Affordable and Clean Energy

If there is to be a significant role for gas as a transition fuel, let alone as a destination fuel, governments and international institutions in the UNECE region will have to develop strategies that encourage the use of gas in the near- and medium-term while providing for a subsequent orderly transition towards a vastly increased use of renewables. Overall, renewables can be expected to provide low-cost electricity in much of the UNECE region and will be the prime beneficiary of the phasing out of coal by individual UNECE member States. Renewables will be favoured both by investors seeking to profit from the market and by governments and politicians seeking to benefit from the provision of low-cost energy to the public whilst limiting the burden on public finances. There will continue to be significant geographical differences. Gas demand in the European Union is expected to contract significantly in the next 20 years but gas will remain the dominant energy source for domestic supply in Russia and Central Asia. Modelling carried out for UNECE shows that a policy stance based on a Pathway to 2°C results in a radically different energy mix to a ‘business as usual’ scenario. In particular, it challenges the conventional wisdom that gas is needed as a transition fuel to decarbonize the economy. More powerful arguments for the use of gas are its role in the provision of both energy security and quality of life. Decarbonization and energy sustainability remain key objectives in the current energy transition. But they are not identical and it is far from clear how efforts to achieve decarbonization and to secure energy sustainability will affect each other.

The International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES) have been prepared by the United Nations Statistics Division in close cooperation with countries and other international/regional organizations and adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in February 2011. IRES was developed to assist countries in the establishment and strengthening of their energy statistical programmes. In particular, IRES provides data compilers with a complete set of recommendations covering all aspects of the statistical production process from basic concepts, definitions, classifications and measurement units to data sources, institutional and legal framework, data compilation strategies, energy balances, data quality and statistical dissemination. It also contains the Standard International Energy Product Classification (SIEC) which is the first internationally agreed classification of energy products. IRES is a multipurpose document intended to address the need of various user groups including data producers and data users.

Las minas de carbón no son solo un desafío de gestión de la seguridad, sino también una fuente importante de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. La liberación de metano durante la minería del carbón crea condiciones de trabajo inseguras en las minas subterráneas de carbón en todo el mundo. El objetivo de esta Guía es proporcionar una contribución genuina para mejorar las prácticas de seguridad de la mina en minas subterráneas activas de carbón, apoyando prácticas de minería más seguras para reducir muertes, lesiones y pérdidas de propiedad, al mismo tiempo que se fomenta el uso del metano de la mina de carbón (CMM) para reducir el gas de efecto invernadero. Emisiones y utilizar de otro modo los recursos energéticos desperdiciados.

Le Groupe d’experts de la CEE sur le méthane provenant des mines de charbon a publié la deuxième édition du Guide des meilleures pratiques pour un drainage et une utilisation efficaces du méthane dans les mines de charbon. Depuis la publication de la première édition en 2010, les pratiques et réglementations de l’industrie ont évolué. Cette seconde édition présente les évolutions les plus critiques. La deuxième édition comprend également des études de cas supplémentaires illustrant l’application des meilleures pratiques dans les mines de charbon du monde entier. La deuxième édition du Guide des meilleures pratiques, fondée sur des principes, ne remplace pas les lois et réglementations nationales ou internationales. Il les complète plutôt par une approche globale de pratiques de gestion du méthane plus sûres et plus efficaces.

The purpose of the document is to provide non-mandatory guidance for the application of the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources 2009 (UNFC) to uranium and thorium resources. These Guidelines are intended to assist all those responsible for finding, classifying, quantifying, financing, permitting, mining, and processing these minerals such that they are fit to enter the nuclear fuel cycle. The Guidelines help to align the various resource classification systems currently in use for uranium and thorium resource management and reporting, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)/International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ‘Red Book’ resource reporting scheme and various national systems, in a coherent and consistent manner.

Criteria and indicators constitute an increasingly common policy tool to implement sustainable forest management (SFM) and to define clear priorities and targets. This should improve monitoring, reporting and assessment of key aspects of SFM performance. These guidelines provide specific concepts, definitions, tools and reference materials to guide the development process of national criteria and indicator sets for SFM. These guidelines have been developed to support the project “Accountability Systems for Sustainable Forest Management in the Caucasus and Central Asia” which is implemented through the UNECE and FAO Forestry and Timber Section and funded through the UN Development Account. The guidelines and the methods described within are used and applied for the development of national criteria and indicator sets for sustainable forest management in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The guidelines might be also relevant for other countries.

This publication is the theme study for the 73rd session of commission to be held in May 2017. The main purpose of the publication is to call on policymakers in Asia and the Pacific for urgent actions to transition national energy sectors to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly Goal 7. The energy sector transition is the only way to address the sizeable energy deficit which impede progress in energy access in a number of member countries. It will also address gaps between current commitments under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change and lack of coherent energy strategic and policy frameworks and actions held back progress of SDG7.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been used as fuel for ships for decades but quality standards are still under development. The UNECE Group of Experts on Gas created in 2015 a task force on removing barriers to the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. This report summarises the findings to date on the main barriers to the use of gas in maritime transportation. It considered not only gas-fuelled ships, but the supply chain as well. The report demonstrates that in order to allow the use of LNG as marine fuel to grow, six key enablers need to be in place: 1) easy access to LNG, 2) reliable and safe logistics, 3) legal certainty, 4) favourable investment climate, 5) competence, knowledge and skills, and 6) public acceptance.

This publication contains the text of the United Nations Framework Classification for Fossil Energy and Mineral Reserves and Resources 2009 (UNFC-2009) and the Specifications (basic rules) for its Application. UNFC-2009 is a universally acceptable and internationally applicable scheme for the classification and reporting of fossil energy and mineral reserves and resources and is currently the only classification in the world to do so. As with extractive activities, UNFC-2009 reflects conditions in the economic and social domain, including markets and government framework conditions, technological and industrial maturity and the ever present uncertainties. It provides a single framework on which to build international energy and mineral studies, analyze government resource management policies, plan industrial processes and allocate capital efficiently. The Specifications make UNFC-2009 operational. They set out the basic rules that are considered necessary to ensure an appropriate level of consistency in application. They provide additional instructions on how UNFC-2009 should be applied in specific circumstances. By covering all extractive activities, UNFC-2009 captures the common principles and provides a tool for consistent reporting for these activities, regardless of the commodity. It is a strong code that paves the way for improved global communications which will aid stability and security of supplies, governed by fewer and more widely understood rules and guidelines. The efficiencies to be gained through the global use of UNFC-2009 and its Specifications are substantial.

Considerable progress in energy efficiency in the building sector is reported in the majority of the UNECE member States, and still reaching the potential often falls short due to flawed policy frameworks, and lack of public awareness on available modern technologies and education on long-term economic and social benefits of energy efficiency improvement. This publication is prepared in response to the outlined challenges and aims to elucidate the status of implementation of energy efficiency standards in buildings and deployment of appropriate technologies, and to identify good policy practices and replicable solutions. It also proposes a set of general recommendations and priority actions arising from the analysis.