Citola Blog
Carbon Strong Ahead of Bonn
Climate change negotiations became pretty much a by-word for compromise after the poorly organised and largely inconclusive conference in Copenhagen last December. As we wrote in a recent blog, the reasons for the muddle, apart from political pressures on the 120 heads of state attending the second half of the COP15, were logistically avoidable.
Nevertheless, the process continues. At the end of this week, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) will take a step forward in Bonn, Germany. The agenda will include the need for additional meeting time at future conferences (so there will be a meeting about having meetings – not very encouraging), and an assessment of the impact that climate change is having on the political agendas of the individual governments attending the UN umbrella meetings.
Well, at least they are still getting together. That has to be a positive thing – in theory, at least. It may well be that if we wait for worldwide political unanimity, we will have to wait for ever.
So what’s actually happening out there in that carbon market that already exists, that has tangible things such as prices and trade? We’re pleased to report a few small signs of progress. For example the US administration has just introduced regulation of automobile exhausts under the new “tailpipe rule”. Some say that the price put on carbon emissions is not high enough to encourage significant emission reduction. But it is a definitely a beginning – and very much in line with the thinking we reported on earlier. Namely, that whichever side of the climate-science debate people are on, the argument that it’s a good idea to reduce carbon emissions if you can is increasingly gaining acceptance.
More good news comes from the European carbon market. Despite the fact that carbon emissions among companies covered by the European climate scheme fell by a ninth in 2009 (partly because of the decline in economic activity) the price of carbon offsets in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme remained stable.
So this is good news on two fronts: it will help the EU towards its goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent, and it demonstrates a robust demand for carbon offsets.
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