Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
11/6/2015
The ambitions set out by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) Low Carbon Technology Partnerships initiative (LCTPi), if realized, could deliver 65 percent of the total carbon emissions reduction needed to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new report released by the LCTPi this week.
The LCTPi is a joint public and private initiative that brings together over 140 companies and 50 partners to scale up the development and implementation of low-carbon technology solutions. At the core of the effort is the goal of accelerating low-carbon development in nine key areas: renewables, carbon capture and storage, chemicals, cement, energy efficiency in building, low-carbon transport fuels, low-carbon freight transport, climate smart agriculture, and forests and forest products as climate sinks.
“Through the nine focus areas of the LCTPi, businesses have been developing plans to catalyse the research, development, demonstration and deployment (RDD&D) of low carbon technologies across the key areas of the economy that must be decarbonized if society is to limit climate change to below two degrees,” the report explains.
These action plans include activities such as deploying low-carbon micro-grids, developing an innovative CCS funding solution, establishing a global map for underground carbon storage, and developing new cement with lower energy and calcination requirements.
Through these worldwide action plans, the group hopes to achieve its 10 “ambitions.” These are:
- Support the deployment of 1.5 TW of additional renewable energy capacity by 2025 in line with the International Energy Agency’s 2 degrees scenario;
- Support the deployment of 500-1,000 CCS projects to store 1 GtCO2 per year by 2030;
- Help unlock 1 GtCO2e in savings per year by 2030 through chemical products serving sectors including buildings, automotive, packaging, and food;
- Reduce barriers for up to 0.4 GtCO2 e reduction per year in the industry’s emissions by 2030, on top of anticipated efficiency gains, through new breakthrough technologies;
- Scale-up CO2 emission reductions in the range of 20-25 percent in 2030 compared to business as usual;
- Reduce projected energy use in buildings by 50 percent by 2030 through energy efficiency in buildings;
- Use sustainably produced biofuels for 27 percent of total transport fuel by 2050 to avoid roughly 2.1 Gt CO2 emissions per year;
- Achieve CO2 neutral (net zero emissions) freight transport within the 21st century;
- Produce 50 percent more available and nutritious food (compared to today) and strengthen the climate resilience and incomes of farming communities. Reduce agricultural and land-use change emissions from commercial agriculture by at least 3.7 Gt CO2e per year by 2030 (50 percent). Achieve a 65 percent emissions reduction by 2050; and
- Increase forest carbon stocks by 3 GtCO2 /year.
“According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to avoid dangerous climate change global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by over a third in 2030 compared to business as usual). If it achieves its ambition, the LCTPi could get 64-68 percent of the way to achieving this – a significant contribution to climate change mitigation,” the report says.
