Mitigating methane emissions from livestock: a global analysis of sectoral policies

Methane emissions from livestock enteric fermentation and manure management represent about 40% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector and are projected to increase substantially in the coming decades, with most of the growth occurring in non-Annex 1 countries. To mitigate livestock methane, incentive policies based on producer-level emissions are generally not feasible because of high administrative costs and producer transaction costs. In contrast, incentive policies based on sectoral emissions are likely administratively feasible, even in developing countries. This study uses an economic model of global agriculture to estimate the effects of two sectoral mitigation policies: a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme based on average national methane emissions per unit of commodity. The analysis shows how the composition and location of livestock production and emissions change in response to the policies. Results illustrate the importance of global mitigation efforts: when policies are limited to Annex 1 countries, increased methane emissions in non-Annex 1 countries offset approximately two-thirds of Annex 1 emissions reductions. While non-Annex 1 countries face substantial disincentives to enacting domestic carbon taxes, developing countries could benefit from participating in a global sectoral emissions trading scheme. We illustrate one scheme in which non-Annex 1 countries collectively earn USD 2.4 billion annually from methane emission permit sales when methane is priced at USD 30/t CO₂-eq.     

Identifying burdens of coping with climate change: A typology of the duties of climate justice

One of the central questions in climate change debates concerns fair burden-sharing, i.e. justice in the distribution of costs of undertaking climate-managing policies. In this paper it is argued that in order to distribute such costs justly, it is necessary to have a nuanced understanding of what types of burdens they represent. Climate managing policies are usually divided into responses that seek to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mitigation) and responses that seek to prevent harm arising from a changing climate (adaptation). Some have argued that there are normatively significant differences between mitigation and adaptation: that the two responses adhere to different logics and evoke different patterns of burden-sharing. This paper argues that the relevant distinction is instead between negative and positive climate duties, i.e. whether an agent has a duty to undertake climate-managing policies on account of the harm its excessive emissions are causing or simply on account of its ability to assist those in need. The paper offers a typology of the different mitigation and adaptation responses that can be sorted under the negative/positive distinctions. This way of conceptualizing the issue not only enables us to better address the burden-sharing question, offering a more nuanced understanding of the types of climate burdens that are ascribable to agents and pointing out the appropriate roles of contributory responsibility and ability. It also clarifies aspects of the climate negotiations, and explains why it matters whether adaptation finance transferred to vulnerable countries is portrayed as compensation for harmful emissions or simply as donor countries discharging their humanitarian duties.     

Rethinking the Kyoto Emissions Targets

The overall targets for greenhouse gas emissions of the Kyoto Protocol are not based on a specific objective for the future world climate. Moreover, the allocations of emissions restrictions among countries do not have a principled logic and impose arbitrary differences in costs. Calculations arepresented of the costs of alternative guidelines for emissions restrictions, each of which has a plausible ethical basis: equal per capita reductions, equal country shares in reductions, equalized welfare costs, and emulation of the United Nations budget allocations. All of these would result in far lower total costs of reaching the Kyoto targets. The alternatives would also eliminate the wholly capricious accommodations given to the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The lower cost alternativeswould permit the Annex B countries to make unequivocal commitments for cost reimbursement to the non-Annex B countries to induce them to participate in emissions reductions. Everyone would gain from that.     

Differentiating Future Commitments on the Basis of Countries’ Relative Historical Responsibility for Climate Change: Uncertainties in the ‘Brazilian Proposal’ in the Context of a Policy Implementation

During the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, Brazil proposed allocating the greenhouse gas emission reductions of Annex I Parties according to the relative effect of a country’s historical emissions on global temperature increase. This paper analyses the impact of scientific uncertainties and of different options in policy implementation (policy choices) on the contribution of countries’ historical emissions to indicators of historical responsibility for climate change. The influence of policy choices was found to be at least as large as the impact of the scientific uncertainties analysed here. Building on this, the paper then proceeds to explore the implications of applying the Brazilian Proposal as a climate regime for differentiation of future commitments on the global scale combined with an income threshold for participation of the non-Annex I regions. Under stringent climate targets, such a regime leads to high emission reductions for Annex I regions by 2050, in particular for Europe and Japan. The income threshold assumptions strongly affect the Annex I reductions, even more than the impact of another burden-sharing key. A variant of the Brazilian Proposal, allocating emission reductions on the basis of cumulative emissions since 1990, would lead to a more balanced distribution of emission reductions.     

