The Triptych approach revisited: A staged sectoral approach for climate mitigation
The focus of attention in international climate negotiations is to strengthen the international framework for the years following the Kyoto Protocol's initial commitment period, i.e. after 2012. The overriding challenge is to design an agreement that includes all of the major emitting countries—both developed and developing—and to distribute responsibilities and emission-reduction requirements between countries to be effective, technically feasible in order to meet the long-term objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992), i.e. stabilization of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at a level that prevents ‘dangerous’ climate change. To this end, many proposals for differentiating commitments among countries have been developed, including those developed by Parties to the UNFCCC as well as others published in the literature.
Abstract
The Triptych approach is a method for allocating future greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions among countries under a post-2012 international climate mitigation regime based on technological criteria at the sector level, and accounting for structural differences. The emission allowances are decomposed according to sectors, thereby enabling the link to real-world emission reduction strategies to be more concrete. The new Triptych approach presented here is a refinement of an earlier version in terms of an increased transparency and allowing a delayed participation for developing countries (initial participation of developing countries with incentives but no penalties through ‘no lose’ targets or sustainable development policies and measures). For this article we calculated the emission reductions for countries for two technology-oriented scenarios, which stabilize GHG concentrations at 450 and 550 ppm CO2-eq, respectively. The reductions are ambitious, but nonetheless compatible with existing technical reduction potentials as growth is allowed but efficiency has to be improved.
More information on the triptych approach
Authors
Specifications
- Publication title
- The Triptych approach revisited: A staged sectoral approach for climate mitigation
- Publication date
- 1 March 2008
- Publication type
- Publication
- Magazine
- Energy Policy 2008; 36(3):1107-1124
- Product number
- 92230