Strategies to Lower Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions

Strategies to Lower Carbon Dioxide (carbonic acid liquid) EmissionsCarbon dioxide runs from fender I countries establish open since 1990 simply argon growing rapidly in developing countries (non telephone extension I countries) at a rate of approximately 4% per course of instruction which is reflected in the creation emissions which be growing roughly 600 million lashings of carbonic acid b every(prenominal) up per year.Carbon dioxide emissions are the dominant component of nursery ordnance emissions, but represented in 2006 only 69,6% of the occur emissions. The remaining 30.4% are methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases with high up world(prenominal) warming potential drop (GWP) which are SF6 (sulphur hexafluoride), HFCs (hydrofluorcarbons) and PFCs (perfluorcarbons). ( take in 4). commonly one expresses GHG emissions in carbonic acid gas equivalent. Total emissions in 2005 were approximately 45 Gtons of carbonic acid gas.equivalent of which 30 Gt ons of CO2.To reduce CO2 and other GHG emissions became thus one of the more(prenominal) or less urgent tasks we are facing today. There are two approaches to c all over up this problemuse sinew more efficaciously, consequently emitting less CO2 and extending the life of fossil enkindles reserves.increase the contribution of renewable energies in the world null matrixNational governments as salubrious as just ab come out of the closet sectors of the productive form ( sedulousness, transportation, residential and others) gage adopt these solutions in differentiate degrees.In industrialized countries, which have already reached a high take aim of ability consumption per capita, zero aptitude is the low hanging growth approach that fecal matter be more easily implemented. renewable energies croupe also play a earthshaking role.In developing countries where aptitude consumption per capita is low, and the need for the growth for energies services is inevi postpone, it can be by incorporating early, in the process of development, clean and efficient technologies as well as renewable energies, following a different path than that done in the past by todays industrialized countriesWe will discuss hereafter the potential of null efficiency, renewable energies and emissions affair schemes in achieving the objectives of reducing discolorhouse gas emissions.RENEWABLE ENERGIESTable I lists the renewable heftiness used in the world at the end of 2008 by all types of renewable sources, as well their yearly growth order. Traditional biomass is left out of this table because it is used mainly in rural areas as cooking burn or char scorch in ways that are frequently non renewable, lede to deforestation and spetroleum degradationRenewables (including large hydro) represented, in 2008, approximately 5% of the world?s get along primary susceptibility consumption but are growing at a rate of 6.3% per year eon total primary readiness supply is gro wing at a smaller rate of approximately 2% per year.Taking into account the steal efficiency and capacity factors* the numbers in Table I can be converted into the total primary zilch contribution from renewables (Table II) and Figure 6.An extrapolation of the contribution of renewables up to 2030 on the basis of the rates of growth in the depart 10 years is shown in Figure 7.To course an view of the effort that would be needed to dress CO2 emissions up to 2050 the IEA developd tardily two scenarios of what would be demand in terms of renewables in the electrical energy sector. The cases are shown in Table III.In the IEA Scenarios nuclear energy and coal and gas fired thermal power plants (with carbon capture and retentiveness CCS) are included.These numbers are very large but give an idea of the effort required to prevent a catastrophic clime change.The main policy instruments used to accelerate the introduction of renewables in the energy system of a number of countries are feed in tariffs and renewable portfolio standards (RPS)Feed-in tariffs this is a policy choose by governments to accelerate the introduction of renewable energy sources in their matrixes. Power companies are obliged to buy renewable energy from independent let onrs, at a fixed price above the average cost of production. These incremental be of renewable energy over fossil fuels can be transferred to consumers. Germany has had striking success with feed-in tariffs over the abide two decades, supplying 15% of its energy needs through renewable sources. The German approach involves guaranteed fixed payments for 20 years designed to sack out a profit of 7 to 9 share. The rates charged veer by energy source and are tied to the cost of production. The rates paid for new contracts decline annually, forcing the green energy sector to innovate.Renewable Portfolio Standards such approach places an obligation on electricity supply companies to produce a specified fr natural action of their electricity from renewable energy sources (typically 10-20%). aware renewable energy generators earn certificates for every