Tag: climate change

  A reform of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), informally agreed with the Latvian Presidency of the Council, was endorsed by Parliament on Wednesday, June 8th, 2015. The reform is intended to reduce the surplus of carbon credits available for trading in order to support the price of the emission rights. The scheme will start operating in 2019. The new law creates a system that will automatically take a portion of ETS allowances off the market and place it in a reserve if the surplus exceeds a certain threshold. In the opposite scenario, allowances could be returned to the market. The surplus of emission allowances, which has been building up in the system since 2009, is estimated at over 2 billion. “The Market Stability Reserve (MSR) is an efficient, market-driven tool that will stabilise our ETS system and thereby save the central pillar of Europe's sustainability and climate policy. MSR is a crucial building block to help ensure that CO2-prices spur innovation in the field of energy efficiency. This reform puts Europe on the right track to achieve its ambition of 40% less CO2-emissions by 2030,” said Ivo Belet (EPP, BE), who steered the legislation through Parliament. The text negotiated with ...

  International shipping has to half its emissions says a new report by the Tyndall Centre at the University of Manchester. Cutting the shipping sector’s CO2 emissions in line with global climate change targets will need an approach that goes beyond current regulations, according to a new report by researchers from the Shipping in Changing Climates Consortium at UCL and the Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester. The new research presented to the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) illustrates the wide gap between what is needed to avoid 1.5/2°C of warming, compared with the current direction of travel of shipping CO2. The analysis shows how avoiding 1.5/2°C, whilst maintaining shipping’s present 2-3% share of total anthropogenic CO2, requires at least a halving of its CO2 emissions by 2050. This is the first time that the scale of the challenge has been presented directly at the IMO and articulated in terms of trajectories for individual ship types. The paper coincides with the submission to the IMO of a paper by the Republic of Marshall Islands calling for MEPC to agree a quantifiable and ambitious GHG emissions reduction goal for international shipping. Constraining CO2 budgets in line ...

 Map showing major shipping routes across the globe Excitement is building towards a new global agreement this year in Paris to control global pollution causing climate change, in an effort to keep global temperature increase and related climatic disruptions below a level that avoids the most dangerous impacts. Virtually all countries are expected to make commitments to reduce their emissions, and the major industrialized and emerging economies are expected to emerge with commitments for all emissions within their territory, resulting in coverage of the vast majority of global emissions. However, two important sectors that are an integral part of the global economy could be left out of the Paris agreement. Emissions from international aviation and shipping, accounting for more than 5% of global emissions, are not including in country targets, since emissions occur during trips between countries or over international waters. Setting shipping targets This week in London, a meeting will take place under the International Maritime Organization (IMO) which will consider a new proposal to establish a target for the global shipping sector, covering the 70 000 odd ocean-going large ships that transport cargo and passengers between countries. The last time the global community tried to directly tackle emissions ...

  The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) meets for its 68th session from 11 to 15 May 2015, at IMO Headquarters in London.  Items on the agenda include the proposed adoption of the environmental part of the Polar Code and associated draft MARPOL amendments to make the Code mandatory; the implementation of the Ballast Water Management Convention; further work on air pollution and energy efficiency measures; and a proposal to extend the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) to parts of the Coral Sea. Polar Code environmental provisions set for adoption  The MEPC is expected to adopt the environmental requirements of the mandatory International Code for ships operating in polar waters (Polar Code), and the associated MARPOL amendments to make the Code mandatory. This follows the adoption, by the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) in December 2014 of the Polar Code and related amendments to make it mandatory under the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).  The Polar Code is expected to enter into force on 1 January 2017.   The Polar Code covers the full range of design, construction, equipment, operational, training, search and rescue ...

