IGES messages to AOSIS Proposal atUN Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change

Key Messages

  • Developed countries and major emerging economies will need to significantly increase ambition levels to avoid breaching the 2 degree thresholds associated with climate change.
  • Japan has been a pioneer in many policy areas that could help countries stay within the planet’s safe operating space. One such example is the energy efficiency standards known as the Top Runner Programme. The Top Runner Programme was initiated in 1999 to pushmanufacturers to meet energy efficiency standards by identifyingthe most efficient products in the market at the time of standards setting and promoting the market competition. This ensures that target values in are set at progressively more ambitious levels.
  • In more recent years, Japan’s post-Fukushima energy policies have also had significant impacts on energy consumption and production. On the consumption side, voluntary reduction targets that were introduced to avoid shortfalls after Fukushima have led to energy saving changes in lifestyles and business practices (such as dimming lighting at lunch, new work schedules etc). In terms of production, Japan recently introduced a feed-in-tariff (FIT) that has generated in increased use of renewables.
  • Japanese cities have also been important hubs of innovative approaches for low carbon development. The introduction of emissions trading scheme among large commercial buildings in metropolitan Tokyoachieved a 13% reduction in FY2010, 22% in FY2011 and 22% in FY2012 from the FY2002 to FY2007base-year emissions. At the same time, cities like Yokohama have considered demand response through home energy demand control.
  • Japan’s efforts have not only focused on mitigating carbon dioxide (CO2). Japan has long promoted to reduce, reuse, and recycle approach (3Rs) which has helped to limit methane (CH4) and is promoting similar approaches throughout Asia. At the city level, diesel regulations have helped bring down black carbon emissions that are now recognized as a short-lived climate pollutant. Scaling-upthese approaches in Japan and elsewhere, however,will be critical to reducing existential threats to many countriesmaking up the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).
  1. Introduction

The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is an international research institution headquartered in Hayama, Japan that conducts pragmatic policy research on sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific. Founded at the initiative of the government of Japan in 1998, IGES has been actively engaged in climate change research for more than 15 years. Over that period, it has witnessed measured progress in international negotiationsand more significant recent advancesin mitigation and adaptation actions at the national and local levels. Unfortunately, neitherform of progress has been sufficiently ambitious toreduce the risks of dangerous climate change. The clearest evidence of the need to enhance ambition levels is the existential threat that climate changecurrently poses to countries making up the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). The purpose of this short paper is to draw upon IGES research and experience to identify actions that can minimize that threat to AOSIS in the near term.

As suggested at the outset, there are a number of actions developed and major emerging countries can take in the next five to ten years to avoid dangerous impacts of climate change. Even more fortunately, many of these options have low or negative costs and could move forward with financial investments, regulatory reforms, capacity building, and technology transfer. In fact, many of these actions are covered in Work Stream 2 of Ad Hoc Working Group of the Durban Platform where they may qualify for such support. However, just as unfortunately proven mitigation and adaptation efforts often get overshadowed ininternational negotiations. The first step then is to raise the profile of some of these proven actions. The next section does so by emphasizing actions in Japan that may be replicable elsewhere in Asia.

  1. Demonstrated Actions in Japan

Japan is home to many of promising climate change actions. Improving energy efficiencies has been one of the more recognized. But after the Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan has redoubled these efforts. Important reforms have aimed atincreasing energy efficiencies in factories, vehicles, home appliances, and office equipment and automation systems. Moving forward it will be important to ensure that efficiencies are carried over to small and medium sized enterprises that have less resources and weaker incentives to invest in energy savings. Improvements in thermal insulation for housing and buildings have also been promotedas one of the important measuresto conserve energy and reduce GHGs.

Japan has also seen a renewed interest in boosting renewable energy. The introduction of feed-in-tariff (FIT) has, for example, brought new momentum to the manufacturers and users of photovoltaic solar panels. A share of renewable energy (excluding large scale hydroelectricity) in generated and received power increased by only 0.5% in ten years from 0.6% to 1.1% between 2000 and 2010. However, after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the share increased by 0.5% in only two years to 1.6%. After the implementation of FIT, by mid-2013 the share further increased to 2.3%. While the share of renewable energy in the total primary energy supply is a fraction and challenges regarding integration with conventional power grids need to be resolved, the recent progressis nonetheless promising.

