Climate 411

EDF’s new report looks at Non-Pipeline Alternatives to meet energy needs

By EDF Blogs / Published: February 22, 2024

(This post was written by EDF’s Magdalen Sullivan and Erin Murphy. It was originally posted here)

Many states are adopting declining emission limits as a way to address the severe and growing dangers of the climate crisis, and that means state utility regulators are grappling with how to decarbonize energy systems, manage costs, and meet demand.

Traditional approaches to meeting energy demand with natural gas have included pipeline construction, pipeline replacement, or large gas system upgrades – but these may no longer be appropriate investments in light of new policies and changing customer preferences.

Instead, increasingly popular options are Non-Pipeline Alternatives – or NPAs. They are projects designed to meet energy demand without expensive infrastructure projects that run counter to state climate goals.

EDF has a new report, Non-Pipeline Alternatives: Meeting Energy Demand Responsibly, that has guidance and analysis to help states develop regulatory frameworks for NPA evaluation and implementation, and to help utilities successfully implement NPA programs.

Posted in News / Comments are closed

As it enters its eleventh year, California’s cap-and-trade program continues to raise revenue to fight the climate crisis

By Caroline Jones / Published: February 22, 2024

This blog was co-authored by Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California State Director

Results of the latest Western Climate Initiative auction were released today, and we continue to see strong demand for allowances. This was the first quarterly auction of 2024, and it was a strong start for this marquee climate program.

This auction is expected to generate roughly $1.31 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which will invest in projects around the state that electrify transportation, reduce household energy costs, strengthen resilience to natural disasters, and more. This funding comes at a crucial time, as California faces both ongoing impacts from climate change and a challenging budget year.

February auction results

All 51.2 million current vintage allowances offered for sale were purchased, resulting in the 14th consecutive sold-out auction. This is 11% or 6.4 million fewer allowances than were offered at the previous auction.
The current auction settled at a record price of $41.76, $17.72 above the $24.04 floor price and $3.03 above the November 2023 settlement price of $38.73.
All of the 7.2 million future vintage allowances offered for sale were purchased — these allowances can be used for compliance beginning in 2027. This is about 366,000 allowances fewer than were offered at the previous advance auction.
Future vintage allowances settled at $41.00, $16.96 above the $24.04 floor price and $3.60 above the November settlement price of $37.40.

Posted in California, Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News / Comments are closed

Progress to catalyze jurisdictional REDD+

By Angela Churie Kallhauge / Published: February 2, 2024

Boat on a river in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest

Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by Leslie Von Pless, EDF.

This blog post is authored by Angela Churie Kallhauge, Executive Vice President, Impact at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), with contribution from Katie Goslee, Director of Nature-Based Solutions, Winrock International; Stephanie Wang, Associate Director, Wildlife Conservation Society; Jason Funk, REDD+ Strategy Director at Conservation International; and Daniela Rey Christen, Director, Climate Law and Policy

In the fight against the climate crisis, high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ is intended to be transformational, giving forest communities and governments the ability to tap into the voluntary carbon market to access climate finance needed to ensure that large areas of tropical forests remain intact.

Jurisdictional REDD+ can deliver results, to the benefit of people, nature, and climate. Research shows that larger scale programs to pay for emission reductions from forest conservation – the scale of a whole forest region, state, or nation – are better able to ensure additionality and prevent leakage than are smaller-scale carbon programs. And larger scale programs do so for a longer period of time.

Ensuring high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ programs are fully functioning has therefore become a key priority for many actors working to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, including businesses, governments, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

One problem is that forest nations looking to establish jurisdictional REDD+ programs may not currently have the technical capacity needed to deliver high-integrity carbon credits. This is holding back their access to carbon markets, even as demand for high-integrity jurisdictional tropical forest credits seems poised to accelerate.

