opportunities to address consumption as a driver of rising GHG emissions, and the many mitigation options along the value chain, as well as at the point of final consumption and use. The gap between countries’ territorial and consumption-based emissions and the role of consumption as a driver of GHG emissions was recognised in one of the reports issued last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Complementing production-based climate policies and measures with consumer-facing policies and instruments can help address carbon embedded in international trade in order to drive greater and more effective mitigation.”…
"El cambio climático es, en la actualidad, uno de los mayores retos a los que se enfrenta la humanidad y para hacerle frente se tendrán que aumentar las acciones climáticas a través de una amplia variedad de herramientas de mitigación. Sin embargo, hoy en día la mayoría de las políticas de mitigación se orientan a los patrones de producción debido a los marcos contables que se basan en las evaluaciones de las emisiones nacionales.
Lo anterior quiere decir que las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) se atribuyen a los países en donde ocurren durante los procesos de producción. Dicho enfoque también se debe a la falta de información confiable sobre la efectividad de las políticas orientadas al consumidor en la reducción de emisiones globales.
El enfoque en la producción no toma en cuenta los flujos significativos de carbono integrado en los bienes y servicios que se comercian internacionalmente y el papel que juegan los consumidores en dichos flujos. De hecho, el carbono integrado en el comercio internacional representa casi un cuarto de las emisiones globales (Peters, Davis & Andrew, 2012).
Un enfoque centrado solo en la producción pierde oportunidades para abordar el consumo como impulsor del aumento de las emisiones de GEI y opciones de mitigación a lo largo de la cadena de valor, así como en el punto final de uso y consumo. En uno de los informes que publicó el año pasado el Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático, precisamente, se reconoció la brecha entre las emisiones territoriales y de consumo de los países y el papel de este último como impulsor de emisiones de GEI.
El complementar medidas y políticas climáticas basadas en la producción con instrumentos y políticas orientadas al consumidor podría ser de ayuda para tratar el carbono integrado en el comercio internacional y con eso impulsar una mitigación mayor y más efectiva."
Let me comment on what I feel is extremely relevant in
this approach: “A pure production focus misses opportunities to address consumption as
a driver of rising GHG emissions, and the many mitigation options along
the value chain, as well as at the point of final consumption and use.”
In countries such as our own, Argentina, as from 2011,
Climate Change awareness has dramatically increased among company executives,
government officials and most important, among citizens, which are in turn
consumers.
However, the measuring of the carbon foot-print of
products, which now quite a number of leading firms and also key production sectors
have undertaken or are undertaking, focus production, and also in some cases,
distribution. But, as expressed by the authors, fall short of measuring the
green house gas emissions driven by consumption. And therefore, even if the
concern regarding production -and distribution- offer now both business and
government the chance to put into motion mitigation options, opportunities to
deal with the vital consumption end is omitted.
As efforts by electricity companies by switching from the
still extensive use of fuel-oil (at least in Argentina) to clean forms of
energy would be meaningless, if the users still adhered to the Edison original
form of light bulbs, applying mitigation
measures to curb GHG emissions along the production -and distribution- lines,
looks like a half hearted effort unless the consumer also acts taking emissions
into consideration.
Thus the need for a more complete form of
Cosumption-based carbon accounting.
[2] The Project Team supporting this initiative
is composed of leading experts in fields such as climate policy, economics,
environmental research and modelling. Each member is a valuable asset to the
outcome of the project and will contribute substantially to its product and
results. The members will work in their area of expertise as well as consulting
each other to make sure the project will gain input from all fields at every
stage: the Netherlands
Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Institute for Prospective
Technological Studies, the Norwegian University for Science and Technology, Cambridge
Econometrics, DIW Berlin, Wirtschafts Universität Wien, Universiteit Leiden, University
of Cambridge, Climate Strategies and International Centre for Trade and
Sustainable Development.
