29 Nov 2007 - Brussels,
Belgium – One out of five emission reductions
credits sold under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) lack environmental
integrity, according to WWF.
Created by the Kyoto Protocol, the CDM allows
industrialized countries to partly meet their
own greenhouse gas reduction targets by financing
emission reducing projects in developing countries.
These projects must be additional to emission
reduction schemes that would have taken place
in the absence of the mechanism.
WWF’s new report — Is the CDM fulfilling
its environmental and sustainable development
objectives? — suggests that 20% of emission
reductions certified under the initiative
may have happened even without CDM financing.
Furthermore, the report shows that the overall
contribution of the CDM to sustainable development,
strongly required by Kyoto rules, is worryingly
low.
Based on the report, WWF proposes a series
of improvements that the Executive Board should
implement to strengthen the credibility of
the CDM. These include strengthening the project
methodologies, and increasing the controls
and transparency of the verifying organizations.
Governments at the upcoming climate change
talks in Bali need to step up improvements
to the Kyoto Protocol’s most important emission
reduction scheme. WWF acknowledges that the
Executive Board has recently taken steps to
improve the CDM. Further improvements are
necessary and practicable.
“The CDM is a new and very important tool
and needs to be fine-tuned to reach its purpose,”
says Dr Stephan Singer, Head of WWF’s European
Climate and Energy Policy Unit.
“The UN must ensure that CDM projects protect
the environment by being truly ‘additional’.
Governments at the upcoming UNFCCC Bali climate
talks must make sure that the CDM fulfils
its potential and remains a central mechanism
in the international climate framework beyond
2012.”
Since the launch of the European Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2005, the EU has become
the largest carbon market in the world. But
access to excessively large volumes of carbon
credits in phase II of the EU ETS (2008-2012)
means that emissions from sectors taking part
in the scheme could actually increase by 145
million tonnes of CO2 over the levels in 2005/06
– equivalent to the annual emissions from
approximately 30 coal-fired power stations.
“As the largest buyer the EU needs to ensure
the CDM delivers real climate and sustainable
development benefits,” adds Singer.
“At the same time, deep domestic reductions
in the EU are crucial to realizing a low-carbon
economy that keeps warming below the dangerous
level of 2°C. CDM credits need to be additional
to, and not be used instead of domestic action.”
WWF believes that in order to ensure that
CDM energy projects are truly additional,
have real sustainable development benefits,
and put the world on a path towards a low-carbon
economy the use of CDM energy project credits
within the EU ETS should be limited to those
certified by the Gold Standard. This is the
only carbon offset standard supported by over
45 NGOs worldwide.
Claudia Delpero, WWF European Policy Office
Martin Hiller, WWF International
