August 2015: The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) argues for recognizing and rewarding the sustainable development benefits from waste management, in the context of developing nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs).
In a report, titled ‘Valuing the Sustainable Development Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation Actions: The case of the waste sector and recommendations for the design of NAMAs,’ the authors argue that, while the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been successful with mitigating the impacts of large-scale industrial projects, small-scale community-based projects, such as those in the waste management sector have been overlooked due to their low mitigation potential. The report’s contents are based on discussions held at a side event on the topic of ‘Quantifying and monetizing NAMA co-benefits,’ which took place on the margins of the Bonn Climate Change Conference on 7 June 2014.
The authors say experiences from developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region show that small-scale waste management projects can generate many benefits beyond mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), and that these should be appropriately valued. The sustainable development co-benefits from such projects include green job creation, better health, improved waste collection, reduced dumping in landfills, and increased crop yields through the use of compost. The report quantifies these co-benefits as worth up to US$184.21 per ton of CO2 reduced, and presents a case for undertaking such projects in the context of NAMAs, even though the specific GHG reductions may be low.
The authors propose that local authorities receive benefits from undertaking low-carbon waste management projects through mechanisms, such as carbon credits, feed-in tariffs for the production of electricity from waste, tax exemptions and subsidies. [Publication: Valuing the Sustainable Development Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation Actions: The Case of the Waste Sector and Recommendations for the Design of NAMAs] [UNESCAP Report Webpage] [IISD RS Coverage of the Bonn Climate Change Conference]