The COP 24 ended at 23:00 on Saturday night December 15, 2018 with a ‘Katowice Climate Package’ designed “to operationalize the climate change regime contained in the Paris Agreement. Under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, it will promote international cooperation and encourage greater ambition”. The Katowice package includes guidelines that will operationalize the transparency framework, outlining how countries will provide information about their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that describe their domestic climate actions. This information includes mitigation and adaptation measures as well as details of financial support for climate action in developing countries.
The package also includes guidelines that relate to:
The EHA, who held its Annual General Assembly on December 14, 2018 especially welcomes the progress on the development and transfer of technology as this could result in more support for action in the uptake of hydrogen technologies in countries where the highest potential of emission reduction are envisioned in the coming decades. The EHA as a network partner of the UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre and Network CTCN, this year completed the first Technical Assistance on hydrogen for Brazil. Ths was also the first TA Brazil so far has submitted.
During the last week of the COP24, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report stating to maintain the 1.5C path we need to include more biofuels and electricity in the transport. Moreover, The IPCC mentions hydrogen as one of the options for decarbonization:
‘Electrification, hydrogen, bio-based feedstocks, and substitution…would lead to the deep emissions reductions required in energy-intensive industries to limit warming to 1.5°C. However, those options are limited by institutional, economic and technical constraints, which increase financial risks to many incumbent firms (medium evidence, high agreement).For instance, Portuguese first secretary of state for mobility, environment and energy transition José Mendes said that Portugal will use both – biofuels and electricity for decarbonization of the transport sector. Portugal aims for 98.5% lower emission by 2050. Furthermore, he said that on average in Europe, a car is not used 92% of the time and when it is used, only 1.5 people sit in it. He believes that by ⅓ of the trips can be done by shared mobility and by 2043, all vehicles will be fully electric.
However the 4ht round of trilogues of EU Council, Commission and Parliament on on December 10, 2018 failed to reach an agreement on CO2 targets for cars and vans up to 2030 since the Member States did not find an agreement whether the decrease of emission should be 30, 35 or 40%. The European Federation for Transport and Environment T&E wrote that this breakdown is the fault of the Austrian presidency which put the interest of the German car industry ahead of the whole EU. T&E calculated that their proposal was equivalent to only 24% reductions of emissions, which is substantially less than the 40% voted by the Parliament.
The EU Parliament on December 12, 2018 voted in the EU funding of up to 90% of the costs of so-called ‘synergy projects’, which connect transport, energy, and digital sectors. This would enable projects like smart grids and vehicle-to-grid charging to benefit from EU financing. There is also an earmark for 60% of CEF for climate projects across all sectors (energy, digital and transport). All CEF funding is topped up by member states. The EHA facilitated the first EU and is preparing for more to come in 2019 -2020 Synergy project TSO2020
The CTC Network promotes the accelerated transfer of environmentally sound technologies for low carbon and climate resilient development at the request of developing countries.