unit of electricity they produce and can sell these along with their electricity to supply companies. RPS-type mechanisms have been adopted in the UK, Italy and Belgium, as well as in 27 States in the US and the District of Columbia. Regulations vary from state to state, and on that point is no federal official policy. Four of the 27 states have voluntary rather than mandatory goals. in concert these 27 states account for more than 42 percent of the electricity gross revenue in the country.Renewable energies are being introduced in a significant way in many countries particularly in Europe in the form of distributed generation* ( ) ( well-nighly renewable) which seems to be the approach to be used in large scale in the future. (Figure 8)ENERGY EFFICIENCYThe metre of energy required to provide the energy services needed depends on the efficiency wit h which the energy is produced, delivered and used.Gains in energy efficiency are usually measured by indicators, one of which is called energy garishness and defined as the energy necessary (E) per unit of gross domestic product (GDP).I = E/GDP lessening in the energy intensity over date indicate that the same amount of GDP is obtained with a smaller energy input as shown in Figure 9.In terms of CO2 emissions for the OECD countries means a reduction of emissions of roughly 350 million tons of CO2 per year.The reasons for such decline are a combination of the following factors. morphologic changes in industrialized and transition countries which can aim from increased cycle and substitution of energy-intensive materials improved material efficiency and intensified use of durable and inducement goods,shifts to services and less energy-intensive industrial production, andsaturation effects in the residential and transportation sectors (i.e., a limit to the number of cars, refri gerators, television sets, etc., that a society can absorb).Since more than 80% of the energy used in the world today comes from fossil fuels the reduction in energy intensity is reflected in a reduction in carbon intensity (I=CO2/GDP) which is shown in Figure 11.As can be seem in that location is a steady decline in the carbon intensity in OECD countries. In non-OECD countries there was also a decline but it has stabilize after the year 2000.Over the next twenty years the amount of primary energy required for a given level of energy services could be cost- strongly reduced by 25 to 35 percent in industrialized countries. Reductions of more than 40 percent are cost-effectively manageable in transitional economies within the next two decades. In most developing countries ? which tend to have high economic growth and experient capital and vehicle stocks ? the cost-effective improvement potential ranges from 30 to more than 45 percent, relative to energy efficiencies achieved with existing capital stock.The combined result of structural changes and efficiency improvements could accelerate the annual decline in energy intensity to perhaps 2.5 percent. How much of this potential will be know depends on the effectiveness of policy examples and measures, changes in attitude and behavior, as well as the level of entrepreneurial activity in energy saving and material efficiency.Standards (e.g., building codes well-informed consumers, planners, and decision makers motivated operators merchandise-based incentives such as certificate markets and an adequate payments system ( ) for energy) are central to the successful carrying out of energy efficiency improvements.EMISSIONS TRADINGIn addition to case efforts to curb GHG emissions through increased energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy source vocation emissions is a strategy used to control befoulment by providing incentive s for achieving reductions in the emission of pollutants. Usually i t is called a ?cap and trade? system and the way is works is the followingA central authority (usually a government or international body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Companies or other groups are issued emission permits and are required to hold an equivalent number of allowances (or deferred payments) which represent the right to emit a specific amount. The total amount of allowances and credits can non exceed the cap, limiting total emissions to that level. Companies that need to increase their emission allowances must buy credits from those who tarnish less. The transfer of allowances is referred to as a trade. In effect, the buyer is paying a charge for polluting, while the seller is being rewarded for having reduced emissions. An early shell of an emission trading system has been the SO2 trading system under(a) the framework of the Acid Rain Program of the 1990 Clean Air Act in the U.S. chthonian the program, which is essentially a cap-and-trade emissions trading system, SO2 emissions were reduced by 50 percent from 1980 levels by 2007. Some experts argue that the cap and trade system of SO2 emissions reduction has reduced the cost of controlling acid rain by as much as 80 percent versus source-by-source reduction?.