International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

security, appear to be increasing the extent, and the significance of the overlap
between policies.
It is tempting for those responsible for policies on energy and climate change to
assume that the best use of waste is to generate energy from it, and to generate as
much as possible. This is not necessarily the case. Furthermore, where climate
change is concerned, the measure of ‘best’ must also consider whether what matters
from the perspective of policy are the emissions reported to the IPCC, or the impact of
the activity from the perspective of the global environment.
In recent work in the UK for Defra, the Committee on Climate Change and the
Environment Agency, Eunomia developed marginal abatement cost curves for
greenhouse gas emissions from the waste sector. Decisions regarding the best
management route were not greatly affected by the choice of perspective. However,
this may be more coincidence than a robust outcome.
It is worth pointing out that in the medium- to long-term, a globally integrated carbon
market would make the distinction less relevant. In our analysis below (see Annex
63.0), partly for this reason, and partly because we are interested in assessing the
impacts of activities in the waste sector (as opposed to their impact on an inventory
under particular accounting rules), we have assumed that what matter is the impact
of the activity from the perspective of the global environment. This is consistent with
general practice in respect of cost benefit analysis. 889
889 It is worth noting, in passing, that the UK has recently issued new Guidance on public sector
projects regarding climate change emissions. In the suggested approach, the social costs of
greenhouse gas emissions are assumed to be different depending upon whether the emissions are
within the traded or non-traded (i.e. EU-ETS) sectors (with the two converging in 2030). So, for
example, the benefits from generating electricity would be valued at the social cost related to the
traded sector, whilst avoided transport emissions from the production of biomethane would be valued
at the social cost for emissions outside the EU-ETS). Eunomia is currently applying this methodology in
the context of a cost-benefit analysis for WRAP on the potential impact of landfill bans as applied to the
UK.
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