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EMISSIONS GAP REPORT 2018 – BRIDGING THE GAP: STRENGTHENING NDCS AND DOMESTIC POLICIES
Even if an area is covered by a policy instrument or policy package, the stringency of policies varies significantly between countries. Assessments of stringency are more challenging than those of coverage and direct comparison is difficult due to very different domestic circumstances and choices of policy instruments. Although methods to rate the stringency of policy packages are emerging, there are still relatively few. For example, the Allianz Climate & Energy Monitor (Allianz, 2017) compares the stringency of a policy package to support renewables in the electricity sector of G20 countries; the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI, 2018) rates overall climate performance using expert surveys; and the OECD (2016) assesses and compares the stringency of environmental policies in OECD countries. A common insight from these initiatives is that there is significant potential to enhance the stringency of domestic policies in all countries, including in the area of carbon pricing, which is explored further in chapter 6.
A few examples of policies that have had – or could have – a significant effect on reducing GHG emissions are given below (based on Fekete et al., 2015; Kriegler et al., 2018; Roelfsema et al., 2018). These areas could be used as a starting point for countries to consider options to expand the coverage or stringency of their policies:
• Renewable electricity share in global total electricity generation has increased significantly in the EU-28 by, on average, 1.5 percentage points/year during 2005–2014 (IEA, 2016). This increase is related to the Renewable Energy Directive (European Parliament, 2009), which is implemented in member states in various ways.
• Phase-out of unabated coal-fired power plants (that is, without Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)), is planned in a number of EU countries (Jones and Gutmann, 2015). At the subnational level, Alberta (Government of Alberta, no date) and Ontario in Canada phased them out in 2014 (Harris et al., 2015), followed by South Australia in 2016 (Parkinson, 2016). Canada has a plan to phase out coal-fired power plants without CCS by 2030 (Government of Canada, 2016). Meanwhile, India’s Electricity Plan (Central Electricity Authority, 2018) also projects significantly fewer new coal-fired power plants than previously planned.
• In terms of industrial energy efficiency, there is only limited evidence that existing policies in major emitting countries have made significant impact well beyond business-as-usual. The literature suggests that autonomous energy efficiency improvement is about 1 percent annually (Blok, 2004; UNIDO, 2010) and an improvement of anywhere close to 2 percent annually is considered challenging, especially in developed economies (Blok, 2004).
•
In heating and cooling for new buildings, a particularly stringent example is the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (European Parliament, 2010), which calls for all new
buildings to be nearly zero energy by 2020. The EU also has an encouraging national target to renovate 3 percent of all public buildings/year to increase their efficiency. Nevertheless, challenges remain in implementing these targets.
• For electrical appliances and lighting, Japan’s Top Runner Program (METI, 2015) is worth mentioning. The energy efficiency improvement rates for 24 appliances (including heating and cooling as well as cooking appliances) over varying time periods of 4-9 years was, on average, 0.9 percentage points/year higher than the targeted rates (Ibid.).
• The global market share for electric vehicles (EVs) is still small, with 3 million sales in 2017 (IEA, 2018). In Norway, however, EVs (including plug-in hybrids) accounted for nearly 39 percent of new cars in 2017 (IEA, 2018) and even higher recently. A multi-layered policy package comprised of financial incentives and behavioral incentives (e.g. allowing EV drivers to use bus lanes and free public parking) contributed to these high EV sales (Figenbaum et al., 2015).
• For fuel economy of new vehicles, the EU sets one of the strictest standards in the world (Yang and Bandivadekar, 2017), recognizing that there is a performance gap between test mode and real-world fuel-economy figures, estimated at 30 percent (ICCT, 2016).
• For freight transport, only Japan, the USA, Canada and China have CO2
or efficiency standards for
heavy duty vehicles (Muncrief and Rodriguez, 2017); the USA and Canada have separate engine standards in addition to full-vehicle regulations, including aerodynamic and rolling resistance to specifically drive improvements in engine efficiency.
Gaps in coverage as well as stringency suggest that there is considerable scope for countries to strengthen their domestic policies and to achieve emission reductions that are considerably beyond the ambition reflected in current policies and NDCs.
4.5 The scope for bridging the emissions gap through enhanced ambition and strengthened action
This section explores the answers to two central questions of the Emissions Gap Reports: Is it possible to bridge the emissions gap by 2030? What are the main opportunities? It summarizes the main insights into how much global GHG emissions could be reduced through enhanced ambition and action from different perspectives: by realizing the full technical potential for mitigation; applying existing good-practice policies universally; maximizing development benefits; and filling gaps in NDC coverage. These perspectives offer different, but not mutually exclusive, lenses through which to approach both domestic policies and NDC enhancement.
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