The development objective of the Mocha Wind Park Project for Yemen is to increase the supply of cost-effective renewable wind electricity. The project has two components.
... See More + The first component physical investment will support the construction of a wind farm at Mocha of approximately 60 megawatt (MW) generation capacity. This component will initially be implemented by a project management unit (PMU) established under the Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MOEE). The second component consulting services and market development consists of the following sub-components: (i) an international engineering consulting firm employed to assist the PMU in the procurement and contracting of the supply and installation contractor and in the construction supervision of the project throughout the construction phase and the initial operation stage; (ii) an international consulting firm employed to assist MOEE to design tendering procedures and documents for competitive procurement of private-public partnership (PPP) wind projects and to assist MOEE with the tendering process; (iii) advisory service for special purpose company (SPC) which will operate commercially with clear contractual arrangement with the electricity off-taker; (iv) advisory service and instruments for the implementation of regional long-term wind measurement program in three to five wind development zones; (v) consulting service for preliminary environmental and social impact assessments, grid connection planning for promising wind sites; and (vi) other consulting services as needed and capacity building activities, including external audit fees.
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Ukraine's residential gas and district heating tariffs are among the lowest in Europe, with several negative consequences, such as more subsidies going to the rich, deteriorating quality of services because of underinvestment in gas and district heating companies, high fiscal burden, and energy inefficiency.
... See More + In Ukraine, gas and heating subsidies are mainly captured by well-off people because they tend to use more energy. Low residential gas and district heating tariffs are thus not pro-poor. This brief examines the dichotomy of low tariffs and high costs in Ukraine, and sets forth the following recommendations: 1) increase average residential gas tariffs to equal the price district heating companies pay for gas to produce residential heat; 2) increase residential district heating tariffs to cover full financial cost of service; and 3) improve targeting of social assistance programs.
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Ukraine's residential gas and district heating tariffs are among the lowest in Europe, with several negative consequences, such as more subsidies going to the rich, deteriorating quality of services because of underinvestment in gas and district heating companies, high fiscal burden, and energy inefficiency.
... See More + In Ukraine, gas and heating subsidies are mainly captured by well-off people because they tend to use more energy. Low residential gas and district heating tariffs are thus not pro-poor. This brief examines the dichotomy of low tariffs and high costs in Ukraine, and sets forth the following recommendations: 1) increase average residential gas tariffs to equal the price district heating companies pay for gas to produce residential heat; 2) increase residential district heating tariffs to cover full financial cost of service; and 3) improve targeting of social assistance programs.
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With rapid development of wind power in China, the following three issues have become barriers for further scale-up: 1) concentration of wind farms in the Three-North region, which became significantly underutilized because of a limited capability of local power grids to off-take and consume wind-generated electricity and because of a lack of coordinated development of long-distance transmission lines to deliver electricity to load centers in the South and East regions; 2) increasing subsidies and, thus, a burden on final consumers; and 3) resistance of local authorities to develop new projects because the new value added tax policy reform.
... See More + How to deal with these issues will have significant impact on the future development of wind in China. This note proposes a methodology to enhance a comprehensive approach by taking both generation and transmission into account in crafting the development plan and formulating the incentive policies, which may be useful in addressing these issues.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6486 JUN 01, 2013
Top news flared in this issue: Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) kicks off fourth phase, aims to scale up flaring reduction; accelerating the utilization of associated gas makes concrete contributions toward reducing Green House Gas, or GHG emissions, improving efficiency, and increasing access to cleaner electricity and cooking fuels; Russia: Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra, or KMAO and GGFR sign agreement for advisory services; Alberta: Indonesians participate in regulatory workshop; and Iraq: GGFR launches study on gas pricing mechanisms.
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The uncertainty surrounding the future of existing carbon markets in recent years has prevented valuable resources from being channeled to low-carbon investments, particularly from the private sector.
... See More + Following the economic downturn in 2008-2009 and slow economic recovery in major economies, industrial output plummeted and the demand for carbon assets used for compliance also fell. With limited support, prices reached historic lows. At the same time, several national and sub-national carbon pricing initiatives are emerging. It is not surprising that several of these new carbon pricing initiatives also include design features intended to prevent similar developments in the future. These emerging initiatives are being tailored to national circumstances and include a range of novel design features, including mechanisms to stabilize the carbon price. Prices in the major existing carbon markets are at a historic low. Carbon markets have endured challenging years since the global economic crisis of 2008-2009. The subsequent economic downturn led to a significant reduction in industrial activity in some major economies in the years immediately following the economic crisis, as well as falls in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in participating economies. New approaches are emerging to ensure ambition and price stabilization. Several schemes are exploring ways of raising the level of mitigation ambition over time in a predictable way. This report highlights concrete commitments to direct linking made in 2012, such as the European Union (EU)-Australia link, the EU-Swiss link, and the California-Quebec link.
