[sustran] Re: [NewMobilityCafe] CDM Projects (Clean Development
Mechanism) - public transport
Lee Schipper
schipper at wri.org
Mon Nov 24 02:24:33 JST 2008
Why would you want public transport in CDM, when the values/costs/benefits of time saved, lower air pollution, less noise, greater rider security and safety etc DWARF the carbon values...and when adding a CDM component slows the entire improvement of transport down immensely while all of us don our green visors and count carbon.
Counting that carbon is VERY hard (http://embarq.wri.org/en/Article.140.aspx examined some of these issues including a paper we wrote for the 2007 ECEEE conference on measuring CO2 emissions CHANGES from transport projects).
I'm VERY worried about CO2 in transport, but I'm convinced CDM and like process that link to "carbon finance" either slow the process down (see GEF grant progress), put too much focus on reducing CO2 rather than improving transport (they are not the same), filter our vision to projects whose carbon savings are relatively to measure (hybrid buses, proven but expensive) or ones with tiny and often questionable savings (like small additions of biodiesel to bus fuel).
I'm not against rewarding carbon saving or efforts at mass transit, but the proportions of $ for carbon are tiny compared to the overall pot of time, transport, urban development. Can Mexico City honestly say that their Metrobus was "additional", ie., would not have been undertaken to save $$ millions in saved time, accidents, local air pollution, reduced numbers of cars on the road (according to a nice report by the Instituto Nacional de Ecologia published in 2006) for a few hundred thousand $ of carbon finance funds arranged after the fact?
Juerg Gruetter has made a good case for CDM and carbon financing of BRT projects, but in the end these only affect a small amount of CO2 (in buses) and, while they draw a modest number of riders from cars, still leave the rest of cars untouched. My fear is that CDM draws interest to those easily bankable projects and away from the much greater challenge, use of cars and other light duty vehicles.
In four Latin American cities (Mexico City region, Bogota, S Paulo, and Santiago) cars and taxis appear to account for 65-70% of all direct GHG emissions from road traffic (including trucks). Without policies and projects that reduce that traffic (and its growth) SIGNIFICANTLY, the savings from 'urban transport projects" in general will be small. Since most fo the carbon is in cars, most of the change has to come from cars. How do you measure that and sell the results against a rapidly growing baseline? And cars and trucks are not "cdm-able", i.e., owned by the kinds of entities that can be part of CDM directly. Of course $$ could be given to cities who undertook strong transport measures, but again, why would they not undertake those measures anyway? And why would national governments not want to promulgate fuel economy standards to save oil?
In short, is this really about $$ or political will?
Finally, consider the following very rough numbers that illustrate the scale of the problem.
World GDP 60 Trillion (until the crash)
World gross investment $10 TN (remember buildings burn energy leading to CO2 emissions, too)
Investments in transport infrastructure (road, rail, port, air, facilities like transfer stations) - my guess $1-2 TN
World purchase of private household transport equipment $1TN (40 mn cars $25 000/car)
World purchase of road fuels (roughly 2 TN)
Are we really talking about putting hundreds of billions YEARLY into doing what is the right thing even if CO2 was not a problem. Conversely, if we had a CO2 free fuel tomorrow, we'd still have a traffic mess worldwide. So maybe focusing on transport and Co2, rather than more broadly clean development - and understanding why developing cities' traffic is such a mess even before CO2 is considered - is higher on the agenda. If there are going to be N-S transfers, aka Overseas Development Assistance, is CO2 "abatement" the most cost effective way of using money for development?
Realistically, how can CDM have more than a demonstration effect? If so, then let's forget CDM as such and move to a wider effort to
Demonstrate various regional policy and technical solutions, investing (for once) in enough competence building and data gathering so localities can monitor traffic, emissions, fuel, safety etc better. Our EMBARQ project in se Asia (PSUTA) discovered that authorities' ability to monitor even the most elementary problems of transport was pretty meager --http://embarq.wri.org/en/ProjectCitiesDetail.aspx?id=9
Some of these issues will be discussed at the upcoming COP (Dec 5). Maybe Climate negotiations are not the right place to decide how to use the streets? There will also be a spirited discussion during Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC, both during the meeting itself and at a special side event Friday 16 January. This note is copied to several of those involved in these discussions. Watch this space!
Lee Schipper, Ph.D
Project Scientist
Global Metropolitan Studies
2614 Dwight Way 2nd floor
University of California Berkeley
CA 94720-1782 USA
TEL +1 510 642 6889
FAX +1 510 642 6061
CELL +1 202 262 7476
skype: mrmeter
http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu/
Senior Research Engineer
Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency
Stanford University
Senior Analyst Emeritus
EMBARQ, the WRI Center for Sustainable Transport
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From: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com [mailto:NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Eric Britton
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 2:37 AM
To: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com; sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
Cc: Cities-for-Mobility at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [NewMobilityCafe] CDM Projects (Clean Development Mechanism) - public transport
That's a good question Roland. I just tried Knoogling it and came up with some interesting responses. You might wish to give it a try at http://knoogle.net . (And if you have suggestions for us as to sources or other details to improve its operation ,please do . . . Eric Britton
On Behalf Of Roland Sapsford
Sent: Sunday, 23 November 2008 00:11
Hi
Is anyone aware of any work underway through the CDM, or in negotiations around its successors, to make it easier for transport projects to be included.
As far as I know, the only public transport project so far granted CDM credits is the TransMilenio busway in Bogota. The main barrier is that transport projects usually involve policy and planning changes as well as projects, and the methodological tests for additionality are hard to meet.
Curiously yours
Roland Sapsford
Roland Sapsford
Sustainability Solutions Consulting
Climate Change, Cities, Energy, Transport
PO Box 11-708, Manners St, Wellington 6142, New Zealand
+64-4-9341106(w); +64-4-3851105(h); +64-21-651105(m)
Dr. Rainer Rothfuss wrote:
A través del instrumento CDM se pueden financiar proyectos para reducir emisiones de CO2 - también en el área del transporte.
Más informaciones: http://www.cdm-cooperation.de/7.0.html
Para saber más del los proyectos ya implementados en los diferentes países de América Latina hay que registrarse como usuario (gratuito).
Clean Development Mechanism
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a project-based mechanism, laid down in the Kyoto Protocol within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC <http://www.unfccc.int/> ) in 1997. On the one hand, it serves as a tool for the achievement of companies? or state?s emission targets under minimum costs. On the other hand, it provides an economic incentive for investments in technologies aiming at climate protection.
Best regards,
Rainer Rothfuss
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