Climate change adaptation advantage for African road infrastructure

The African continent is facing the potential of a $183.6 billion USD liability to repair and maintain roads damaged from temperature and precipitation changes directly related to predicted climate change through 2100. This cost is strictly to retain the current road inventory. This cost does not include costs associated with impacts to critically needed new roads. In many African countries, limited or non-existent funds for adaptation and mitigation are challenging these countries to identify the threats that are posed by climate change, develop adaptation approaches to the predicted changes, incorporate changes into mid-range and long-term development plans, and secure funding for the proposed and necessary adaptations. Existing studies have attempted to quantify the impact of climate change on infrastructure assets that will be affected by climate change in the coming decades. The current study extends these efforts by specifically addressing the effect of climate change on the African road infrastructure. The study identifies both total costs and opportunity costs of repairing and maintaining infrastructure due to increased stressors from climate change. Proactive and reactive costs are examined for six climate scenarios, with costs ranging, respectively, from an average of $22 million USD to $54 million USD annually per country. A regional analysis shows contrast between impacts in five areas of the continent, with impacts ranging from 22 % opportunity cost to 168 %. These costs have the potential to delay critical infrastructure development on the continent and present a challenge to policy makers balancing short-term needs with long-term planning.     

Joint Implementation in Ukraine: national benefits and implications for further climate pacts

The contribution that no-lose target schemes for non-Annex I (NAI) countries could make to achieve the 2°C target is explored by accounting for the incentives of 18 NAI countries’ participation in no-lose target schemes. Using various scenarios, it is shown that implementing uniform no-lose targets as part of the burden-sharing will not lead to global emissions levels compatible with the 2°C target, because uniform no-lose targets will only be beneficial to a few NAI countries. Employing more lenient uniform no-lose targets or individual no-lose targets for large emitters could increase participation by NAI countries and decrease global emissions, global compliance costs, rents by NAI countries, and compliance costs for Annex I (AI) countries. However, the resulting global emissions levels will not be compatible with attaining the 2°C target. Achieving this target will require more stringent emissions targets for AI countries and more lenient no-lose targets for NAI countries. As such, no-lose targets should account for 20% to 47% of global emissions reductions, while due to emissions trading around two-thirds of global emissions reductions should be realized in NAI countries. Indeed, an effective solution may only require no-lose targets for five to seven of the largest NAI countries.

Policy relevance

No-lose targets are one of a number of instruments discussed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change New Market Mechanism to integrate NAI countries in global emissions reduction efforts. In contrast to binding reduction targets, which apply penalties if a target is not met, no-lose targets provide incentives for meeting a target, e.g. in the form of excess emissions certificates that can be sold on the global carbon market. The presented simulations show that no-lose targets can result in contributions from NAI countries to global emissions reduction efforts. However, the simulations also show that the necessary incentives for no-lose targets need to be adjusted. AI countries require more ambitious targets and NAI countries require less ambitious no-lose targets than proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Effective no-lose targets may only be required for five to seven of the largest NAI countries.     

Carbon reduction in the real world: how the UK will surpass its Kyoto obligations

Carbon dioxide emissions from UK energy use have fallen by more than 20% over the last 30 years, and carbon intensity — carbon emissions per unit of GDP — has halved. These reductions have been achieved by a combination of decarbonisation of the energy system and substantial improvements in energy efficiency. Use of natural gas in power generation has been a big factor in recent years, but energy efficiency improvements in households and particularly industry have been more important over a longer period. Government policies designed primarily to address climate change have not been important contributors, until recently.Future reductions in emissions will require more proactive policies. However, they are possible without any economic difficulties, notably by adopting cost-effective energy efficiency measures, using new renewable energy sources and reducing dependence on private cars. These policies will improve economic efficiency. The new UK Climate Change Programme includes policies that combine regulation, investment, fiscal measures and other economic instruments. By working with the grain of other social, environmental and economic policies, they can achieve far more than a carbon tax alone, set at any politically acceptable level. Modelling the costs of emission reductions using a carbon tax as the only instrument would not only massively over-estimate costs, it would bear little resemblance to real world politics.The paper demonstrates that a more diverse set of policy instruments is likely to be an effective and politically acceptable approach in a mature industrial economy. It is concluded that the UK’s Kyoto target of a 12.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is not challenging. The UK Government’s target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010 is also achievable. By 2010 per capita emissions from the UK will be well below 2.5 tC per year. Claims that some countries, notably the USA, could not reduce per capita emissions below 6 tC per year seem inconsistent with this experience.     