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International negotiations on climate change have been dogged by mutual recriminations between rich and poor countries, constricted by the zero-sum arithmetic of a shrinking global carbon budget, and overtaken by shifts in economic power between industrialized and developing countries.
... See More + To overcome these "narrative," "adding-up," and "new world" problems, respectively, this paper proposes a new Greenprint for cooperation. First, the large dynamic emerging economies -- China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia -- must assume the mantle of leadership, offering contributions of their own and prodding the reluctant industrial countries into action. This role reversal would be consistent with the greater stakes for the dynamic emerging economies. Second, the emphasis must be on technology generation. This would allow greater consumption and production possibilities for all countries while respecting the global emissions budget that is dictated by the climate change goal of keeping average temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade. Third, instead of the old cash-for-cuts approach -- which relies on the industrial countries offering cash (which they do not have) to the dynamic emerging economies for cuts (that they are unwilling to make) -- all major emitters must make contributions. With a view to galvanizing a technology revolution, industrial countries would take early action to raise carbon prices. The dynamic emerging economies would in turn eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, commit to matching carbon price increases in the future, allow limited border taxes against their own exports, and strengthen protection of intellectual property for green technologies. This would directly and indirectly facilitate such a technological revolution.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6440 MAY 01, 2013
This report builds on an earlier review of the Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) portfolio with regard to community benefits and their contribution to broader socioeconomic and environmentally sustainable development.
... See More + It highlights the diverse contributions of CDCF projects in enhancing rural and poor community livelihoods, and aims to identify broad features and insights on delivering development plus carbon based on concrete experience from the CDCF portfolio to date. The assessment also infers a number of key lessons to enhance the effectiveness of delivering community benefits: a) the effectiveness of CDCF projects is maximized when community benefits are intrinsic to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project itself. In projects with indirect benefits, effectiveness is maximized when Community Benefit Plan (CBP) are integrated within the social corporate responsibility arm of the project sponsor or the broader local development initiatives; b) CBPs establish a clear 'results framework' for delivering community activities, complete with benefit outputs, indicators and baselines, an approach that has proven meaningful for stakeholders to demonstrate and showcase the benefits delivered; and c) establishing few, simple and meaningful indicators helps ensure efficient and effective monitoring of CBPs. The inclusion of gender-related indicators in the CBP could be more systematic. Community participation in monitoring and evaluation might be a cost-effective option, but should be matched by more rigorous World Bank supervision of CBPs.
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Feed-in tariffs have become the most widely used policy instrument to promote renewable energy deployment around the world. This paper examines the relation between tariff setting and policy outcome based on wind capacity expansion in 35 European countries over the 1991-2010 period.
... See More + Using a dynamic panel data model, it estimates the long-run elasticity of wind deployment with respect to the level of feed-in support. The analysis finds that higher subsidies do not necessarily yield greater levels of wind installation. Non-economic barriers and rent-seeking may have contributed to the weak correlation. On the other hand, the length of feed-in contract and guaranteed grid access are important determinants of policy effectiveness. A one-year extension of an original 5-year agreement on average increases wind investment by 6 percent annually, while providing an interconnection guarantee almost doubles wind investment in one year.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6376 FEB 01, 2013
The development of wind-and solar-generating capacity is growing rapidly around the world as policy makers pursue various energy policy objectives.
... See More + This paper will describe the challenges in integrating wind and solar generation, the lessons learned, and recommended strategies from both operating experience and integration studies. Case studies on the experience with wind and solar integration in China, Germany, and Spain are also included in this paper. The paper is organized as follows. First section summarizes worldwide wind and solar development, the challenges in integrating wind and solar generation, and some of the lessons learned from studies designed to evaluate the impact of higher levels of wind and solar generation and also from the operational experience in some countries with larger amounts of renewable energy. The second section summarizes some of the solutions for incorporating higher levels of wind and solar capacity into short-term system operations. This section also explains basic methodologies to implement system operations studies to understand the impacts of variability in system operation. The third section explains the contribution of variable renewables to long-term supply adequacy-commonly called 'firm' power-and the relationship of this to long-term reserves; it also explores how these issues can be incorporated into long-term planning or adequacy assessments. Overall, the variability of wind power generation adds to the variability on the grid in most time scales, and a key question that wind integration studies must address is whether there is enough existing capability on the grid to manage that increased variability, or whether new sources, such as new generation or increased levels of demand response, must be added to manage that variability.
