Article 6 – Emissions Reduction Technology Overview
The provision and use of low-emission technologies is the core of climate change mitigation responses. Whether it is energy production and use, waste management, transportation, water supply, construction, manufacturing or agricultural practices, all human activity is causing greenhouse gas emissions and practically all such activity has an alternative low-emission way of practice. Although many of these technologies have already been adopted in developed and developing countries alike, there is a considerable shortfall in developing countries. Since the introduction of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, international carbon markets have been an instrument through which investments in low-emission alternatives have been able to tap the global carbon market for supplemental cash flows.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol was successful in not only boosting the use of diverse cleaner technologies but also spearheading a methodological development that now allows policymakers and project developers to calculate on a uniform and internationally approved basis the emissions reduction benefits of different alternative low carbon technologies.
Identifying the alternative, low-carbon technologies in every sector of activity, however, is complex, particularly for policymakers who oftentimes are required to make decisions regarding project approvals without any sector-specific expertise. Business-as-usual at least provides some comfort and trust that the project proponents know what they are doing, but when business-as-usual precisely is what is no longer neither the safe bet nor desirable and certainly will not provide access to global carbon markets, comfort with a less-tried alternative must originate elsewhere.
This technology identification tool aims to help identify the less used, low-emission alternative to practically every relevant activity that a public entity with responsibility for project approvals may be presented with. It contains a brief description of 75 low-emission technologies that are alternatives to common high-emission practices, organized in a logical manner that requires no prior knowledge of any technology. It allows the user to ultimately be able to ask project proponents if or how they have considered low-emission alternative technologies as well as help initiate project revisions in order to adopt such low-emission practices for planned projects.
The tool is part of a stepwise approach that includes a prior generic screening of total public investment portfolios in order to arrive at a list of potentially relevant activities for which alternative technologies can be identified. The next step in the screening is an estimate of the potential emissions reduction effect of different technological alternatives for a given proposed investment.
UNEP-CCC has followed the development of the international carbon market since its beginning and has developed and continues to operate the most comprehensive analytical platform for CDM projects under the Kyoto Protocol and now for Article 6 projects under the Paris Agreement. It is the industry standard and reference, listing all recorded CDM and Article 6 activities, their status and their performance. The database categorises 25 project types, mainly referring to technologies, and about 140 subtypes of CDM projects, which further divides the technologies into specific areas of application.
This tool provides another entry point to identifying relevant technologies for emissions reduction from overall defined economic sectors, providing a more intuitive approach to the wealth of information contained in the project platform. As a simple overview for policymakers, this publication offers a short description of applied or applicable technologies, as well as a few examples of their application in emissions reduction projects.
