Worldwide Emissions Standards Could Cool Global Climate

MILAN, Italy, December 11, 2003 (ENS) - Worldwide aligned emission standards for transportation are one step closer now that the European Union, China, Japan and the United States have agreed to jointly address air pollution emitted by vehicles. Signed Wednesday during the international climate conference in Milan, the agreement covers joint research on emissions and vehicle testing and the creation of a common scientific platform to measure and benchmark air pollution from traffic.

As the Ninth Conference of Parties to the UN Climate Convention (COP9) enters its ministerial phase on the plenary floor, regulatory bodies, industrial stakeholders and scientists from all over the world are also meeting to discuss emission measurement and testing systems, emission standards, their effects on human health, and new fuels and engines.

Carbon dioxide (CO2), emitted by the internal combustion engines that power the growing number of cars, trucks, locomotives and planes, is the major greenhouse gas that blankets the Earth, trapping heat from the Sun close to the planet.

Harmonized Transport Emissions Standards

European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin said, "Air pollution affects everyone on the planet. With the ever increasing use of automobiles, the problem requires innovative solutions, which can help protect human health and the environment, and, at the same time, boost industry's competitiveness."

Like all petroleum powered vehicles stuck in traffic jams, these cars and trucks emit greenhouse gases that warm the climate while waiting to move ahead at the A1 Gateshead Western Bypass, England. (Photo courtesy FreeFoto)

The joint effort will offer scientific support to the forthcoming international emission requirements for transport, and a basis for the next European standards for passenger cars and light-duty vehicles (EURO V).

"We have to set emission standards," Busquin said, "but we also have to monitor their implementation, study the effects of emissions on human health and the environment, develop new applications to make car engines cleaner and help the sector face this challenge and win it."

"More research is needed to achieve this goal," said Busquin, "and today's agreement will feed into the process by bringing together key players in this field."

To enable the comparison of the total CO2 emissions efficiency of passenger cars that use different conventional and non-conventional fuels, what Busquin calls a "well-to-wheel analysis" has been developed by the European Joint Research Centre in cooperation with the associations of European car manufacturers and fuel suppliers.

Climate Change is Expensive

In other developments at Milan, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is calling on governments, business and industry to back emerging emissions trading markets as one way of tackling global warming.

Left to right: Joke Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; Miklós Persányi, COP 9 president; Klaus Töpfer UNEP executive director in Milan (Photo courtesy IISDENB-Leila Mead)

The delegates heard that the ice and snow atop Mount Kilimanjaro, a unique African panorama, might vanish by the year 2020 if no action is taken to halt climate change. Many other studies have warned of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and extreme weather events that may prove costly to both industralized and developing countries.

Toepfer said, "Developed countries have a responsibility to reduce their emissions, but also have a responsibility to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of global warming. So I welcome pledges, made here in Milan and amounting to over $400 million, which will support funds that will help poorer nations cope with the impacts."

To fulfill its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which has still not entered into force, the European Council of Ministers affirmed the European Union's commitment to allocate US$369 million annually to developing countries starting from 2005.

This spending may help to avert the more costly effects of Earth's warming climate and associated extreme weather patterns that cost the world over $60 billion in 2003, up from around $55 billion the year before, according to a new report released in Milan by experts with UNEP's Finance Initiative.

The extreme summer heat wave across many parts of Europe which claimed the lives of some 20,000 people, was the year's most costly single event to date, with agricultural losses alone estimated at over $10 billion.

The second most costly events were the floods along the Huai and Yangtze Rivers in China between July and September. Some 650,000 apartments were damaged with overall losses estimated at nearly $8 billion.

The biggest insured losses were in the United States where a series of tornadoes struck the Midwest in April and May leaving a trail of destruction that cost insurers more than $3 billion.

These are just some of the preliminary "snapshot" findings from Munich Re, one of the world's biggest re-insurance companies, which has been tracking the economic and insured losses as a result of natural and weather related catastrophes since the 1950s.

