Highlights of the 55th meeting of the CDM Executive Board

Bonn, 30 July 2010 –- The CDM Executive Board has adopted new procedures for review of requests for registration and issuance designed to quicken the pace of reviews, solicit a broader range of input, and give project participants more time to respond to issues raised in reviews. “The new procedures have very tight time lines, yet they provide for more expert input and more time for project participants to respond to concerns raised about their submissions. It’s a great piece of work that goes a long way to responding to the needs expressed by industry and the need to ensure quality,” said CDM Executive Board Chair Clifford Mahlung. The new review procedures follow on the adoption of new procedures for registration and issuance agreed at EB54. Details of the new procedures are contained in the respective meeting reports. All requests for registration and issuance that are placed under review will now be processed in accordance with the new procedures. The Board also considered in detail a matter which has garnered considerable press attention recently, CDM projects that destroy HFC-23 gas, a waste by-product in the manufacture of HCFC-22, a refrigerant and feedstock. No new factories can qualify and the amount of credits that a project can earn is tied to historical production levels and established waste-to-product ratios, safeguards intended to prevent production increase simply to earn credits. At EB55 the Board considered a report of its Methodologies Panel and agreed with a recommendation of the Panel that further research be done to ensure production safeguards in the baseline and monitoring methodology used in the projects are sufficient. The research will look at areas highlighted by the Panel, plus others identified by the Board, and draw on input from project participants. The information will be considered at the next meeting of the Board. “It’s clear that these projects are preventing a great deal of a very potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. However, it’s prudent that the Board look at whether the safeguards built into the methodology are still sufficient to prevent perverse incentive, or need to be adjusted for example. We’re following the advice of our Methodologies Panel and have asked the Panel to fill the information gaps they’ve identified,” said Mr. Mahlung. HFC-23 has a global warming potential 11,700 times that of carbon dioxide. The methodology used in the HFC-23 projects, AM0001, is now in its fifth version. On matters relating to accreditation of third-party certifiers, the Board accredited one new entity, Deloitte Cert, re-accredited Deloitte-TECO, and lifted suspensions of TÜV-SÜD and KEMCO. As well, the Board revised the CDM Validation and Verification Manual, now at version 1.2, and approved an approach to define technical areas and related competence requirements, to be used as a basis for revision of the CDM accreditation standard. ------------------------------------- Call for public inputs on focus areas for future practitioner workshops for CDM stakeholders The CDM Executive Board, at its fifty-fifth meeting, agreed to open a call for public inputs on focus areas for future practitioner workshops for CDM stakeholders. Stakeholders in the CDM processes are invited to make suggestions for technical areas on which they would wish to engage in discussions and consultations with the secretariat and members of relevant Panels and/or Working Groups. This call is in accordance with the mandate given by the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) and decisions by the Board to initiate activities in order to enhance the interaction and communication with CDM stakeholders and to enhance communication with project participants without going through the DOEs. This call is open from 30 July 2010 to 27 August 2010., 17:00 GMT https://cdm.unfccc.int/public_inputs/2010/future_practitioner_workshops/index.html ------------------------------------- For a full report of the meeting see <http://cdm.unfccc.int/EB/index.html>. For further information contact David Abbass <dabbass@unfccc.int>, CDM Public Information Officer, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, Bonn, Germany. About the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their targets under the Protocol. The CDM assists countries in achieving sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialized countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission targets.