Sustainable development policies and measures

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Sustainable development policies and measures A
strategic approach for enhancing the climate
regime post-2012
Presentation by South Africa to 2nd Workshop of
the Convention Dialogue15-16 November
2006Nairobi, Kenya
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The concept of SD-PAMs

• Sustainable development (SD) policies and
  measures (PAMs)
• Backcast from desired future state of
  development, not GHG reduction goal or cap
• define more sustainable paths to meet development
  objectives
• Primary motivation for developing countries is
  economic growth,development, job creation and
  poverty eradication.
• How to capture and measure the potential of SD
  co-benefits under the Convention for developing
  countries?
• Need a new strategic approach to capture the
  potential under the multi-lateral framework
  SD-PAMs is one possible approach

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More sustainable development paths make
mitigation easier
IPCC Emission Scenarios (grey) versus emissions
path needed for stabilisation (red)
A1T
A1FI
B2
B1
Source IPCC 2001 Third Assessment Report, WG3,
p. 151
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The basis of SD-PAMs
Article 2, the oft-forgotten second sentence
"Such a level should be achieved within a
time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to
adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that
food production is not threatened and to enable
economic development to proceed in a sustainable
manner."
Principle in Article 3.4 The Parties have a
right to, and should, promote sustainable
development.
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The basis of SD-PAMs
Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change
and Sustainable Development Decision 1/CP.8
outlined the importance of linking climate change
and sustainable development in both directions
mitigation measures should be integrated with
national development programmes, taking into
account that economic development is essential
for adopting measures to address climate change
and National sustainable development strategies
should integrate more fully climate change
objectives in key areas such as water, energy,
health, agriculture and biodiversity
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Strategic approach

• New approach needed to effectively capture
  co-benefits of local sustainable development in
  developing countries
• Build on existing commitments (FCCC Art 4.1, KP
  10)
• Give greater recognition to action taken by
  developing countries
• A commitment to implement SD policies
• not based on climate target, but choosing a
  development path that results in lowered
  emissions
• Large-scale policies, measures, programmes of
  work not projects.
• Formalise this pledge
• Could be a list of countries
• Could be a register of pledged policies and
  programmes
• Establish methodologies for quantifying benefits
  of SD-PAMs (both SD and CC)

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An example of an SD-PAM from South Africa

• Development objectives
• remove backlog of 2.6 million households
• Current policy
• annually build 300 000 low cost houses
• Possible shift to more sustainable development
  path
• All new RDP houses built with a range of energy
  efficiency interventions
• Insulation, ceilings, orientation, window size
• Barrier is pressure on subsidy enforce through
  codes
• Incremental cost R 2000 / household measures
  to plug price gap
• Local benefits
• Energy savings to household
• Increased thermal comfort
• Reduced indoor air pollution
• Potential GHG emission reduction
• 50 600 kt CO2-eq across all houses over period

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Possible Approaches to Formalising SD-PAMs in the
multi-lateral system

• Country outlines future development objectives
• Identifies PAMs to make development more
  sustainable
• Pledge to implement policies for sustainable
  development
• Register formal recognition of action
• E.g. Name of country in an Annex (FCCC Annex III)
• E.g. list of SD-PAMs in a registry, maintained by
  Secretariat
• Allow countries to decide whether to register and
  how to report

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Implement and report

• Implement SD-PAMs
• Monitor implementation
• National capacity to monitor critical
• Regular reporting on implementation (FCCC Art.
  12.4)
• Could be part of national communications
• separate reporting perhaps preferable
• Primary reporting SD units
• Also quantify GHG co-benefits
• Common metric
• Review progress further recognition

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SD-PAMs and post-2012

• SD PAMs approach is complementary to and
  different from existing target based GHG
  reduction measures
• and could be important in mobilising developing
  country action
• Turn climate from threat into genuine
  opportunity to make development sustainable for
  DCs
• Only requires a decision by the COP, not a whole
  new Protocol
• Measuring and reporting on climate co-benefits of
  SD PAMs could enable trust-building under the
  Convention
• One possible package SD-PAMs, implemented
  through technology, enabled by finance, in
  balance with adaptation

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THANK YOU