Policy Brief: A New Look at Loopholes

To date, 42 developed countries (Annex 1) have submitted pledges. Fulfilment of the developed country pledges is projected to reduce emissions by up to 4 billion tons (Gt) CO2e in 2020 from “business as usual” (UNEP 2010). This is about one third of the estimated 12 GtCO2e of emissions reductions that would be needed to remain on a path consistent with keeping warming below 2°C (UNEP 2011). Unfortunately, weaknesses in international emissions accounting could substantially weaken these already insufficient pledges, negating much if not all of their intended emissions benefits. In this paper, we address the following five “loopholes” in the existing negotiation framework.

SEI Study on Coal Power in the CDM, Issues and Options

This paper examines several issues that arise in awarding emission reduction credits to coal projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It identifies systematic weaknesses in the coal methodology’s (ACM0013) design and application. The authors estimate that shortcomings lead to significant over-crediting of Certified Emission Reductions and discuss why a revision of the methodology to more accurately estimate emissions reductions may not be possible because of data constraints and weak signal-to-noise ratio.

Policy Brief: Why Coal Projects in the CDM undermine Climate Goals

The CDM now allows new coal plants to earn tradeable emissions credits for claimed improvements in power plant efficiency. This Policy Brief explains why coal projects do not belong in the CDM. They would have been built in the absence of the CDM, i.e. the projects that have come forward to date are uniformly ‘non-additional’ and will therefore generate carbon credits that do not represent real emission reductions. They also conflict with the CDM’s sustainability objectives by inflicting toxic burdens on local populations and ecosystems while undermining climate mitigation goals by locking in billions of tons of CO2 emissions over decades to come instead of investing in renewable energies and a low carbon development path.

Perspectives Study on Rule consistency of Grid emission factors published by CDM host country authorities

For the CDM, electricity grid emission factors (grid EFs) directly determine the volume of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) for all project types that relate to renewable electricity generation or reduction of electricity consumption. The higher the grid EF, the higher the number of CERs a project can generate. This study examines whether the benchmarks published by DNAs are conforming with the CDM rules and if they are overestimating emission reductions.

Industrial N2O Projects Under the CDM: Adipic Acid – A Case of Carbon Leakage?

This paper evaluates projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that abate N2O emissions from adipic acid production. The analysis shows that carbon markets enabled N2O emissions abatement levels that had not previously been achieved. However, it also indicates that the CDM appears to have caused significant carbon leakage during the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009. We estimate that about 20% of the CERs issued for CDM adipic acid plants for 2008 and 2009 – totaling to about 13.5 MtCO2e – do not represent real emission reductions.