Thomas Loster, head of weather and climate risks research at Munich Re and head of the Climate Change Working Group of the UNEP Finance Initiative, said Wednesday that the years of the late 1990s and early 21st century had been marked by increasingly "extreme" weather and climate related events.

"We will have to get used to the fact that extreme summers, like the one we had in Europe this year, are to be expected more frequently in the future and that they will become more or less the norm by the middle of the century," Loster warned.

Trading Greenhouse Gas Emissions Has Begun

Trading in the emissions of greenhouse gases on markets such as the multi-sector Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is beginning to look attractive to many corporations. Continuous electronic trading of greenhouse gas emission allowances and offsets began on the CCX in October.

An oil refinery, Teesport, England (Photo courtesy FreeFoto)

The report says that several national and regional emissions trading schemes have been launched or are being proposed, including a Europewide scheme planned for January 1, 2005 that plans to trade some 1,200 million metric tonnes or just under half of the European Community's carbon dioxide emissions.

Under the planned European scheme, power, steel, paper and other participating companies face a fine of 40 euros for each metric ton of carbon dioxide they emit above their approved level. The fine will rise to 100 euros a ton after 2008.

Other emissions trading markets are forming in Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Paul Clements-Hunt, head of the UNEP Finance Initiative Secretariat, said emissions trading has the potential to encourage polluting industries to invest in "carbon abatement" technologies by making it more and more expensive to pollute.

"Companies need to start planning for emissions trading now," said Clements-Hunt, "by allocating future expenditure for anti-pollution abatement technologies and by carrying out thorough and rigorous assessments of their greenhouse gas emissions. Otherwise they may find themselves exposed to higher and higher costs related to their carbon emissions which may make them less attractive to banks and other lending institutions."

The Global Greenhouse Gas Register

To facilitate the disclosure and management by companies of their worldwide climate emissions, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced Tuesday in Milan the creation of a Global Greenhouse Gas Register. The Register is intended to stimulate voluntary corporate climate action around the world by creating a transparent, internationally consistent framework for the disclosure of emissions inventories and reduction targets.

Eight companies representing nearly five percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have committed to registering their emissions inventories with the Global Greenhouse Gas Register, and discussions are well advanced with an additional 12 major corporations from a variety of sectors and regions, the WEF said.

World Economic Forum Managing Director Rick Samans said the register is "a collaborative effort by the business and environmental communities" to create a framework to spur "a broader response by businesses around the world and provide investors with a clearer understanding of the carbon related risk in their portfolios."

The eight companies that have committed to registering their worldwide emissions account for an estimated 800 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They are: Anglo American, Cemex, Hewlett-Packard, Lafarge, RAO Unified UESR, RWE, ScottishPower and Vattenfall.

Emissions trading schemes should also encourage the reduction of greenhouse gases, says the UNEP Finance Initiative report. Companies can earn emissions credits by making direct investments in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as tree planting or renewable energy in the developing world.

Genetically Modified Trees Could Absorb CO2

Italian nongovernmental organizations protest outside the conference hall with characters that represent U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin fighting over a warming Earth. (Photo courtesy IISD/ENB Leila Mead)

The language is part of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which offers emissions credits to industrialized countries for carbon absorptive projects in developing countries.

"This text does not ensure that bad projects are excluded from the Clean Development Mechanism," said Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace International, one of the 340 member groups in the Climate Action Network (CAN).

Still, countries that plant genetically modified forests must carry out detailed risk assessments and avoid the planting of invasive tree species that may crowd out native trees. The language provides for the regulation of genetically modified trees and invasive alien species according to national laws.

"The new agreement includes minimal provisions in these areas, but it’s better than nothing," said Stephen Kelleher of WWF, another CAN member group. "These commitments are not as strong as they could be, but considering the pressure that has been applied from some Parties to have absolutely no additional rules, this is a step forward."

{Journalist Singy Hanyona of Zambia contributed to this report.}