The task at hand is to support these jurisdictions in fully unlocking the promise and potential of high-integrity carbon markets at the rapid pace and large scale needed to address the climate crisis. We don’t have much time. If we don’t end and reverse tropical deforestation and degradation by 2030 – only six years from now – the effects could be irreversible.

Posted in Carbon Markets, Forest protection, Indigenous People, International, REDD+, United Nations / Comments are closed

Want to understand Natural Climate Solutions Crediting? We have a handbook for that.

By Christine Gerbode / Published: February 1, 2024

The Natural Climate Solutions Crediting Handbook

This blog was authored by Christine Gerbode, EDF’s Manager of Jurisdictional Alliances and Britta Johnston, Senior Policy Analyst for Natural Climate Solutions at EDF.

Natural climate solutions are essential to achieving our global climate goals. A range of studies suggest that a major global scale-up of NCS activities (that is, ways of protecting, restoring, and better managing ecosystems and working lands) can contribute as much as a third of the climate mitigation needed to keep us on track with global climate goals by 2030. That’s in addition to the many other benefits that NCS can bring to people and the planet.

Well-designed NCS crediting systems can help channel urgently needed finance to the people, communities, and countries that steward natural ecosystems and working landscapes.

But NCS crediting remains controversial, in part because it can be a challenge to understand: new crediting methods, business models, and policy frameworks are evolving quickly at local and international levels, and competing messages come from passionate voices working on all sides. If uncertainty, misunderstandings, and confusion lead to unwarranted mistrust of NCS crediting, well-intentioned actors might be pushed to unnecessarily abandon one of the most powerful potential tools in the climate fight.

Stakeholders across the climate space need urgent help to cut through the noise on NCS crediting. The NCS Crediting Handbook aims to meet this need by clearly laying out how high-quality NCS crediting can work—for credit sellers, for credit buyers, and as part of an effective and ethical global climate response.

Posted in Carbon Markets, Forest protection, News, REDD+ / Comments are closed

Centering community benefits and safeguards in a high-integrity carbon market: What is benefits-sharing, and why is it key to integrity?

By Mandy Rambharos / Published: January 31, 2024

By Mandy Rambharos, Vice President, Global Climate Cooperation

A high-integrity carbon market can play a significant role in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. But carbon mitigation should not be the only ‘win’ that comes from the purchase of high-quality carbon credits. Benefits-sharing and social safeguards deliver the durability and longevity we need for any achieved emissions reductions, while paving the way for greater market integrity, effective environmental management, and empowerment of communities most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

Yet, the economic value of benefits-sharing is chronically overlooked, including within the latest draft guidance on fair and equitable trading of voluntary carbon credits from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Posted in Carbon Markets / Comments are closed

Cut carbon, raise cash: How New York’s cap-and-invest program could invest billions in communities

By Kate Courtin / Published: January 25, 2024

In leading climate states, you’ll find trailblazing projects that are benefiting people’s lives and cutting costly pollution right now.

In Washington, young people ride the ferry across Puget sound and buses around the state for free. In California, low-income residents get money-saving home energy efficiency upgrades at no cost. And in New York, businesses and apartments earn major rebates to install EV charging stations — with 4,000 stations installed so far.

These are just a few projects supported by funding from cap-and-invest programs. While limiting and driving down harmful climate pollution, these programs are in turn raising revenue that is re-invested in communities.

As New York develops the rules for its statewide cap-and-invest program — the third such program in the nation — a high-ambition program would give New Yorkers an exciting opportunity to shape and direct billions of potential investments each year for communities. From improving public transportation access to lowering energy bills, the possibilities are endless.

Here are just a few ways that other statewide programs, like California and Washington, are putting their revenues to work, and how New York’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is already funding projects around the state — investments that could be significantly expanded and scaled up with a strong statewide cap-and-invest program.

Posted in California, Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Economics, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Jobs, Policy / Comments are closed

Search
Get new posts by email
We'll deliver new blog posts to your inbox.

Subscribe via RSS
Categories
Categories