CDM EB blocks 8 projects, approves new guidelines

The UN has rejected eight CDM projects, bringing the total to 112.

The executive board of the clean development mechanism (CDM), which administers how emission reduction projects in developing countries get carbon credits, blocked the projects at its 47th meeting in Bonn.

The UN-appointed panel gave the thumbs down to four hydropower projects, all of them in China.

The projects, which are all under 30 MW, are small by the standards of many Chinese hydro schemes.

They were blocked from moving through the CDM pipeline because they were judged likely to have happened without carbon finance.

The board also refused to approve two projects that use biomass to cut emissions from the use of fossil fuels at small power plants, one in Brazil, and one in Israel.

Another Israel-based project, which aims to earn carbon credits by using cleaner-burning liquefied natural gas also fell foul of the executive board's rules on additionality.

The board also nixed a wind power project in China.

The UN panels placed 13 projects under review, meaning that the participants in the projects and auditors will have to resubmit evidence before the projects can be registered.

Of the 13 projects to be put under the EB's microscope, eight are in China, including three wind power projects, two hydro and others including energy efficiency fuel switch and cogeneration.

The board blocked registration of all of the projects that were placed under review or had been subject to a request for review at previous meetings.

Programme of activities

The meeting provided new or clearer guidelines relating to CDM programmes, which aim to cut emissions at multiple locations, such as replacing old, energy-guzzling lightbulbs with more energy efficient fluorescent ones.

Developers of programmes of activities (PoA) and companies that could audit them have long complained that the rules are too complex, confusing or difficult to apply in practice.

The board decided to limit the scale of liability on auditors for loss of carbon credits resulting from any part of a PoA that fails to live up to emissions reductions promised in design documents.

However some form of liability remains, according to observers.

Liability

Auditors will now have to chew over the EB's new guidelines before they will be comfortable in checking the mountains of paperwork associated with CDM programmes.

DOEs had refused to take on auditing work for programmes lest they have to pay out on credits blocked at any stage by the board.

The board also allowed developers of programmes to use multiple methodologies, a key demand as single methodologies could severely limit the number of credits issued.

However, developers will only be able to use more than one methodology if they get the blessing of the board on a case-specific basis.

Also, programmes that started early and submit a request for validation (auditing under the CDM process) can retroactively claim CERs.

Programmes have been heralded as a possible solution to the relatively low investment in CDM projects in sub-Saharan Africa and pockets of Latin America and Asia where investment does not reach.

It is also seen as a more “democratic” version of the CDM because it cuts emissions on a grassroots or household level in developing countries, rather than the project-based approach, which tends to focus on individual power plants, factories and farms.