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The government of Balochistan is preparing a medium-term strategy for the development of the province, the first phase of which is expected to cover 5-7 years.
... See More + This report has been developed in response to a request from the Government of Balochistan to help with the analysis of issues in certain key sectors, to recommend policies for them, and to prepare sectorial action plans with estimates of the resources (financial and human) that would be required to implement the recommendations. The report takes as its starting point that the primary role of a government is to provide a better life for its citizens. An important component of such a life is a higher income, because this gives persons command over the goods and services that enable them to lead lives that they have reason to value.
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CF-Assist focused on helping developing countries and economies in transition to effectively participate in carbon markets and benefit from the flexible mechanisms under the Kyoto protocol, specifically the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI).
... See More + Since 2009, CF-Assist has expanded this original scope and set strategic priorities that are influenced by various developments, such as the ongoing negotiations for a new international climate change regime, the World Bank's strategic framework on development and climate change, poverty eradication and green growth agendas. World Bank are supporting the preparation of low carbon development strategies for cities and helping them establish institutional frameworks for implementation, as well as fostering development of programmatic carbon finance programs where appropriate. World Bank capacity building objective is to support the development of sustainable, climate friendly cities. World Bank aim's to achieve this by providing knowledge services, technical capacity support and practical insights to urban sector professionals on how to develop and finance multi-sector, city-wide climate change programs. City-wide programs are being designed to support cities that are undertaking strategic, cross-sectoral approach to planning, administration and financing of low carbon, climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and policies.
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This report concerns the Carbon Finance Assist (CF-Assist) program during the fiscal year 2013. CF-Assist is hosted in the World Bank Institute Climate Change Practice (WBICC) and set up as a capacity-building and technical assistance program to complement the World Banks carbon funds.
... See More + The 20122013 reporting year was a crucial one for the international climate change action community with the Doha Gateway extending the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period until 2020. At the same time, it has become ever more evident that CF-Assist alone will not suffice to address the daunting task ahead to keep the planet on target for a maximum temperature raise of two degrees celsius by 2100. This report focuses on climate finance readiness, low emissions development (LED), carbon pricing, policy instruments and carbon pricing, nationally appropriate mitigation action (NAMA), cities and climate change, and e-course educating participants on low carbon development.
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Carbon finance is an important tool for mitigating climate change. A key challenge however is to ensure that carbon finance operations combine development dividends with emission reductions.
... See More + This note focuses on the role of carbon finance in contributing to pro-poor development. It explores how social co-benefits can be effectively integrated into carbon finance operations, and highlights lessons from the World Bank's' Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF) experience. The note summarizes key findings from a recent assessment of the Fund's performance on social co-benefits and sustainable development with a view to documenting outcomes, good practice examples and lessons learned. Over the past decade carbon finance has emerged as an important tool for supporting climate change mitigation. Market-based mechanisms established under the Kyoto protocol, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), allow industrialized countries with emission reduction commitments to implement emission-reduction projects in developing countries. CDM was intended to provide developing countries with additional financial resources for investment in clean technologies while contributing to their sustainable development priorities. However, a general concern about CDM is that it focuses primarily on emission reductions, and many CDM projects fail to deliver on development benefits.
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The objective of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) China Thermal Power Efficiency Project is to reduce coal consumption and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions per unit of electricity production in Shanxi, Shandong and Guangdong provinces in China, through: (i) mitigating the financial impact of closing inefficient small-sized coal-fired units to achieve targeted closure on schedule; (ii) demonstrating the viability of investments in efficiency improvements in existing mid-sized thermal units; and (iii) developing effective regulations for supporting the pilot programs for transition to efficient generation dispatch.
... See More + The extension is necessary to allow the project implementing agencies (IAs) to complete the planned project activities and achieve the project development objective. The project management office and IAs have prepared an updated project implementation plan to accelerate the project implementation, and aim to increase the total disbursement to 71 percent by December 31, 2012, 87 percent by June 30, 2013 and 100 percent by December 31, 2013. The Bank team reviewed the plan and considered acceptable. This will be the 1st extension of the project.
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