Equitable access to sustainable development: operationalizing key criteria

Equitable access to sustainable development (EASD) is crucial for the future of the climate regime as it applies to adaptation, mitigation, and the means of implementation. An approach to allocating effort and deriving carbon budgets is presented here based on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) principles of responsibility, capability, and sustainable development. A transparent model to operationalize EASD is applied by applying quantitative proxies for these criteria, and results for selected countries and groups are presented. A robust result is that the mitigation burden calculated by the model is significantly greater for developed than developing countries. For individual countries the results vary depending on the parameters chosen. A middle value of the mitigation burden for South Africa of 15 GtCO₂e over the first half of the 21st century is reported, with the greatest effort required when a starting year of 1970 is chosen and historical land-use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) emissions are excluded when accounting for responsibility. In a regime applicable to all, it is clear that although all countries must do more, some must do more than others.

Policy relevance

Equitable access to sustainable development is crucial to the climate negotiations. Quantified allocations are presented for South Africa and other countries, based on the UNFCCC principles of responsibility, capability, and sustainable development. It is shown that the mitigation burden given these principles must be significantly greater for developed than developing countries. The results are relevant to, inter alia, the upcoming 2013–2015 review and the negotiations under the Durban Platform.     

Introducing population-adjusted historical contributions to global warming

The 1997 Brazilian Proposal suggested that differentiated emissions reduction targets for Annex I parties of the UNFCCC should be based on the impact of their historic greenhouse gas emissions on global temperature rise. In this paper, we develop methodologies for (and undertake) population-adjusted historical responsibility calculations. These adjust national-level historical responsibility calculations for historical population trends. We find a weak correlation between current per capita emissions levels and population-adjusted historical responsibility. Our calculations may contribute to burden sharing schemes in future climate agreements.     

Financing climate adaptation with a credit mechanism: initial considerations

Climate mitigation credits have mobilized considerable resources for projects in developing countries, but similar funding to adapt to climate change has yet to emerge. The Copenhagen Accord targets up to US$50 billion per year in adaptation funding, but commitments to date have been trivial compared to what is needed. Although there are some studies and suggestions, it remains unclear where the money will come from and how it will be disbursed. Beyond this, many development experts believe that the main hurdle in climate adaptation is effective implementation. A framework, based on the polluter pays principle, is presented here regarding the mobilization of resources for adaptation in developing countries using market mechanisms. It is assumed that mitigation and adaptation are at least partly fungible in terms of long-term global societal costs and benefits, and that quantifying climate vulnerability reductions is possible at least sometimes. The scheme's benefits include significant, equitable and flexible capital flows, and improved and more efficient resource allocation and verification procedures that incentivize sustained project management. Challenges include overcoming political resistance to historical responsibility-based obligations and scepticism of market instruments, and, critically, quantifying climate impact costs and verifying investments for vulnerability reduction credits.     

Carbon reduction in the real world: how the UK will surpass its Kyoto obligations

Abstract

Carbon dioxide emissions from UK energy use have fallen by more than 20% over the last 30 years, and carbon intensity—carbon emissions per unit of GDP—has halved. These reductions have been achieved by a combination of decarbonisation of the energy system and substantial improvements in energy efficiency. Use of natural gas in power generation has been a big factor in recent years, but energy efficiency improvements in households and particularly industry have been more important over a longer period. Government policies designed primarily to address climate change have not been important contributors, until recently.

Future reductions in emissions will require more proactive policies. However, they are possible without any economic difficulties, notably by adopting cost-effective energy efficiency measures, using new renewable energy sources and reducing dependence on private cars. These policies will improve economic efficiency. The new UK Climate Change Programme includes policies that combine regulation, investment, fiscal measures and other economic instruments. By working with the grain of other social, environmental and economic policies, they can achieve far more than a carbon tax alone, set at any politically acceptable level. Modelling the costs of emission reductions using a carbon tax as the only instrument would not only massively over-estimate costs, it would bear little resemblance to real world politics.

