2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: Biogenic methane, kyoto protocol, paris accord

Zero-Carbon Law

For: Preliminary & Mains

Topics covered:

About Zero-Carbon Law
Why the law is required?
What is Biogenic methane?
What is the Paris climate accord?

News Flash

Recently, New Zealand’s Parliament passed The Zero-Carbon Act, which will commit New Zealand to zero carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner, as part of the country’s attempts to meet its Paris climate accord commitments.

The Climate Change Response (Zero-Carbon) Amendment Act or Zero-Carbon Law, provides a framework by which New Zealand will be able to develop and implement climate change policies in line with the Paris Agreement.

Highlights

This is the first legislation in the world to make a legally binding commitment to living within 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.
The Act is not separate legislation but is an amendment to the existing Climate Change Responses Act, 2002.

Aims

Reduce all greenhouse gases (except methane) to net-zero by 2050
Reduce emissions of biogenic methane (produced from biological sources) up to 24-47 percent below 2017 levels by 2050 and to 10 percent below 2017 levels by 2030
Establish an independent Climate Change Commission
Establish a system of the emissions budget

The Act proposes separate targets for biogenic methane because methane is a short-lived gas and degrades into the atmosphere over the decades even though it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Biogenic methane

Biogenic methane is produced from biological (plant, livestock, waste treatment and wetlands) sources. This is carbon recently derived from carbon dioxide (CO2) present in the atmosphere. When the methane is emitted it causes additional warming (as methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2).

Climate change Legislation around the world

According to Carbon Brief, there has been a 20-fold increase in the number of global climate change laws since 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was signed.
Globally, there are over 1500 laws on climate change.
The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment include the phase 2 of India’s Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme, incentives to which were mentioned in the Union Budget 2019-2020.

Way forward

New Zealand is well-positioned to undertake steps to mitigate climate change. Its capacity to generate electricity from renewable resources is at 80 percent, and it is working towards phasing out the use of offshore oil and gas. New Zealand government anticipates that GDP and household incomes in New Zealand will continue to rise, minimising the cost of adapting to climate change for the citizens.

The Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance, signed in 2016. It builds upon the Convention with a central aim of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. The Paris Agreement requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead.

Source: Indian Express