Fri, Aug 17, 2012
UNEP-Facilitated Standardized Baseline Expected
to Boost Access to Climate-Friendly Investment
UNEP's African Carbon Asset Development
Facility supports over a dozen projects
on the continent, including clean energy
initiatives.
Gaborone (Botswana),
17 August 2012 - The United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) today unveiled a new standardized
baseline* for the region's electric power
grid - a major step forward in efforts to
boost access to climate-friendly investment
in Africa that will reduce, by an estimated
six months, the time it takes for carbon
market projects to reach the market. The
new emission factor, which encompasses all
grid-connected utilities operating within
the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP),
would serve as a ready-made benchmark against
which the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) impact of
future sectoral investments in the region
can be measured.
Adoption of the new
standardized baseline will enable renewable
energy and other climate-friendly projects
within SADC to be brought to the carbon
market faster than previously possible.
This is because a new baseline and harmonized
approach would effectively eliminate some
of the most challenging steps in the project
cycle, thus streamlining the complex design,
approval, and auditing processes required
by projects to sell UN-regulated carbon
credits.
Further Resources
Africa and the Carbon Market: A Quick Fact
Sheet for JournalistsUNEP Risoe CentreThe
ACAD FacilityGlenn Hodes of UNEP's Risoe
Center, which leads the organization's efforts
in carbon finance and activities related
to the CDM, said having such a baseline
would make future efforts to boost clean
power investments in SADC countries more
efficient.
Until now, some Southern
African countries had little or no participation
in the CDM, despite significant potential.
Among the factors behind the slow uptake
was the lack of a regional GHG emission
factor for the power grid.
"Previous rules
and methodologies didn't particularly match
the local context, leaving many countries
with a low emission baseline. This new development
enables more projects currently under development,
including those utilizing hydropower, wind
and solar resources, to increase their supplemental
revenues from carbon credit sales,"
Hodes said.
"Domestic hydropower
generation and other inter-country power
transfers were previously unviable, as they
would have produced too few carbon credits.
But as the region has a fully interconnected
electric power grid-the SAPP-the new regional
benchmark is not only appropriate, but also
more beneficial. Pre-ratification of the
new figure by each country through its CDM
authority will further streamline African
access to carbon funding," he added.
The move was initiated
in a joint petition, filed by ten SADC member
states, to create a common baseline for
the region's electric power sector under
the CDM. Today's submission to the Secretariat
of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) caps more than a year's
worth of research and consultations with
energy and climate actors to quantify, validate,
and pre-ratify a unified benchmark for the
sub-regional power grid.
"Harmonized regional
approaches such as this can facilitate a
more rational approach to financing capacity
additions to the grid that also take climate
change into account," comments Engineer
Joao Caholo, Deputy Executive Secretary
of SADC. "They can support African
governments to gain a bigger slice of global
investment into renewable energy and climate-related
finance. We are proud that southern Africa
could play a pioneering role in this."
Cooperation in the generation,
trade, and efficient use of electricity
offers opportunities to both improve energy
security and create regional markets. These
objectives have been articulated by the
recent meeting of the African Energy Ministers
in Maseru, Lesotho.
To meet the continent's
growing energy demands, the power sector
in Africa needs to install an estimated
7,000 megawatts (MW) of new generation capacity
each year. A recent UNEP report to mark
the UN 2012 International Year of Sustainable
Energy for All argues that much of Africa's
future energy needs can come from Africa's
wealth of untapped, domestic renewable resources.
For example, Mauritania's wind energy potential
is almost four times its annual energy need,
while Sudan's is equivalent to 90 per cent
of its annual energy needs.
Dr. Lawrence Musaba,
SAPP Coordinating Center Manager adds, "We
endorsed this initiative from the beginning,
as the SADC region has had no reference
point for some time. We now have a regional
factor that can be used to the advantage
of the region in getting carbon certificates
for CDM projects that we intend to register.
The SAPP has approved the calculations and
is in support of the process to adopt them
for wider regional use."
The development of the
standardized baseline was championed by
UNEP Risoe and funded through the African
Carbon Asset Development (ACAD) Facility,
a regional initiative supported by Germany's
International Climate Initiative.
Financial and technical
support by ACAD to the SAPP Secretariat
has allowed it to calculate the new grid
factor, with assistance from consultancy
GFA-Envest. The calculations follow a combined
margin methodology that is standard procedure
for the CDM. They were then validated by
Carbon Check Pty, the only UN-accredited
auditor for CDM projects headquartered in
Africa.
Grant Little, Business
Development Manager in Africa for DNV Kema,
a leading global carbon auditor, said, "Once
this regional grid emission factor has been
approved, it should assist project developers
to expedite the validation of CDM projects
in the region. Our experience has been that
baseline justification often raised a need
for additional clarification among projects
in the region in the past."
"In a positive
development of reducing both the cost and
time of obtaining carbon credits, a standard
of calculating emission reductions based
on the power grid structure has been developed,"
said Harmke Immink, CDM Association of Southern
Africa Board Member. "The great thing
is that this tool could be used for any
project that improves energy efficiency
or generates renewable energy which is linked
to the power pool (SAPP)."
* Standardized baselines
aim to streamline and simplify the complex
design, approval and auditing processes
that are required by project proponents
to sell carbon credits under the UN's Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM allows
eligible projects to sell certified emission
reduction credits, which are used by firms
and industrialized countries toward meeting
targets under Kyoto and domestic pollution
laws. Standardized baselines allow for calculating
the typical emissions for an entire sector,
rather than for individual projects.