The paper demonstrates that a more diverse set of policy instruments is likely to be an effective and politically acceptable approach in a mature industrial economy. It is concluded that the UK's Kyoto target of a 12.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is not challenging. The UK Government's target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% between 1990 and 2010 is also achievable. By 2010 per capita emissions from the UK will be well below 2.5 tC per year. Claims that some countries, notably the USA, could not reduce per capita emissions below 6 tC per year seem inconsistent with this experience.     

Funding public adaptation to climate-related disasters. Estimates for a global fund

Managing disaster risk is increasingly being considered a key line of response in climate adaptation. While funding support for adaptation has been pledged, rationales for support and cost implications are essentially unclear, which may explain why financing is currently only forthcoming at low levels. Various estimates for the costs of adaptation have been suggested, yet the rationale and robustness of the estimates have been difficult to verify. Focusing on weather-related extreme events, we conduct a global assessment of the public finance costs for financially managing extreme event risks. In doing so, we assess countries’ fiscal disaster vulnerability, which we operationalize as the public sector's ability to pay for relief to the affected population and support the reconstruction of lost assets and infrastructure. Methods employed include minimum-distance techniques to estimate the tail behaviour of country disaster risks as well as the inclusion of non-linear loss and financing resources relationships. We find that many countries appear fiscal vulnerable and would require assistance from the donor community in order to bolster their fiscal resilience. Our estimates may inform decisions pertaining to a global fund for absorbing different levels of country risks. We find the costs of funds covering different risk layers to be in the lower billions of dollars annually, compared to estimates of global climate adaptation which reach to more than USD 100 billion annually. Our estimates relate to today's climate, and while disaster losses have currently not been robustly linked to climate change, physical science has made a strong case in attributing changes in climate extremes to anthropogenic Climate Change. We suggest that estimates of current weather variability and related risks, although also associated with substantial uncertainty, can be interpreted as a baseline for discussion and any future projections of risks.     

全球长期减排目标与碳排放权分配原则

全球长期减排目标将对世界未来的碳排放形成严重制约,减排义务的分担原则涉及各国的发展空间,事关根本利益。部分发达国家倡导人均排放趋同原则,回避发达国家的历史责任,中国等发展中国家提出人均累积排放趋同原则,强调公平性。按人均累积排放量计算,发达国家自工业革命以来的CO₂排放量已远超出其到2050年前应有的限额,其当前和今后相当长时期的高人均排放都将继续挤占发展中国家的排放空间。因此,发达国家在哥本哈根会议的中近期减排承诺中必须深度减排,以实现全球长期减排目标下的排放轨迹,并为发展中国家留有必要的发展空间。同时必须对发展中国家给予充足的资金和技术支持,作为对其过度挤占发展中国家发展空间的补偿,使发展中国家能够在可持续发展框架下,提高应对气候变化的能力。我国在对外坚持公平原则,努力争取合理的排放空间的同时,对内要加强向低碳经济转型,努力实现保护全球气候和国内可持续发展的双赢。     

Development of a risk-hedging CO2-emission policy, part II: Risks associated with measures to limit emissions, synthesis, and conclusions

This paper is Part II of a two-part series in which the risks associated with unrestrained greenhouse-gas emissions, and with measures to limit emissions, are reviewed. A sustained limitation of global CO₂ emissions requires global population stabilization, a reduction in per capita emissions in the developed world, and a limitation of the increase in per capita emissions in the developing world. Reducing or limiting per capita emissions requires a major effort to improve the efficiency with which energy is transformed and used; urban development which minimizes the need for the private automobile and facilitates district heating, cooling, and cogeneration systems; and accelerated development of renewable energy. The following risks associated with these efforts to limit CO₂ emissions are reviewed here: (i) resources might be diverted from other urgent needs; (ii) economic growth might be reduced; (iii) reduction measures might cost more than expected; (iv) early action might cost more than later action; (v) reduction measures might have undesired side effects; (vi) reduction measures might require heavy-handed government intervention; and (vii) reduction measures might not work. With gradual implementation of a diversified portfolio of measures, these risks can be greatly reduced. Net risk is further reduced by the fact that a number of non-climatic benefits would result from measures to limit CO₂ emissions. Based on the review of risks associated with measures to limit emissions here, and the review of the risks associated with unrestrained emissions presented in Part I, it is concluded that a reasonable near-term (20–30 year) risk hedging strategy is one which seeks to stabilize global fossil CO₂ emissions at the present (early 1990's) level. This in turn implies an emission reduction of 26% for industrialized countries as a whole and 40–50% for Canada and the USA if developing country emissions are to increase by no more than 60%, which in itself would require major assistance from the industrialized countries. The effectiveness of global CO₂-emission stabilization in slowing down the buildup of atmospheric CO₂ is enhanced by the fact that the airborne fraction (ratio of annual atmospheric CO₂ increase to total annual anthropogenic emissions) decreases if emissions are stabilized, whereas it increases if emissions continue to grow exponentially. The framework and conclusions presented here are critically compared with so-called optimization frameworks.     

