Highlights CDM Executive Board 59th meeting

Bonn, 18 February 2011 – The CDM Executive Board has adopted a comprehensive two-year business plan to scale up and improve the mechanism, and has given a green light to the UNFCCC secretariat’s detailed management plan for how identified goals will be achieved. “We’ve come a long way in the past number of years, enhancing efficiency and increasing participation in the CDM. This business plan will take us the rest of the way there, to 2012 and beyond,” said the Board’s new Chair Martin Hession. The business plan, the first that the Board has written to cover a two-year span, lists as goals for the CDM: greater efficiency in its operation; improved regional and sub-regional distribution and capacity-building; improved objectivity, clarity and integrity; enhanced transparency; and enhanced promotion of the mechanism. “The Board has taken on five goals that address virtually everything asked of the mechanism by Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and public and private sector stakeholders. We’ve also approved a detailed approach on how to deliver on those goals,” said Mr. Hession, who has served on the Board since 2007, served as Vice-Chair in the latter half of 2010, and is Head of Global Carbon Markets, Department of Energy and Climate Change, United Kingdom. The Board also approved a new baseline and monitoring methodology that should help spur the use of small-scale and household biogas generators, especially in Africa. The generators produce gas from manure and vegetable waste, which can be used as fuel in cook stoves. It is estimated that there is demand for 20 million such units in Africa. “We’re working hard to extend the reach of the CDM, especially in Africa. This methodology should do a lot to further that goal,” Mr. Hession said. In response to a request from Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at their meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in December, the Board revised its procedures for requests for registration of proposed project activities. Registered projects will now be eligible to earn emission reduction credits from the date that a complete request for registration was submitted. At the meeting the Board also considered ways to enhance communication with stakeholders and project participants and requested the secretariat to launch a call for public input on the matter; and considered the results of the new performance monitoring framework for designated operational entities. Maosheng Duan of China was elected Vice-Chair of the Board. Mr. Duan, who joined the Board in 2010, is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University. See the meeting report for the full slate of members and officers to the Board’s panels and working groups. For the full report of the meeting see <http://cdm.unfccc.int/EB/index.html>.