Hi, in this module I'd like to talk about the link between waste management and climate change. I'm quite sure that you're familiar with the climate change challenge, but here just a reminder as a small repetition. Global warming and climate change refers to an increase in average global temperatures with various human activity as the main cause for this.The increase in average global temperature is caused primarily by increases in greenhouse gases, as shown here on the right. Predominantly carbon dioxide but also other gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and other fluorinated industrial gases, which are however less relevant in the waste management discussion. What you see in this list, is also this number, showing how much more this gas would warm the earth over a hundred year period as compared to carbon dioxide. So, methane is 25 times as potent as CO2 and nitrous oxide even 298 times more potent. What is done in this whole greenhouse gas discussion, is to relate these different gases to CO2, using this number. And the unit is then tons of CO2 equivalents. Besides the gases research has also identified another substance that can have a large impact on climate and its relevance to the waste management sector. This is called black carbon, which are small black particles in the atmosphere, resulting from incomplete combustion of biomass. Black carbon has been recognized as an important short lived climate pollutant. Black carbon is not yet included in the whole emission quantification as there is yet no good or agreed metric to compare black carbon with other greenhouse gases. As mentioned, black carbon is a typical result of burning waste. This whole issue of black carbon is clearly a topic of growing interest, which in future will need much more attention and research. Now, let us have a look, how different countries and how the waste sector contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions. This infograph of the World Resources Institute allows you to look at different countries and sectors contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. The inner circle differentiates between the top 10 countries and the others. The countries are then shown in the middle section with the top 10 shown in colors. Finally, the outer circle shows the emission contributions by sector. First, we shall click on Indonesia, shown here in bright red. The total CO2 equivalent emissions are 760 tons, as shown in the grey bar above. While the waste emissions are 69 tons, so the contribution of the waste sector is 8%. Why don't you google this infograph and search for your own country in the list and the emissions contribution of the waste sector. Compare this with other countries and share your views on this in our forum. In the global average, the waste sector including wastewater contributes only 3-5% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. This is mainly through methane emissions from landfills, methane and nitrous oxide from wastewater and some minor CO2 and nitrous oxide from burning of fossil carbon. However, experts agree that this contribution is severely underestimated because certain aspects of waste management are not considered. For instance, the contribution of recycling or of reducing transport of waste through recycling. It has been estimated at around ten to twenty percent of global greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by the waste management sector. This can be by projects that recover landfill gas to either flare it or convert it to electricity or by methods adapting the landfill management. For instance, landfill aeriation to avoid methane generation or also by utilizing cover soil as a way to reduce methane emissions from landfills through the methane oxidizing effect of soil bacteria. Here is an example of landfill gas recovery and electricity production from South Africa. On the left, you can see the landfill in its early stages being filled, and on the right, the infrastructure where the collected landfill gas is transformed to electricity. In the background of the picture on the right you can see the final landfill cells with soil and grass cover. Other greenhouse gas mitigation measures are avoiding disposal in landfills either by composting anaerobic digestion or thermal processes. Here is not only the effect of meeting avoidance that play a role but also the substitution of other resources. For composting, this is substitution of chemical fertilizer which are energy intense in their production. Or for anaerobic digestion and combustion it may be the substitution of fossil fuel energy resources. Finally, in addition also waste minimization recycling and reuse represent an important and increasing potential for indirect reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through the conservation of raw materials and fossil fuel avoidance. Any government or individual company is free to choose how they will reduce emissions. One mechanism is that they purchase emission reduction credits or allowances from other sources, for instance from waste management project in low and middle income countries, which have mitigated emissions of CO2 equivalents. They're different schemes that help regulate and control these emission reduction units. The clean Development Mechanism CDM is a market-based mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol where projects in developing countries can earn carbon credits equivalent to the amount of CO2 they have reduced or avoided. These credits can then be used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets. This is what is called the compliance market based on the Kyoto Protocol agreements of each country. CDM has registered methodologies on how emission reductions are calculated, but also standardized and monitored and also verified as these for their registered projects before issuing the certified emission reduction units. Similarly the carbon finance unit of the World Bank uses money by governments and companies in OECD countries to purchase carbon credits, generated by projects in low- and middle-income countries. Finally, there is also a voluntary market, which uses other certification measures and standards to issue voluntary emission reduction units. Waste related projects account for approximately 18% of all CDM projects. Since the beginning of CDM, around 200 municipal solid waste project have been registered worldwide. However, nearly 90% of registered solid waste projects involve landfill gas flaring and recovering. And most of these projects have been submitted by middle-income countries. the lowest income countries have generally not yet benefitted from this mechanism. Here is an example from the Doña Juana landfill in Bogota Colombia. It is one of the largest Clean Development Mechanism projects in Latin America. The project started in 2009 and was 100% operational by the end of 2010. For the period of January to June 2015, the emission reduction amounted to 340000 tons of CO2 equivalent. Total greenhouse gas emission reduction is estimated to be 14.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent over the entire 22 year life of the project. After the climate conference in Bali in 2007, a new concept was introduced: the nationally appropriate mitigation action NAMA. This refers to a set of policies and actions that country's undertake as a voluntary commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It recognizes that different countries may take different actions depending on their respective capabilities. It also emphasizes the need of financial assistance from developed countries to developing countries, to reduce emissions. It can include a wide range of actions: policies, strategies, research or development, even training and capacity development, and of course projects. So, let me summarize what we have covered in this module. We have talked about greenhouse gas emissions, in general but specifically also from waste management. We've talked about how greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced, either by landfill gas recovery or diversions from landfills or waste minimization recycling and reuse. We looked at different carbon trading measures, specifically at the clean development mechanisms, with one example from Bogota, Colombia and we looked towards the future with the new mechanisms such as NAMA. Thank you for listening.
