In Focus

Board to highlight host of CDM uses to climate negotiators in Morocco

Bonn, Germany, 16 September 2016 – The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) can be used to fight climate change in a host of ways – from reducing emissions in shipping and aviation to spurring much-needed finance – the Board that oversees the CDM will make clear to climate negotiators in November in Marrakech, Morocco.

At its ninety-first meeting the CDM Executive Board agreed on a package of eight invitations, encouragements and requests to countries, all aimed at making best use of the CDM.

“The success of the CDM has been as a market-based tool incentivizing projects on the ground, creating saleable emission reduction credits; but, it’s much, much more than that,” said CDM Executive Board Chair Eduardo Calvo. “This mechanism can be used to measure emissions, tally reductions and transparently report those emission reductions, all essential tasks to ensure real reductions and real progress on climate change.”

In December 2015, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Climate Change Agreement, pledging to take on increasingly ambitious emission reduction targets aimed at keeping global temperature rise to at most 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Countries will meet in Marrakech on 7-18 November 2016 for their next annual climate conference, this one aimed towards implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Among its recommendations, the CDM Board will invite countries to consider using certified emission reductions (CERs), produced by CDM projects in developing countries, as a compliance instrument in their emission trading schemes.

The Board also wants Parties to consider encouraging aviation and maritime companies to commit to emission reductions in their operations, including through the immediate voluntary cancellation of CERs. Each CER is equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide reduced or avoided.

The Board will also seek a request from Parties that it and the UNFCCC secretariat engage with the financial and investment communities to promote the use of the CDM as a tool for measuring, reporting and verifying green securities.

As well, the Board wants Parties to invite development agencies and multilateral development banks to use the CDM, or its elements, to verify the mitigation impact of the climate action they support.

Under the CDM, projects in developing countries earn a saleable credit for each tonne of greenhouse gas they reduce or avoid. The incentive has led to the registration of more than 8,000 projects and programmes in 107 countries and the issuance of more than 1.6 billion CERs.

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For a full report of the meeting please visit http://cdm.unfccc.int/EB/index.html
For more information visit http://cdm.unfccc.int/
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