UNFCCC COP-12 Side Event on Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Management

This side event is co-hosted by the Energy Research Center (ECN) Policy Studies (the Netherlands) and the Global Carbon Project (GCP) and it deals with co-benefits of urban air quality management and the greenhouse gas mitigation. The aim is to stimulate discussion on the potential for using the co-benefits approach and why we are seeing so few initiatives happening in this field under the current climate regime. In this one and half hour session, discussions will be made on various dimensions of this issue. Speakers include representatives from ECN Policy Studies, GCP, US EPA's Integrated Environmental Strategies Program, Global Environment Facility (GEF) Sustainable Transport Portfolio and the Bus Rapid Transit Program of Bogotá (which is the first to have its methodology approved for Clean Development Mechanism).

Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal
Executive Director, Global Carbon Project
Tsukuba International Office

The Policy Studies Group of the Energy Research Center (ECN) in the Netherlands and the Global Carbon Project (GCP) Tsukuba International Office in Japan jointly co-hosted a 90 minute official side-event on November 15th during the deliberations at the 12th Conference of the Parties (COP-12) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Nairobi, Kenya. The side event focused on the status and potential of “co-benefits” and “Clean Development Mechanisms” (CDM) in the context of greenhouse gas and air quality control, barriers to their implementation, and an assessment of the future. The principal speakers in the session were Emiel van Sambeek (ECN), Shobhakar Dhakal (GCP), Lew Fulton of (Global Environmental Facility (UNEP)) and Julia Martinez from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Environmental Strategies partner in Mexico. The session was attended by about 50 people which was quite large given the fact that the time slot conflicted with Kofi Anan’s speech, the session venue was a 15 minute walk from main conference center, and the time slot also conflicted with Sir Nicolas Stern’s discussion on assessing the economic impacts of climate change, which was commissioned by the British Government.

Scientific Links Between Air Quality and Climate Change

The session asserted that the scientific knowledge on the role of air quality and related factors in climate change, such as aerosol, black carbon, biomass burning and their inter-boundary movements at a global scale is much clearer than before. In the IPCC Third Assessment Report, the uncertainties remain large and the session awaited the better understanding of the relative and absolute radiative forcing of such parameters related to air quality in the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC which is to be released in 2007. Better information would pave the way for further action at the local level on co-benefits.

Definitional Issues

The session discussed some of the different terms that are used commonly to define co-benefits. At least three definitions, those used by the climate change community, urban environmental management experts, and the integrated response community, were discussed. Each of the three definitions emerged from the different scales from which co-benefits are viewed. The session however asserted that a multi-scale approach and, more importantly, a synergistic view would be most effective to harmonize GHG concerns and local issues such as air quality. CDM has been a key instrument in realizing such co-benefits.

Lessons Learned

In an air quality control context, co-benefit is especially important since not all GHG mitigation measures necessarily improve air quality or all air pollution control measures reduce GHGs. Therefore CDM may assists in the exploration and implementation of the avenues for such synergies. In this context, the session discussed the progress of ongoing research by ECN in four Asian cities as a means to understand the barriers and opportunities for CDM in an air quality context. The experience of Mexico City in formulating and implementing the integrated strategies provided further insight into how such integrated strategies can be made as a part of a complete policy package that can gather support at the local level. Urban transport remained a key corner-stone of these discussions. Although not all GHG mitigation reduces air pollution, the presentation on the case of Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and Kathmandu showed that synergies exist in the simultaneous mitigation of GHGs and air quality.

CDM in the Context of Other Multilateral Financial Mechanisms

A key part of the discussions was the role of multilateral financial mechanisms and how they operated along with CDM. For the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the synergistic approach appears promising, especially those dealing with transit and non-motorized projects. Operational Guidelines 11 (GEF OP-11) steers projects in a co-benefits direction, however in that case, climate must be at the heart of GEF project proposals. It was also noted that GEF finding mechanisms are different from CDM but GEF funding can be complementary to CDM efforts. Coordination and communication between various bilateral and multilateral financial mechanisms at conceptual, programmatic and operational levels needs to be promoted.

Barriers and New Emerging Directions

The session identified that the exact role of CDM in air quality and especially for transport are determined by a number of factors which so far pose as barriers. One of the key barriers from a financial viewpoint is that the revenue volume from Certified Emission Credits (CERs) of CDM in transportation projects remains very small relative to its total capital investment and CER revenue is unlikely to push unattractive projects toward making it attractive. The transport sector requires more “exotic methodologies” that other sectors, because it is difficult to verify and monitor and because it poses a greater degree of uncertainty for future implementation. At the same time, the project-based framework required by the current CDM rule is limiting and makes quantification complicated because multiple small sources governed by personal choices are difficult to capture at a project level and such a framework misses emission reduction opportunities such as fuel efficiency improvement programs, renewable fuel standards, and comprehensive urban planning or growth efforts. For this reason, some of the attempted CDM projects in the transport sector are on a small scale and their large scale impacts are nominal, such as fuel or technology switches. Accordingly, the number of projects that are submitted for approval to the CDM Executive Board remains extremely low and so far only one project, the Bus Lane Project of Bagota, has been approved.

The discussions noted some new directions emerging out of COP/MOP-1 which, in principal, paved the way for programmatic CDMs. Recently, there have been some new thrusts in making methodologies for programmatic CDMs. The transport sector and air quality management programs would benefit from such a new CDM approach. The greater role of the transport sector in CDM projects would depend on the answers to the following questions.

• (a) Are low-hanging fruits picked, such as land fill gas utilization, fugitive emissions, and methane recovery?
• (b) Have the methodological complications for CDM been reduced?
• (c) Has the strict project-based approach of CDM been loosened to pave way for large scale and sector-wide GHG mitigation options in transport?
• (d) Are data limitations, emission factor issues, and uncertainties being addressed at all scales?

Finally, the meeting realized that there is a need to scale-down the global actions which are usually tailored to the greenhouse gas reduction community, and at the same time there is a need to scale-up the actions which are locally tailored by the urban management community that deals with urban planning, air pollution control, and transport management. A win-win situation to global and local benefits though may be difficult to realize, is the way to approach and matching of resources for the same is needed to achieved and CDM remains one of the key tools for realizing such co-benefits.

This article was published in CGER News: Vol. 17 No.10, January 2007

Emiel van Sambeek (vansambeek[AT]ecn.nl) and Shobhakar Dhakal

For details on the Curb Air project, see: http://www.curb-air.org/