In terms of thermal power generation, Japan is investing in the demonstration ofintegrated coal gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power generation technologies with carbon capture and storage (CCS) capability. There is a concern over plans by Japanese utilities to build new coal-fired plants to replace nuclear power capacity taken offline after the Fukushima accident, though new coal-fired power plants are required to be equipped with best available technologies (BAT)—arguably, ultra-super critical (USC) technology is expected. Against this background, an IGCC plan with CCS capability was announced as one of the world’s first commercial scale and is scheduled to be operationalized in 2020 (CCS facilities will be equipped once available). While there is uncertainty in future development of CCS technologies, this CCS-ready coal-fired plant catches wide attention. Elsewhere efforts are underway to significantly expand capacities for combined heat and power.

Another discernible trend following efforts to deregulate the energy sectors involve the construction of smart energy systems in cities such as Kitakyushu, Yokohama and Fujisawa. The City of Kitakyushu with around one million population has set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions city-wide by 50% and through inter-city collaboration in Asia by 150% from the 2005 levels by the end of 2050. The Yokohama Smart City Project has conducted a feasibility study of demand response through home energy demand control over 1,900 family units, and is going to expand the target family units to 4,000 this year. Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town project with 1,000 family units aims at reducing CO2 emissions by 70% from the 1990 levels. These efforts aim to take advantage of power distribution technologies and demand response to conserve energy.

Meanwhile, at the city level,Tokyo MetropolitanGovernment and Saitama Prefecture have introduced their ownemission trading schemes (ETS) that has begun to put a price on carbon in two heavily populated cities in Japan. The Tokyo Cap-and-Trade programme, which mainly targets large business facilities (1,500 kL oil equivalent or more annual energy usage), achieved a 13% reduction in FY2010, 22% in FY2011 and 22% in FY2012 from the base-year emissions (the average emissions of three consecutive fiscal years selected between FY2002 and FY2007). Since CO2 emissions factors for electricity consumption are fixed, these reduction figures do not reflect the reality that fossil fuel-fired power plants largely replaced nuclear power plants that have been idling after the 2011 Fukushima accident. Nonetheless, these figures demonstratethat a substantial decline in energy consumption in office buildings can be possible with currently available technologies.

In the past, Tokyo has served as model for not only other cities but also national policies.An area where local governmentpolicies became national policies is the regulation of diesel-powered vehicles. Almost a decade ago, the Tokyo city government instituted a set of “no diesel regulations” that encouraged comparable actions elsewhere in Japan. Though not the intent at the time, more stringent diesel regulations actually led to significant reductions in black carbon emissions. Black carbon is a short-lived climate pollutant (SLCPs) that is known to destabilize climate systems while harming public health.

It nonetheless is worth underlining that, while each of the highlighted actions are individually noteworthy, they collectively still leave the world far short of the 2 degree goals. The next question is how countries, including Japan, can make the necessary efforts to scale up these actions. Part of the answer will be technical in nature. For some of the highlighted actions, there are still significant technical uncertainties—for instance, the use of CCS technologies. However, arguably a more formidable challenge is getting national leaderships to marshal the political will and the financial resources need to drive wider and deeper socio-economic changes. The next section begins to reflect on how AOSIS countries might be able to make such changes more feasible.

  1. Supporting action in AOSIS

It is widely understood that the contribution that AOSIS make to climate change is negligible. For good reason, adaptation comes before mitigation in small islands countries. At the same time, there are important opportunities to dramatize the lack of action exhibited elsewhere. One such approach would be for AOSIS countries pledge their intent to shift to zero or low carbon energy sources with support from developed countries. Such a pledge would highlight the need for greater political will to scale change in developed and major emerging countries.

Even more relevant is the inter-city cooperation that is being promoted in the island country of Palau where efforts are underway to expand access to low carbon energy sources. Another is a project in the Maldives that introduces a smart grid system linking a demand-side management system with solar PV and acid batteries.

Here too there are several notable examples of important changes. Several low-carbon actions have, for instance, been undertaken on the island of Cebu and other islands in the Philippines and KohSamui in Thailand. These actions are led by international hotel chains and mayors and suggest the possibility of linking low-carbon with international tourism may help mobilize political and financial resources from both the private and public sectors.

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