-ends-
Notes to Editors
For a basic general
background on carbon market instruments,
the CDM and Africa, please refer to the
UNEP Risoe Center guide: "Africa and
the Carbon Market: A Quick Fact Sheet for
Journalists"
About UNEP Risoe Centre:
The UNEP Risoe Centre
is leading UNEP activities related to carbon
finance and the CDM. URC has played a pivotal
role in facilitating the participation of
developing countries in the emerging carbon
market, focusing on support for capacity
building, and piloting new approaches. It
conducts analysis to strengthen emerging
sectors in CDM, and implements country-level
and regional activities aimed at enhancing
a more equitable regional distribution of
carbon project activities.
For further information
visit: www.unep.org or www.uneprisoe.org
About SAPP
The Southern African
Power Pool (SAPP) was created with the primary
aim to provide reliable and economical electricity
supply to the consumers of each of the SAPP
members, consistent with the reasonable
utilization of natural resources and the
effect on the environment. The countries
that are physically connected in the SAPP
are (excluding countries that are part of
SAPP, but not connected) (connected utilities
indicated in brackets):
Namibia (NamPower)
South Africa (Eskom and non-Eskom)
Zimbabwe (ZESA)
Zambia (ZESCO)
Mozambique (EDM)
Botswana (BPC)
Democratic Republic of Congo (SNEL)
Lesotho (LEC)
Swaziland (SEB)
About the ACAD Facility:
ACAD is Africa's first
project development support facility dedicated
to increasing carbon project deal-flow.
Its approach to market and capacity development
is innovative because it is practical, investment-project
specific, flexible, as well as demand-driven.
Examples of ACAD project successes include
the first large-scale wind power project
in Africa to be registered under the CDM
and the first registered CDM programme of
activity involving kerosene-replacing efficient
lamps in Rwanda. ACAD is generously funded
by the International Climate Change Initiative
(ICI) of the German Federal Ministry for
the Environment (BMU). More information
is available at: www.acadfacility.org
About the Southern African
Development Community (SADC):
The Southern African
Development Community (SADC)'s vision is
that of a common future within a regional
community that will ensure economic wellbeing,
improvement of living standards and quality
of life, freedom and social justice and
peace and security for the people of southern
Africa. This shared vision is anchored on
the common values and principles and the
historical and cultural affinities that
exist between the people of southern Africa.
The SADC mission is
to promote sustainable and equitable economic
growth and socio-economic development through
efficient productive systems, deeper co-operation
and integration, good governance, and durable
peace and security, so that the region emerges
as a competitive and effective player in
international relations and the world economy.
+ More
UN Launches Sustainable
Development Network to Help Find Solutions
to Global Problems
Fri, Aug 10, 2012
Research centres, universities and technical
institutions will form part of a new network
to address the world's most pressing environmental,
social and economic problems.
New York, 9 August 2012
- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
today launched a new independent global
network of research centres, universities
and technical institutions to help find
solutions for some of the world's most pressing
environmental, social and economic problems.
The Sustainable Development
Solutions Network (http://www.unsdsn.org/
SDSN) will work with stakeholders including
business, civil society, UN agencies and
other international organizations to identify
and share the best pathways to achieve sustainable
development, according to a UN http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/SDSN%20FINAL%20release_9Aug.pdf
news release.
This initiative is part
of the work undertaken in response to the
mandate on post-2015 and the outcome of
UN Conference on Sustainable Development
(Rio+20), which took place in Rio De Janeiro,
Brazil, in June.
The Solutions Network
will be directed by Professor Jeffrey D.
Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at
Columbia University and Special Advisor
to Secretary-General Ban on the global anti-poverty
targets known as the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). It will operate in close coordination
with the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons
on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
"The post-2015
objectives will help the world to focus
on the vital challenges of sustainable development
and the Sustainable Development Solutions
Network will be an innovative way to draw
upon worldwide expertise in the campuses,
universities, scientific research centres
and business technology divisions around
the world," Mr. Ban said.
The High-level Panel
will advise on the global development agenda
beyond 2015, the target date for achieving
the MDGs, and it will hold its first meeting
at the end of September, in the margins
of the annual high-level debate of the General
Assembly. It is expected to submit its findings
to the Secretary-General in the first half
of 2013, and those findings will inform
his report to Member States.
The eight MDGs, agreed
on by world leaders at a UN summit in 2000,
set specific targets on poverty alleviation,
education, gender equality, child and maternal
health, environmental stability, HIV/AIDS
reduction, and a 'Global Partnership for
Development.'
According to the news
release, given that politics around the
world too often focuses on short-term issues
while governments often lack the timely
information needed for long-term sustainable-development
strategies, it is essential that scientists
and technology experts outside of government
support the development of long-term analyses,
demonstration programmes and development
pathways.
The SDSN is expected
to provide an independent global, open and
inclusive process to support and scale up
problem-solving at local, national and global
levels.
"In the 20 years
since the first Rio Earth Summit, the world
has largely failed to address some of the
most serious environmental and social problems
pressing in on us," Mr. Sachs said.
"We can't afford business as usual.
We need to engage the academic and scientific
community, and tap into worldwide technological
know-how in the private sector and civil
society, in order to develop and implement
practical solutions."
Substantial emphasis
will be placed on collaboration across countries
to analyze common problems and learn from
each other's experiences. The network will
accelerate joint learning and help to overcome
the compartmentalization of technical and
policy work by promoting integrated "systems"
approaches to addressing the complex economic,
social and environmental challenges confronting
governments.