Category Policy

Started the 26th of November and ending the 7th of December, COP18, the 18th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is being held this year in DOHA, Qatar.

Back in 1992, countries joined an international treaty, the UNFCCC, to cooperatively consider what they could do to limit average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and to cope with whatever impacts were, by then, inevitable.

The Kyoto Protocol, defined during COP3 in Kyoto, and entered into force in 2005, legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets. The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ends in 2012.

At COP17 in Durban, governments of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol decided for a second commitment period, from 2013 onwards, which could last 5 or 8 years.

In the last years, emissions of developing economies have doubled, becoming higher than those of developed countries. The urgency of coming to a new global agreement has been repeated many times this year by IEA, World Bank, PWC and many others, waiting for the publication of the fifth IPCC’s report. In fact, if we want to limit global warming to +2°C, we need to act now.

DOHA’s delegates need to work very hard during these two weeks, in order to sort out the three folowing main items:

• Kyoto Protocol: define the continuation until 2020 and probably its phase out, shifting the carbon market into a new agreement
• Long-term Cooperation Agreements, LCA: probably end the work, keeping what is good (Green Climate Fund and Technology Executive Committee) shifting it into the new agreement
• Ad-hoc Working Group on Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, ADP: main discussion item, set-up a strong path and working program until 2015, conveying issues like GCF, TEC, global carbon market, adaptation fund, etc.

The future agreement, based on ADP, needs to overcome distinctions between developing and developed economies (Annex I and non Annex I), if we really want to have some hope to meet the 2°C target (many think that we already missed this target).

Two weeks of very important work for the +10.000 delegates.

Sources: unfccc.int “DOHA Climate Change Conference”, David Hone “Expectations for COP18 in DOHA”, Carlo Carraro “AAA cercasi nuova architettura politica per il clima”.

The contribution of the Environmental Ministry to the growth plan being discussed in these days by the Government after the summer holidays, has been published last week on the Ministry official website.

The framework described in the document is quite comprehensive and confirms the effort to put Italy back in track with the decarbonization of the economy addressed by several EU Directives. Various policies are already in place, but suffered in the past months of many delays in their actuation, due to conflicts of competences between different Governmental departments.The current technical Government could effectively help to solve several impasses.

For more information about the contribution (in Italian): http://www.minambiente.it/home_it/showitem.html?item=/documenti/comunicati/comunicato_0438.html&lang=it

“This is a big step ahead: for the very first time we have legally binding energy efficiency measures. Europe is now much better placed to achieve its 20% energy efficiency target for 2020”, Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger stated.

“The measures will reduce our energy bill while generating further growth and jobs. They stimulate investments and make our energy using products more efficient.”

“The European Parliament and the Council have played a constructive role in finding a compromise. It also shows Europe’s ability to act in difficult economic times.”

Yesterday evening, the European Parliament, the Council and the EU Commission reached a political agreement on the Energy Efficiency Directive. Today, Coreper endorsed the agreement. European Parliament and the Council still need to give their approval.

To read the complete memo from the EC, click here.

GBC Italia took part to the meeting organized by UNECE on the 4th of April 2012;  The delegation of GBC Italia was composed by Mauro Roglieri and Francesco Bedeschi, both members of the Executive Board of GBC Italia.

The participation to this prestigious meeting matches very well with GBC Italia’s mission of diffusing the knowledge of Green Building Rating Systems in the relevant National and International authorities, to support the promotion and diffusion of usage of protocols as a tool to drive building market transformation towards sustainability.

The objective of this seminar was to discuss cost-efficient and “green” solutions, which can make the housing sector more sustainable. These include improvements to energy efficiency, environmental performance (water and waste management), and resilience to climate change. Greening homes is a part of the green economy concept, which is in turn at the heart of renewed efforts to integrate environmental and social considerations within the mainstream of economic decision-making in the run-up to Rio+20 and beyond.

