Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 5. Conclusions 243
3.4 Sectoral agreements
The recent rise of sectoral approaches can be traced to concerns over
competitiveness and leakage.
They are regarded as an effective mean to encourage mitigation action
in developing countries ahead of any binding national commitments,
when combined with the CDM.
Although not possible in some sectors such as those with disperse
emission sources (agriculture), they should work in most emission- and
energy-intensive sectors (electric power, refining, cement).
May be a good way of incorporating international transport emissions
(airlines, shipping) into the global agreement.
Several sectoral initiatives and voluntary agreements are already in
place (in the aluminum, steel and iron, and cement sectors).
However, approaches targeting sectoral emissions should complement
national emission reduction targets but not replace them.
In an ideal world, an international climate agreement would include a global
price on greenhouse gas emissions, applicable to all countries and all sectors, set
by market-based systems such as cap-and-trade. But the reality is much more
likely to be a patchwork of varying systems, with only some countries and sectors
participating, at least at first. At the hard core of likely future agreements there is
in fact a graduation of national targets. There may be ways to bridge this gap
through linkage among systems, and agreements within energy-intensive,
trade-exposed sectors. A sectoral approach could be combined with the CDM to
gradually strengthen emissions commitments in developing countries.
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008