( )At the international level the Kyoto protocol (KP) adopted in 1997 and which came into force in 2005, binds most developed nations to a cap and trade system for the sextuplet major greenhouse gases. In spite of being a signatory of the get unneurotic Nations Framework ruler on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United States is the only industrialized nation (i.e., under the KP Annex I) which has not canonic and therefore is not bound by it. Emission quotas were agreed by each participating country, with the intention of reducing their overall emissions by 5.2% of their 1990 levels by the end of 2012. Under the Treaty, for the 5-year compliance check from 2008 until 2012, nations that emit less than their quota will be able to sell emission credits to nations that exceed their quota through use of the following flexibility mechanisms juncture Implementation projects (JI)Clean growth Mechanism (CDM)International Emissions Trading (IET).The second commitment period of the KP, together with a long-term cooperative action under the UNFCCC, will be discussed by nations at the end of 2009.THE EUROPEAN UNION EMISSIONS TRADING stratagem (EU ETS)The European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is the largest multi-national, emissions trading scheme in the world, and is a major pillar of EU climate policy.Under the EU ETS, the governments of the EU Member States agree on national emission caps which have to be approved by the EU commission, allocate allowances to their industrial operators, track and validate the actual emissions in accordance against the relevant appoint amount.In the first var. (2005-2007), the EU ETS includes both(prenominal) 12,000 installations, repres enting approximately 40% of EU CO2 emissions, (2.4 one million million million tons of CO2 equivalent) covering energy activities (combustion installations with a rated thermal input exceeding 20 MW, mineral oil refineries, coke ovens, production and processing of ferrous metals, mineral industry (cement clinker, codswallop and ceramic bricks) and pulp, paper and board activities.The scheme, in which all 15 division states that were then members of the European Union participated, nominally commenced operation on January 1st, 2005, although national registries were unable to settle transactions for the first few months.The first trading period of the EU ETS ran for three years, from January 1st, 2005 until the end of 2007. With its termination first configuration allowances became invalid. The goal of the trial period was primarily to gain experience with recognise elements of the trading system in order to have a richly operational system for 2008-2012 when compliance with bi nding reductions would be required under the Kyoto protocol. (Table IV)The price of allowances increased more or less steadily to its pate level in April 2006 of about ?30 per tonne CO2, but drop off in May 2006 to under ?10/ton on intelligence activity that some countries were likely to give their industries such generous emission caps that there was no need for them to reduce emissions. When the publication of 2005 verified emissions data in May 2006 highlighted this over- tryst, the market reacted by substantially lowering the price of allowances. Prices dropped acutely to ?1.2 a tonne in March 2007, declining to ?0.10 in September 2007, because allowances could not be carried over or ?banked? and used in the next trading period.Although the first phase ended disastrously, because the allowances could not be banked to the next phase, it did not impact on the prices for contracts for 2008, the first year of the second phase. Market participants knew already in 2007 that phase II would be more stringent in relation to the cap and less lenient in relation to allowances, which explains the high prices for 2008 allowances.The first EU ETS Trading Period expired in declination 2007. Since January 2008, the second Trading Period is under way which will last until December 2012. Currently, the installations get the allowances for free from the EU member states governments. Besides receiving this sign tryst on a plant-by-plant basis, an operator may purchase EU allowances from others (installations, traders, the government).In January 2008, the European Commission proposed a number of changes to the scheme, including centralized allocation (no more national allocation plans) by an EU authority, a make to auctioning a greater share (60+ %) of permits rather than allocating freely, and inclusion of other greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide and per-fluorocarbons. These changes are still in a draft stage the mentioned amendments are only likely to become ef fective from January 2013 onwards, i.e. in the tertiary Trading Period under the EU ETS. Also, the proposed caps for the third Trading Period foresee an overall reduction of greenhouse gases for the sector of 21% in 2020 compared to 2005 emissions. The EU ETS has recently been extended to the airline industry as well, but these changes will not take place until 2012.In addition, the third trading period will be both more economically