Round Table Discussion; Why It Isn’t Easy Being Green (Monitoring Reporting & Verification) – LRQA at Carbon Expo – June 3 2011;
3rd June 2011
MRV is essential to convince stakeholders that low-carbon intentions are delivered. The international systems based around inventory and reporting at national level and the Kyoto Protocol machinery at project level are less dominant than they used to be. Trading schemes have MRV rules, but the key is being able to demonstrate how green investments outside of those and outside of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are delivering.
Investors these days want green outcomes as well as conventional returns. As Madlen King stated during her presentation, the shape of international climate change policy post 2012 is being deliberated and debated in depth. After the climate-change talks at COP16 in Cancun and the more recent UN Climate Change Conference in Bangkok this year, levels of optimism are declining for an internationally agreed solution at COP17 in Durban.
Following on from the presentations this morning, there was a productive round table discussion which saw input from the following panel members;
Madlen King; Global Head of Climate Change and Sustainability
John Drexhage; Director Climate Change, International Council on Mining & Metals
Takashi Hongo; Director General and Special Advisor, Japan Bank for International Co-operation
Peter Zaman; Partner, Clifford Chance (Climate Change)
JD opened the discussion by stating that he agreed with Madlen’s comment about there being an emergence in climate policy diversifying into a multi-track framework, with nations and regions developing their own internal or bi-lateral approaches, in a wide variety of guises, and the increasing development of voluntary schemes. JD commented that for global organisations, this is going to cause internal resource issues and increased costs by having to comply against a different set of criteria against what could be one scheme. JD felt that it was very unlikely that there would be any global scheme post the cessation of the Kyoto Protocol at the end of 2012 and organisations needed to prepare for what is going to be a ‘tough time’. Referring to the so-called financial incentives that came out of what JD referred to as the ‘frenetic’ COP 16, he said that clearly, the tent had been ‘widened’ to allow for greater climate change mitigation projects but that the associated costs would undoubtedly rise given the uncertainty of the climate change arena post 2012.
MK agreed and said that for independent verification and validation it is going to be a challenging environment in which to work and stated that robust verification and validation is of critical importance. MK stated that LRQA is already working with global organisations which are having to report against differing sets of territory-specific criteria which is inevitably causing the costs associated with the verification process to rise. MK again called for clarity to drive consistency which in turn will deliver comparability and ultimately trust in the data that is being reported. MK also remarked that clarification and consistency should also lower the costs associated with climate change mitigation thereby allowing organisations to invest in technologies and processes to ensure that their mitigation projects remain effective.
TH – as a ‘user’ of MRV – commented that his organisation could see the intrinsic value in MRV and as such had developed their own bespoke J-MRV programme in partnership with the authorities designed to meet the stakeholder demands.
TH went on to comment that MRV has to be simple and practical, internationally acceptable and be designed to stimulate third party investment on a global basis. TH also announced their J-MRV Advisory Committee to facilitate best practice and to be a forum for the exchange of ideas and processes.
PZ focussed on the reporting aspect of MRV. PZ has ‘grown up’ with the Kyoto Protocol assessment process and the stringent compliances imposed on Annex B countries and it is clear that we need to drastically reduce our emissions by 2020 to avoid dramatic climate change with the ultimate goal of an 80% reduction by 2050. PZ stated that to ensure a reduction in global emissions, each emission needs to be accounted for by reference to a standardised and international accounting process. As such, consideration needs to be given to the interplay between advanced and developing territories and to define a mechanism for like for like reporting. PZ posed the question of how can we compare individual country data to see the effort made.
All parties were in agreement that local effort as part of a sectoral or national effort is key as is having a common standard – that this is the logical and efficient way but whether or not this is going to happen any time soon is anyone’s guess.