  Arctic warming is causing changes to sea ice, snow cover, and the extent of permafrost in the Arctic. Over the past 30 years, Arctic sea ice cover has declined by 30 % in September, and frozen ground in the Arctic has started to thaw out. The Arctic region matters so much because it acts as a refrigerator for the rest of the world, and changes there could lead to strong feedback effects that spur further warming. It comes as no surprise then that the region has become the focus of intense research efforts. Three EU Member States – Denmark (Greenland and Faroe Islands), Finland and Sweden – have territories in the Arctic, and the EU is a major contributor to Arctic research. Through the FP7 programme, the EU contributed around EUR 200 million to international research activities in the Arctic. And in its Communication on the EU and the Arctic region, the European Commission has stated that the EU should "maintain the Arctic as a priority area for research to close knowledge gaps and assess future anthropogenic impacts, especially in the area of climate change". The European Climate Research Alliance (ECRA) has also identified Arctic climate stability and change ...

  Record ocean heat, high land-surface temperatures and devastating flooding were some of the defining characteristics of the global climate in 2014, which was nominally the warmest year on record, although by a very small margin, according to a detailed analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2014 confirmed the continuation of the warming trend over the past few decades, with 14 of the 15 hottest years on record occurring this century.  The report gave details of national and regional temperatures and precipitation, tropical cyclones, sea level rise and sea ice extent. It included an analysis from the Met Office in the United Kingdom on the human influence on climate, which significantly increased the likelihood of the observed record-breaking temperatures in the United Kingdom in 2014. The report was released to coincide with World Meteorological Day 23 March which promotes the theme “Climate Knowledge for Climate Action”. This title was chosen to highlight the progress in climate science and services like seasonal predictions, and to encourage the international community to move this year towards ambitious decisions and actions to address climate variability and change. “We have sound climate knowledge to ...

The Ministry of Climate and Environment has asked the Norwegian public to weigh in on whether or not it would be an advantage for Norway to have its own climate laws. NTNU's submission contains a clear answer: Yes. But only if they're good. The submission has been signed by Kari Melby, NTNU's Pro-Rector for Research, and Annik Magerholm Fet, who is the head of NTNU's new Sustainable Societal Development strategic area. "Good climate laws can give industry the predictability it needs, give the court of law power in decisions about collective greenhouse gas emissions, lead to a more holistic approach to climate change, and ensure that the laws function independently of changes in governments," the statement says. On the other hand, bad climate laws may reduce the flexibility that organizations have to reach their goals in reducing carbon emissions. Bad laws could also make it harder to see different climate measures in a larger context. "If our climate policies aren't flexible enough to handle the complex nature of the situation, the rewards will most likely be smaller than the costs," the NTNU statement says. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology is home to some of the best climate researchers ...

A key milestone towards a new, universal agreement on climate change was reached in Geneva last  week following seven days of negotiations by over 190 nations. Nations concluded the Geneva Climate Change Talks by successfully preparing the negotiating text for the 2015 agreement. The agreement is set to be reached in Paris at the end of 2015 and will come into effect in 2020.   Delegates from 194 countries convened in Geneva to continue work following the Lima Climate Change Conference held in Peru last year, which had produced elements for the negotiating text–known as the Lima Call for Climate Action. “I am extremely encouraged by the constructive spirit and the speed at which negotiators have worked during the past week,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “We now have a formal negotiating text, which contains the views and concerns of all countries. The Lima Draft has now been transformed into the negotiating text and enjoys the full ownership of all countries,” she added. The negotiating text covers the substantive content of the new agreement including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity-building. Countries worked hard to identify the main choices, put their views ...

The acceleration of global sea level change from the end of the 20th century through the last two decades has been significantly swifter than scientists thought, according to a new Harvard study. The study, co-authored by Carling Hay, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS), and Eric Morrow, a recent Ph.D. graduate of EPS, shows that calculations of global sea-level rise from 1900 to 1990 had been overestimated by as much as 30 percent. The report, however, confirms estimates of sea-level change since 1990, suggesting that the rate of change is increasing more rapidly than previously understood. The research is described in a Jan. 14 paper in Nature. “What this paper shows is that sea-level acceleration over the past century has been greater than had been estimated by others,” Morrow said. “It’s a larger problem than we initially thought.” “Scientists now believe that most of the world’s ice sheets and mountain glaciers are melting in response to rising temperatures,” Hay added. “Melting ice sheets cause global mean sea level to rise. Understanding this contribution is critical in a warming world.” Previous estimates had placed sea-level rise at between 1.5 and 1.8 millimeters annually in the ...