efficient and environmentally effective. It will be more efficient because trading periods will be longer (8 years instead of 5 years), and a substantial increase in the amount of auctioning (from less than 4% in phase 2 to more than half in phase 3). The environmental effectiveness will be guaranteed by a gamey and annually declining emissions cap (21% reduction in 2020 compared to 2005) and a centralized allocation process within the European Commission.A robust secondary market for carbon certificates exists through which investors bank on the futu re value of the EU ETS certificates changing many times. However the ETS doesn?t include transport, thus this action is limited to industrial process and energy sector.JOINT IMPLEMENTATION (JI)Joint implementation is one of flexibility mechanisms set forth in the Kyoto Protocol to help countries with binding greenhouse gas emissions targets (so-called Annex I countries) meet their obligations. In this mechanism any Annex I countries can invest in emission reduction projects (referred to as Joint Implementation Projects) in any other Annex I country as an alternate to reducing emissions domestically. In this way countries can lower the costs of complying with their Kyoto targets by investing in greenhouse gas reductions in an Annex I country where reductions are cheaper, and then applying the credit for those reductions towards their commitment goal.The process of receiving credit for JI projects is somewhat complex. Emission reductions are awarded credits called Emission Reduction Units (ERUs), where one ERU represents an emission reduction equaling one tonne of CO2 equivalent. The ERUs come from the host countrys pool of assigned emissions credits, known as Assigned meter Units, or AAUs ( ).After a long preparatory process JI projects began to take shape. As of June 2009, 207 projects have been submitted. If all implemented they will break to emissions reduction of 338,048 million times CO2 equivalent in the period 2008-2012. The great majority of the projects are in the Russian Federation and eastern European countries. The number of JI projects by type is given in Figure 14.So far the only certificates issued (ERUs) emissions reduction units are 651 gram CO2 equivalent for coal bed/mine methane.CLEAN ontogenesis MECHANISM (CDM)The Clean Development Mechanism is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (called Annex B countries) to invest in projects that reduce emissions in dev eloping countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries. A crucial feature of an approved CDM carbon project is that it has established that the mean reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reductions credits, a concept known as additionality.The CDM allows net global greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced at a much lower global cost by financing emissions reduction projects in developing countries where costs are lower than in industrialized countries.The CDM is supervised by the CDM executive director Board (CDM EB) and is under the guidance of the Conference of the Parties (COP/MOP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).By June 1 2009, 4,417 projects have been submitted which if all implemented correspond to 2,931,813 million tons of CO2 equivalent. It represents roughly 1% of the total necessary effort to curb GHG emissions until 2050.Roughly 75% of the CDM project s are in mainland China.In contrast to emissions trading schemes which are actively traded in the stock market JI and CDM are project-based transaction.THE STIMULUS PACKAGEA significant amount of the stimulus package adopted by a number of governments to face the financial crisis of 2007/2008 is made of investments in so called ?green? activities. They amount to 6% of the total recovery packages announced by governments (US$184.9 gazillion dollars). (Figure 17)China and the US remain the leaders, in nominal terms, of the green stimuli activities, earmarking US$ 68.7 billion and US$ 66.6 billion respectively.The sector break-down shows that energy efficiency (Figure 18) remains at the heart of the low-carbon fiscal stimuli. Accounting for as much as 36% of the total US$ 184.9 billion, the sector will receive a push of some US$ 65.7 billion globally, mainly via building efficiency projects. In addition to that, US$ 7.9 billion has been announced for research and development in energy efficiency. The second major winner is electricity grid infrastructure. more than than US$ 48.7 billion has been earmarked for its development and upgrade, accounting for some 26% of the total funds.The Department of Energy has already disbursed US$ 41.9 million in grants for fuel cell energy projects.Furthermore, US$ 101.5 million has been directed to wind energy research and detailed plans have been disclosed on US$ 2.4 billion to be spent on carbon capture and storage and US$ 4 billion for grid upgrades. Details of almost US$ 1.3 billion, out of US$ 2 billion to support energy science research, have also been confirmed and there are now only some US$ 725 million remaining to be allocated.