Albania Contribution (INDC) on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Part of International Project: Safeguarding and Securing Society, Including Adapting to Climate Change

Dr Lorenc Gordani | Friday, August 14, 2015

Albanian deep and structural process of reform in the energy sector has seen lately an acceleration pass also toward achieve the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC as set out in Article 2 of the Convention. Intended Nationally Determined Contribution following decision 1/CP.19 and decision 1/CP.20 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) invited Parties to communicate the UNFCCC Secretariat their INDCs. Thus the INDC of Albania will represent a baseline scenario target to the scenario period of 2015 or 2016 - 2030.

Indeed the Article 13 of the Energy Community Treaty sets out that “[t]he Parties recognise the importance of the Kyoto Protocol. Each Contracting Party shall endeavour to accede to it.” Although this does not constitute a legal obligation under the Energy Community Treaty, there are certain steps occurring in the climate domain, as confirmed by the European Commission’s progress reports, which are pertinent to this report.

According to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) data, all Contracting Parties have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and all of these countries with the exception of Serbia and Ukraine have done so via accession. However, there has been no or very limited progress reported from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, Kosovo and the institutional framework within these Contracting Parties remains very weak.

Croatia has a stable policy framework in place in the field of climate change and it participates actively in the UNFCCC negotiations, regularly supporting the EU position. Croatia participated actively in the climate work enacted under the Regional Environmental Network for Accession (RENA). It continued to take steps towards compliance in so far as the EU Monitoring Mechanism is concerned. Regarding emissions trading, in October 2010 Croatia amended its implementing legislation on emission quotas and the detailed procedures of trading emission units to further align with the acquis.

In Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the preparation of the Third National Communication on Climate Change has started. The Roadmap for the introduction of monitoring, reporting and verification of GHG emissions under the EU ETS has been drafted with the support of the Republic of Bulgaria. The preparation of a sector identification template for Environment and Climate Change is ongoing within the framework of IPA 2012 - 2013. This will set the general legal base for the transposition of the relevant aquis.

In Serbia, the Serbian National Sustainable Development Strategy, adopted in 2008 and recently updated along with the National Environmental Protection Programme adopted in 2010, identified climate change as a key risk and put forward actions to mitigate and adapt to it. The Energy Development Strategy also involves elements regarding climate change mitigation measures up until 2015. Serbia is a non-Annex-1 Party to the UNFCCC and has ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

The Government adopted a national Clean Development Strategy in February 2010. Serbia submitted its first national communication in November 2010, with greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories for 1990 and 1998, plus projections for 2012 and 2015. The country has also begun preparing its second national communication (to cover GHG emissions from 2000 to 2010). Serbia is currently assessing the financing needed for mitigation, including the formulation of the necessary financial plans. Nationally appropriate mitigation actions up to 2020 for the energy efficiency sub-sector are being developed and should be completed by mid-2013.

Albania has ratified both the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol with the status of a Non-Annex 1 Party. In the International Climate Change talks Albania has associated with European Union positions and within the restrictions of being a Non Annex I party committed to implement ‘National Appropriate Mitigation Actions’ - NAMAs.

Albania’s contribution to the global greenhouse gas emissions is relatively low, estimated at an average of 9,4 million ton/year of CO2 eqv. This is because over 95 percent of Albania’s electricity is produced from hydro sources and high energy intensity industries are no longer operating. This would also mean that Albania’s greenhouse gas emissions allows to have a smooth trend of achieving 2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per capita by 2050, which can be taken as a target for global contraction and convergence of greenhouse gas emissions.

Transportation (mobile sources) followed by agriculture and waste sector are the main categories that are found to have significant contribution to the total greenhouse gas emissions for Albania. The contribution of renewable energy sources in the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases, has been made, so-called avoided CO2 emissions due to the use of renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. The avoided emissions is determined in a manner that the amount of electricity from renewable energy sources, the amount of renewable energy for heating and cooling and renewable energy in the transport, is replaced by fossil fuels and their respective CO2 emissions.

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