Author: Frank Jotzo

China has been portrayed as the Copenhagen spoiler for its hard stance in the finale of the UN climate negotiations. China only reluctantly agreed to some transparency on  emissions accounting, reportedly insisted on numbers for emissions targets being taken out of the Copenhagen Accord, and demonstrated its strength in various ways that did not please some (mainly Western) countries.

But what really matters is what commitments it made for emissions reductions and the policies to implement them. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Frank Jotzo, ANU and Salim Mazouz, Ecoperspectives

With the climate negotiations getting to the pointy end, there is attention not just on headline commitments, but on what countries might in fact do at home to reign in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Indonesia is in Copenhagen with an announced target of reducing emissions by between 26 per cent and 41 per cent at 2020, compared to a business-as-usual scenario. Behind the scenes, serious work is going on to identify policy approaches that can deliver on this goal.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance this week released a Green Paper on Economic and Fiscal Policy Strategies for Climate Change Mitigation in Indonesia. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Frank Jotzo, ANU

At the Pittsburgh G20 meeting, Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono (SBY) reportedly said that Indonesia had decided on a national climate change action plan ‘that will reduce our emissions by 26 per cent by 2020 from BAU (Business As Usual)’, and by up to 41 per cent with international support.

This would be a substantial reduction, including in global terms.

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Author: Frank Jotzo

The US House of Representatives has passed the Waxman-Markey bill, or American Clean Energy and Security Act. The bill mandates national emissions reductions using economy-wide emissions trading and various other policy measures. The bill is now entering the Senate process, and though the hurdles there are much higher than in the House, America could have in place comprehensive and not unambitious carbon emissions control in the near future. It would be a momentous change for the US, and it would catalyse action elsewhere.

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Author: Frank Jotzo

Some dramatic shifts in Australian political positions on climate change policy seemed to happen over the last few days. Parliamentary enquiries into the merits of emissions trading were initiated then extinguished only to be revived by the other side of politics, and confusion reigned over who supports an emissions tax over emissions trading. Some on the left as well as the right argued that emissions trading should be ditched in favour of a carbon tax. For example, the Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss claims that an emissions tax is better for the environment because under emissions trading individual action to reduce greenhouse gases is futile. Meanwhile John Humphreys at the Centre for Independent Studies says that a tax is better for business than trading.

Can both be right, and do they in fact agree? No and no, and the reason is that the real arguments remain hidden.

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Author: Frank Jotzo

Getting a meaningful global post-Kyoto treaty will need a small number of governments to design a deal outside of the UN negotiations, or else things are likely to get bogged down in acrimony. The US and China, plus Europe and India, are obvious participants.

But who else should be at the table? Some other large developing countries, who collectively account for a sizeable share of global emissions and growth, must be included.

This is what Al Gore, understood to be influential in informing the Obama administration on climate change, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week:

“Developing countries that were once reluctant to join in the first phases of a global response to the climate crisis have themselves now become leaders in demanding action and in taking bold steps on their own initiatives. Brazil has proposed an impressive new plan to halt the destructive deforestation in that nation. Indonesia has emerged as a new constructive force in the talks. And China’s leaders have gained a strong understanding of the need for action and have already begun important new initiatives.” Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Frank Jotzo

It won’t be easy to pull off a solution to the global climate change dilemma, but with leadership from a President who enjoys a huge measure of goodwill around most of the globe, the answer just might be ‘yes we can’. That’s what I argue in a longer piece in today’s Canberra Times.

Was Keynes thinking of clean energy?

You might think that now, with the new US administration needing to fix the banks, keep Detroit alive and deal with soaring unemployment, might seem like a truly bad time to be expecting breakthroughs on climate policy. But it ain’t necessarily so.

Obama needs to put in place effective domestic policies to establish America’s credibility on the issue. Getting Congress to approve domestic emissions caps is a much more likely prospect than it was just a few years ago, yet it may still depend on getting climate commitments in place in China, and recession could dampen the appetite for putting a price on carbon for a while. But the downturn may very well mean large amounts of public money for clean energy and improving energy efficiency. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Frank Jotzo

“Crisis may cut greenhouse emissions”, AAP says after asking me about it. Well up to a point – and quite possibly the opposite in the longer term.

Recession in the US slows energy demand, think of people travelling less, demand for manufactured goods dropping and housing construction on ice. A similar story will play out elsewhere depending on how strong the effect of financial market turmoil is on the real economy. But it is likely to be a short-term dip in growth rates, with levels of annual emissions not changing much.

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Author: Frank Jotzo

The challenges of international climate equity are well taken up by Yongsheng Zhang in this post. He suggests that emissions rights may be allocated on an equal per capita basis. Indeed equal per capita seems the one simple principle that could cut work, because it could be acceptable to the majority of developing countries. A gradual transition from current levels to equal per capita levels would be necessary to strike the balance with interests of high-emitting countries. It’s called ‘contraction and convergence’, because the global emissions budget contracts over time, and countries’ per capita allocations converge.

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