Publication: How to Keep Momentum Up in Carbon Markets?
Loading...
Date
2011-10-31
ISSN
Published
2011-10-31
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This note examines how to maximize the benefits from the use of market instruments in support of developing countries' low-emission development priorities. First, it briefly surveys the current state and trends of the carbon market, highlighting the main achievements of carbon finance over its decade-long history. Second, it reviews updated scenarios of the scale of future carbon markets and associated financial flows, in light of developments in climate negotiations and domestic markets. Finally, it identifies the necessary steps to scale up carbon market flows in future, on both the demand and supply sides, including the reform of existing mechanisms, and innovation to broaden the scope, scale and reach of carbon markets. The most important determinant of carbon offset market flows to developing countries is clearly the level of international mitigation targets: the more ambitious the targets the greater the scope for such flows. Developed countries can also encourage flows by increasing supplementary limits, which are the proportion of mitigation targets that can be met by purchases from developing countries. Finally, there remains a considerable need for innovation, awareness-raising and capacity building in public and private institutions in developing countries, to increase their participation in the carbon market and build and enabling environment for low-emission development.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Ambrosi, Philippe. 2011. How to Keep Momentum Up in Carbon Markets?. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27093 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2011(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-06)After five consecutive years of robust growth, the total value of the global carbon market stalled at $142 billion. Suffering from the lack of post-2012 regulatory clarity, the value of the primary Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market fell by double-digits for the third year in a row, ending lower than it was in 2005, the first year of the Kyoto protocol. The Assigned Amount Unit (AAU) and the United States Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) markets shrank as well. As these segments declined, the dominance of the European Union Allowances (EUAs) market became more pronounced than ever and the share of the carbon market primarily driven by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) rose to 97 percent, dwarfing the remaining segments of the market. The carbon market growth halted at a particularly inopportune time: 2010 proved to be the hottest on record, while emission levels continued their seemingly inexorable rise. In the end, however, the year may be remembered most for the political opportunities that arose, yet were ultimately failed to materialize in the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Republic of Korea. While the international regulatory environment remains uncertain, national and local initiatives have noticeably picked up and may offer the potential to collectively overcome the international regulatory gap. These initiatives signal that, one way or another, solutions that address the climate challenge will emerge.Publication Scaling Up Investment in Climate Change Mitigation Activities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01)The case for scaling up mitigation efforts is urgent and has been made repeatedly in the last few years whether denominated in gigatonnes of needed reductions in greenhouse gas emissions per year or tens of 'gigadollars' of needed annual investments in zero and low carbon technologies and systems. The World Bank is now beginning to actively engage partners it contemplates in its new carbon partnership facility. As these discussions 'get down to business', it will be helpful to have a better understanding of the types of scaling up opportunities and the steps that need to be taken to get proper policy frameworks in place (internationally and domestically) to ensure carbon finance plays an effective role. This paper is organised as follows : Section 2 provides detail on what 'scaling up' means in practice. It draws from literature looking at this question from a range of perspectives; and Section 3 looks at the policy and investment situation for scaling up activities that exists today, i.e. in advance of any new policy instruments being considered in a post-2012 context.Publication 10 Years of Experience in Carbon Finance : Insights from Working with the Kyoto Mechanisms(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-05-01)Under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the industrialized countries adopted quantified emission reductions obligations. Marking the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) the world's first global carbon fund, this report seeks to take stock of the World Bank's experience of working with the Kyoto Protocol's project-based mechanisms over the past decade. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), as the much larger system in terms of projects, emission reductions and host countries, is the basis for much of the report's discussion. Joint Implementation (JI) is also discussed. Policy-makers and negotiators are working on advancing the policy framework and the regulatory structures to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHGs) at greater scale. Furthering the use of market instruments should incorporate the lessons of the past into future designs, making full use of the experience and learning that has been gained. This will mean building upon the successes of the current CDM and JI regulatory frameworks, addressing weaknesses, and abandoning what is not working. This publication seeks to make a constructive contribution to this debate, in full respect of the ongoing international climate change negotiations, by providing insights and recommendations from a practitioner's experience and perspective.Publication The Nuts and Bolts of Baseline Setting(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-08)This document provides an overview of baseline setting for greenhouse gas (GHG) crediting mechanisms. The first section briefly explains the general purpose and objectives of setting a crediting mechanism baseline. The second section summarizes key policy considerations in defining and setting baselines. The final section covers important technical elements of baselines and provides an overview of various methods that can be used to estimate baseline emissions. The main purpose of this technical note is to examine key issues for baseline setting in the context of scaled-up crediting mechanisms. Many of the technical and policy considerations presented here, however, are relevant to existing project-based crediting mechanisms as well, and the discussion takes into account concepts developed and experience gained under these mechanisms. In addition, most of the concepts and examples presented here are relevant to setting baselines in the energy and industry sectors. Where relevant, however, examples from other sectors, including forestry and land-use, are used to illustrate important ideas.Publication Options and Guidance for the Development of Baselines(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-10)Developed under the auspices of the Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) and with advice and input from its Baselines Working Group, this document offers guidance and options for the development of emissions baselines, a key component for assessing the emission reductions in in both market and non-market based mechanisms. In the context of this document, a baseline refers to a scenario that describes expected or desired greenhouse gas emissions levels and that can be used as a basis for determining the amount of emissions reductions achieved as the result of a crediting, trading, or other mechanism. This document is divided into two parts. Part one (sections two and three) presents the context for emissions baselines, introduces key concepts and terms, and describes principles, considerations, and potential trade-offs that can inform decisions in the development of robust and transparent baselines. Part two provides a step-by-step description of how guidance users , a term we use here for those using this guidance, can develop baselines. Part two begins with a brief description of options for baseline development and approval, and proceeds in six further sections (5-10) to present options to define and update baselines. In the future, this document will be supplemented by additional documents illustrating how the guidance presented here can be applied to specific market or non-market mechanisms involving a variety of economic sectors and GHG emission sources. Finally, this document is intended to be dynamic. Over time, as experience is gained and consensus emerges on best practices, this document may evolve to provide more specific guidelines, where and as appropriate.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Measuring Financial Inclusion : The Global Findex Database(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)This paper provides the first analysis of the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) Database, a new set of indicators that measure how adults in 148 economies save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. The data show that 50 percent of adults worldwide have an account at a formal financial institution, though account penetration varies widely across regions, income groups and individual characteristics. In addition, 22 percent of adults report having saved at a formal financial institution in the past 12 months, and 9 percent report having taken out a new loan from a bank, credit union or microfinance institution in the past year. Although half of adults around the world remain unbanked, at least 35 percent of them report barriers to account use that might be addressed by public policy. Among the most commonly reported barriers are high cost, physical distance, and lack of proper documentation, though there are significant differences across regions and individual characteristics.Publication Governance Matters IV : Governance Indicators for 1996-2004(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.Publication Design Thinking for Social Innovation(2010-07)Designers have traditionally focused on enchancing the look and functionality of products.Publication Governance Matters VIII : Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2008(2009-06-01)This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 33 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. They find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.Publication Government Matters III : Governance Indicators for 1996-2002(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)The authors present estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The authors assign these individual measures of governance to categories capturing key dimensions of governance and use an unobserved components model to construct six aggregate governance indicators in each of the four periods. They present the point estimates of the dimensions of governance as well as the margins of errors for each country for the four periods. The governance indicators reported here are an update and expansion of previous research work on indicators initiated in 1998 (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobat 1999a,b and 2002). The authors also address various methodological issues, including the interpretation and use of the data given the estimated margins of errors.