Priorities for the Board in 2011-2012 (Newsletter #12)

One of the most important agenda items at this week´s Board meeting is the CDM business and management plan that should lay out priorities for the years 2011-2012. The impact of the priorities that will be agreed here will be enormous because they will define the work of the Board over the next 2 years. …

Press Release: Issuance of Toxic Carbon Credits Undermines Credibility of UNFCCC Process

Cancún, Mexico. An open letter sent by a broad coalition of green groups including Greenpeace and WWF to the COP Presidency today calls to rescind millions of fake HFC-23 CDM credits. Environmentalists claim that the issuance of those credits has put a black mark on the environmental integrity of the CDM and prompted speculation that the UNFCCC process has been hijacked by special interests.

Press Release: UN Issues Millions of Carbon Credits despite finding that Emission Reductions could be Overestimated

Cancun, Mexico. Climate Campaigners welcomed yesterday’s decision by the United Nations’ CDM Executive Board to suspend the crediting methodology for HFC-23 projects because it could lead to over-issuance of carbon credits. Revised rules will be presented in June 2011 but retro-active changes were not ruled out. CDM Watch called a separate decision to issue almost 20 million carbon credits to HFC-23 projects incoherent.

Press Release: Climate Campaigners applaud Commission for proposal on offset restrictions

Cancún, Mexico/London, United Kingdom. The European Commission today published its much-anticipated proposal on quality restrictions on the use of offsetting credits from industrial gas projects in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The proposal comes in the wake of a series of scandals surrounding fake CDM offset credits. Climate campaigners have welcomed it as a first step towards ensuring that the EU ETS does not turn into a refuse dump for poor quality offset credits which lead to an increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.

GEO discloses ugly truth of CDM hydro project (Newsletter #11)

A new report in the German magazine GEO points once more at the problems of CDM hydro dam projects. Hydro Dam Power Projects have long been criticized because of their impacts on local inhabitants who might be forced or coerced to relocate and because of their environmental impacts: flooding of valuable agricultural lands, destruction of …

Civil Society CDM Workshop Brazil (Newsletter #11)

CDM Watch organized a 2-day CDM Workshop for NGOs, Activists and Citizens in Brazil’s capital Brasilia on 26 and 27 October. The steadily rising number of CDM projects in Brazil is observed with growing concern. The projects’ poor environmental integrity and lack of transparency paired with fraudulent activities to maximize credit issuance have put Brazilian …

Round Two: Supercritical (Newsletter #11)

At this week’s Board meeting, members will discuss two projects that are applying for carbon credits for building new coal-fired power stations[1]. One of these is the largest of all coal power plants currently in the CDM pipeline: With its 4000 MW capacity, the Sasan project, located in India, would be the size of about …