The seminar has being organized back to back with a meeting of the UNECE Working Group to discuss a possible framework convention on sustainable housing. More than 70 UNECE member state representatives attended the working group meeting. More than 30 participated to the seminar, which facilitated the identification of priorities for the preparation of the September 2013 Ministerial Conference on Housing and Land Management.

GBC Italia presented the ‘bottom-up’ role that Green Rating Systems such as GBC Home or LEED® can have as an accelerator of change.

Access to the UNECE event page: UNECE – Greening Homes

Download presentation: GBC Italia: how rating systems can drive the change

[Sources: UNECE, GBC Italia, MR Energy]

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Tomorrow, 20th April 2012, at Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore (Venezia) an important event to know more about one of the consequences of greenhouse gas effect, with the participation of Sergio Castellari, National Focal Point of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and Jaroslav Mysiak, distinguished and experienced researcher in water economics and governance, climate risk and adaptation. Start at h.4. p.m.

The Italian Minister for the Environment, Dr. Corrado Clini, presented yesterday the National GHG reduction plan for 2020 to the inter-ministerial committee for economic planning (CIPE). The plan is based on the EU targets and decarbonization strategy at 2050.
The measures include the creation of a ‘catalogue’ of technologies, systems and products for the decarbonization of the National economy; the introduction of a carbon tax (bringing resources to the Kyoto rotation fund); energy efficiency, distributed energy generation and development of smart grids and smart cities; green building and extension of the 55% tax credit for low carbon investments; the management of forests as carbon sinks and as a resource of biomass and bio-fuels.

These objectives “are aligned with technological innovation – explained Clini – and with the need of renovation of the production chains, and give to the European economy the opportunity to compete with that of US, India, China and Brasil, Countries which are heavily investing in new and low carbon technologies”.
The proposals fall into the scope of the National plan for the reduction of GHG emissions which Italy needs to implement in order to reach the targets identified by the EU energy and climate package (20-20-20).

[Source: Minambiente; Translation: MR Energy]

The deadline to present the requests for the  ‘High Efficiency CHP‘ certification (riconoscimento CAR) has been postponed to the 30th of April. The requests need to be presented through the new RICOGE portal of GSE.

CAR certification, introduced by decree law 8 february 2007, n.20 (transposition of Directive 2004/8/CE on promotion of co-generation of heat and power) as amended by DM 4th august 2011, allows the access to white certificates incentive scheme, as DM 5th september 2011.

If you need assistance for your CHP plant, please write to: info@mrenergy.it 

With the formal approval of the Steering Committee during its meeting of March 2nd 2012, MR Energy has become an official member of GBC Italia, in the category “Utilities, ESCOs, and energy companies”.

Becoming part of the National Association confirms a strategy which started already one year ago:

“The efforts are surely paid back by the great results we are obtaining, and that will be confirmed next week with the launch of the new certification scheme GBC Home, in Trento. We can really obtain even more important results for our Nation, contributing to the recovery of a sector which is now suffering very hardly the economic crisis. For this reason the President, the Executive Board and all GBC members are working hard to convince Public Administrations about the importance of using tools such as GBC Home to put in place sustainable development programs for the cities and the territories of their competence. This is, by the way, required by the existing and upcoming European Directives”.

The declaration of Mauro Roglieri, Administrator of MR Energy Systems, member of the Executive Board of GBC Italia, in charge for international affairs. He coordinates the activities of the Policy Task Force of GBC Italia and he is a member of the Policy Task Force of the European Network of WGBC (World Green Building Council).

The Kyoto Rotation Fund will be finally active since the 15th of March, Ministry of Environment Corrado Clini commented during a conference in Rome. The Kyoto Rotation Fund has been awaited longly by operators. SMEs, PAs or individuals will now benefit from a 0,5% interest rate financial tool to realize their energy efficiency projects (including building sector), distributed generation (tri-generation in particular), or small renewable energy production plants. The initial size of the fund will be € 600 mil, while extra € 400 mil could be added after the auction of the 2013-2020 emissions trading allowances will be finalized (and debts with ETS new entrants since 2009 will have been paid off). Source: www.minambiente.it