European Union governments on Wednesday unanimously agreed detailed rules for auctioning carbon permits in the third phase of the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme from 2013, the EU executive said in a statement. Read more…
The market for carbon emission permit brokers is facing increasing difficulties due to a dip in clients and the recession. Read more…
While the Volkswagen Golf Bluemotion picked up the ‘Green Car of the Year’ award at the prestigious What Car? Green Awards 2010 (see story), the winners of the first LowCVP Low Carbon Champions awards were also announced. Read more…
Greenhouse gas emissions from rich countries fell a record 7% in 2009 because of the recession, but the cut was entirely nullified by steep increases from fast-growing China and India, according to one of Europe’s leading scientific research groups. Read more…
A United Nations panel recommendation this week to change carbon credits calculating methodology for hydroflourocarbons (HFCs) can result in India losing half of its credits valid till 2012. Read more…
It’s all very well hearing the politicians, media, and commentators views on Emissions Trading. Read more…
Certified Emissions Reduction Units (CERs) for the destruction of HFC-23 represent over 1/2 of the CDM credits issued to date. The CDM’s HFC-23 projects pay 65-75 times more for HFC-23 destruction than the manufacturers pay. A revision request submitted by CDM Watch to the CDM Executive Board provides overwhelming evidence that manufacturers are gaming the CDM system and undermining carbon markets by producing potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) just so they can get paid to destroy them. The revision request called for an immediate overhaul in the rules governing the number of credits being issued and removal of the perverse financial incentives that currently exist.
Yesterday, the Methodologies Panel agreed that many of the claims in the revision request could cause perverse incentives, i.e. plants producing dramatically more HFC-23 per ton of HCFC-22 than technically feasible, plants producing HCFC-22 only if they are receiving CDM credits, and that the CDM credits may be causing unnecessary production of HCFC-22. The Panel said that further investigation is required to “identify situations” resulting in excessive issuance of carbon credits and how “to improve the methodology.”
“If the UN CDM Executive Board wants to reinstall the integrity of the mechanism it has no other choice than to put the current crediting methodology on hold with immediate effect and cease issuance of all credits for the destruction of HFC-23 until the Panel has fully investigated the issue and revised the crediting methodology,” said Eva Filzmoser Director of CDM Watch.
“It is clear that the CDM’s current HFC-23 program is financing and working against its own goal of producing reductions of greenhouse gas emissions for offsets. This type of abuse is gambling with our planet’s ecology,” said Mark W. Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency. “The world cannot afford this corrupted type of carbon trading; squandering climate money is bad enough, but in this case many of the alleged benefits are simply a charade that actually increases the problem of global warming.”
Although it is not an easy task, China strives to put into practice the promise made last November before the Copenhagen Conference — to cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 compared with the level from 2005. Read more…
Leaders of the eight industrialized nations reiterated their willingness to share with all countries the goal of achieving at least a 50 percent reduction of global emissions by 2050. Read more…
The U.K. needs a “meaningful carbon price” to underpin investment in cleaner energy, the Cabinet minister in charge of energy said. Read more…