Isramart : UN CDM Needs More Predictable Framework, Less Delay-World Bank

Isramart news:
The U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism that encourages private sector investment in carbon-abatement projects in developing countries needs a clearer and more predictable regulatory framework and speedier and more streamlined decision-making before emissions reductions can be scaled up, the World Bank said Monday.

"Providing a long-term signal; streamlining the project cycle; broadening methodologies and making them more practical and accessible as well as increasing the use of standardization and benchmarks to assess additionality are some of the key changes necessary," the World Bank said in an early summary of a report to be delivered Tuesday at the Copenhagen climate change talks.

The World Bank, with its partners in the Prototype Carbon Fund, established the first global carbon fund to create a demand for carbon credits and to gain experience with the CDM, which allows emissions reductions projects in developing countries to earn certified emissions credits that can be traded and sold and used by industrialized countries to meet part of their emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

"The market for project-based emissions reductions has grown significantly since the early days of the PCF, and has the potential to grow substantially more to become instruments of a much larger-scale shift to low-carbon development," the World Bank said.

In 2008, transactions in CDM and Joint Implementation, the Kyoto Protocol's other market-based mechanism, were close to $7 billion, the World Bank said.