Greenhouse gas emissions from global cities under SSP/RCP scenarios, 1990 to 2100

Projections of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are critical to enable a better understanding and anticipation of future climate change under different socio-economic conditions and mitigation strategies. The climate projections and scenarios assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, following the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP)-Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) framework, have provided a rich understanding of the constraints and opportunities for policy action. However, the current emissions scenarios lack an explicit treatment of urban emissions within the global context. Given the pace and scale of urbanization, with global urban populations expected to increase from about 4.4 billion today to about 7 billion by 2050, there is an urgent need to fill this knowledge gap. Here, we estimate the share of global GHG emissions driven by urban areas from 1990 to 2100 based on the SSP-RCP framework. The urban consumption-based GHG emissions are presented in five regional aggregates and based on a combination of the urban population share, 2015 urban per capita CO₂eq carbon footprint, SSP-based national CO₂eq emissions, and recent analysis of urban per capita CO₂eq trends. We find that urban areas account for the majority of global GHG emissions in 2015 (61.8%). Moreover, the urban share of global GHG emissions progressively increases into the future, exceeding 80% in some scenarios by the end of the century. The combined urban areas in Asia and Developing Pacific, and Developed Countries account for 65.0% to 73.3% of cumulative urban consumption-based emissions between 2020 and 2100 across the scenarios. Given these dominant roles, we describe the implications for potential urban mitigation in each of the scenario narratives in order to meet the goal of climate neutrality within this century.     

The Present, Past, and Future Contributions to Global Warming of CO2 Emissions from Fuels

The objective of this paper is to emphasize theresponsibility of developed countries to implement the Climate Convention, as well as the role ofdeveloping countries in CO₂ emissions controlwhile sustaining their rights to increase energyconsumption per capita during the development process. Itis shown that the growth in CO₂$ emissions fromfossil fuel consumption in North America, excludingMexico, from 1990 to 1996 was 3.7 times higherthan that of Latin America in absolute terms. Thecumulative contribution to global warming, expressedas the mass of the gas multiplied by time (GtCy), can becalculated as the integration of the atmosphericconcentration of the emitted gas along time, witha weight function in the integrand to simulate theclimate response. To simulate climate response,we used the superposition of exponential decay functions with different decay constants. Thehistorical contributions of the OECD countries,the Eastern European countries and theex-Soviet Union, and from all developingcountries are considered. The future contributionsare computed in three scenarios. All of them showthat emissions from Non-Annex I countrieswill become higher than those of Annex I countriessoon after 2010, while the curves of atmosphericconcentration will cross one another later, not muchbefore 2050, and the respective contributions toglobal temperature increase will cross about 2090.     

Does funds-based adaptation finance reach the most vulnerable countries?

The evolving architecture of global climate change adaptation finance is shifting towards fund mechanisms with competitive application and allocation principles. At the same time, prioritization of the most vulnerable countries is a key goal within this emerging architecture. The paper analyses whether the Green Climate Fund (GCF), by far the largest climate change fund, has so far delivered on its promise to prioritize the most vulnerable countries. For our analysis, we consider the USD 2.5 billion GCF funding allocated until the end of the first mobilization phase and disaggregate it project-by-project into its mitigation and adaptation related amounts. We then analyze the adaptation flows in terms of the recipient country’s level of vulnerability and institutional capacity. We further analyze whether funds are being accessed through independent national entities or international intermediaries and whether recipient countries have developing country priority status. The results show that funds-based adaptation finance creates an ambiguous picture: On the one hand, the GCF is on track in allocating its funds largely to country groups which its statutes aim to prioritize, particularly LDCs, African countries and SIDS. At the same time, the proposal process results in the fact that many countries with the highest climate vulnerability but weak government institutions and fragile state-bureaucracies have missed out and not been able to access project funding, mostly LDCs in Africa and conflict-ridden countries. Further, most countries have not yet been able to access project funds independently through their national entities, limiting direct access and country ownership – the strengthening of which is a major goal of the fund. The findings suggest that simplified approval tracks need to be strengthened in the emerging climate finance architecture so that populations in countries with the lowest institutional capacity but highest vulnerability are not being left behind in the long-run.     

CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND RESPONSE STRATEGIES FOR THE COASTAL ZONE OF POLAND

Four accelerated sea level rise scenarios, 30 and 100 cm by the year 2100, and 10 and 30 cm by the year 2030, have been assumed as boundary conditions (along with some wind climate changes) for the entire Polish coast, under two recent programmes completed in 1992 and 1995. Three adaptation strategies, i.e., retreat, limited protection and full protection have been adopted and compared in physical and socio-economic terms. Over 2,200 km² and 230,000 people are found vulnerable in the most severe case of 100-cm rise by 2100. The total cost of land at loss in that case is estimated at nearly 30 USD billion (plus some 18 USD billion at risk of flooding), while the cost of full protection reaches 6 USD billion. Particular features of vulnerability and adaptation schemes have been examined as well, including specific sites and the effects of not only sea level rise but also other climate change factors, and interactions with other climate change studies in Poland. Planning of coastal zone management facing climate change can be facilitated by the use of a GIS-supported coastal information and analysis system. An example of the application of such a system for a selected Polish coastal site is shown to illustrate the most recent smaller-scale research activities undertaken in the wake of the overall assessment of the vulnerability to climate change for the entire Polish coastal zone.     

National contributions to climate change mitigation from agriculture: allocating a global target

Globally, agriculture and related land use change contributed about 17% of the world’s anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2010 (8.4 GtCO₂e yr^?1), making GHG mitigation in the agriculture sector critical to meeting the Paris Agreement’s 2°C goal. This article proposes a range of country-level targets for mitigation of agricultural emissions by allocating a global target according to five approaches to effort-sharing for climate change mitigation: responsibility, capability, equality, responsibility-capability-need and equal cumulative per capita emissions. Allocating mitigation targets according to responsibility for total historical emissions or capability to mitigate assigned large targets for agricultural emission reductions to North America, Europe and China. Targets based on responsibility for historical agricultural emissions resulted in a relatively even distribution of targets among countries and regions. Meanwhile, targets based on equal future agricultural emissions per capita or equal per capita cumulative emissions assigned very large mitigation targets to countries with large agricultural economies, while allowing some densely populated countries to increase agricultural emissions. There is no single ‘correct’ framework for allocating a global mitigation goal. Instead, using these approaches as a set provides a transparent, scientific basis for countries to inform and help assess the significance of their commitments to reducing emissions from the agriculture sector.

Key policy insights

• Meeting the Paris Agreement 2°C goal will require global mitigation of agricultural non-CO₂ emissions of approximately 1 GtCO₂e yr^?1 by 2030.

• Allocating this 1 GtCO₂e yr^?1 according to various effort-sharing approaches, it is found that countries will need to mitigate agricultural business-as-usual emissions in 2030 by a median of 10%. Targets vary widely with criteria used for allocation.

• The targets calculated here are in line with the ambition of the few countries (primarily in Africa) that included mitigation targets for the agriculture sector in their (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions.

• For agriculture to contribute to meeting the 2°C or 1.5°C targets, countries will need to be ambitious in pursuing emission reductions. Technology development and transfer will be particularly important.

     

Implementing the Kyoto Protocol without Russia

Abstract

This paper examines implementation of the Kyoto Protocol without Russia. It concludes that implementation without Russia is possible, although it requires political will on the part of the countries that wish to proceed with the Protocol. It would lead to higher compliance costs for Annex B buyer regions, but other regions, except Russia, would benefit financially. Russia would forego revenue of at least $20 billion for the first commitment period. Implementation without Russia could improve the environmental performance of the Protocol. It would reduce reliance on Annex B sinks, use of surplus assigned amount units (AAUs) for compliance, and the quantity of Kyoto units banked for subsequent commitment periods. Actual emissions by Kyoto Protocol Parties would fall, but the reduction may be offset by leakage to the US and Russia.