Clean
Development
Mechanism
Presented by:
Neeta Hooda
UNFCCC Secretariat
Appraisal of CDM standards and
issues for GHG agricultural
mitigation
Presented at:
Conservation Agriculture Carbon Offset
Consultation, West Lafayette, USA
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Overview
• What is CDM?
• How far we’ve come?
• CDM design features
– Scope & Governance
– Additionality
– Status of CDM agriculture sector projects
• Future Efforts
• Concluding messages
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Clean Development MechanismObjective
• Described in Article 12 of KP
• Projects in developing countries can earn
saleable credits for reducing/avoiding emissions
– certified emission reductions (CERs)
• The CERs can be used by countries with
commitments under KP toward meeting a part
of their targets
• Host countries benefit from sustainable
development initiatives
• Project have global reach
• Result in real, measurable, verifiable, additional
emission reductions
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CDM project cycle
Regulated mechanism overseen by
Executive Board assisted by
Panels
Working groups
Registration and issuance teams
Emission reductions:
Real
Measurable
Verifiable
Additional
CER issuance
UNFCCC secretariat
EB
Verification/
certification
DOE
PPs
Validation:
DOEs
Project design:
Project participants
Monitoring
Registration:
Executive Board
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How far we have come?
To date: 1,178 registered CDM
projects
1.29 billion CERs expected
from existing registered
projects to the end of 2012
In
pipeline:
> 3,000 projects (including
registered projects)
> 2.7 billion CERs expected
to the end of 2012
(assumption: no extension of crediting periods)
Map and statistics accessible at http://cdm.unfccc.int/
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Status: 10 October 2008
How far we have come?
• CDM the largest CO2 offset system in the world
– 1,178 registered projects to date
– Over 3000 projects in addition in the pipeline
– 49 countries
– 195,851,137 CERs issued (certified emission reductions)
– 2.7 billion CERs expected to end of 2012
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Status: 7 August 2008
How far we’ve come | Investment and financial flows
Real investment to fulfill twin purposes of the CDM
• Assisting non-Annex I in achieving sustainable development and
contributing to the Convention objective
• Assisting Annex I Parties in complying with their targets
• USD 25 billion in capital investment estimated for projects entering
the CDM pipeline in 2006 alone
(double the GEF-leveraged climate change investment over 10 years)
• USD 5.7 billion in capital investment expected from CDM renewable
and energy efficiency projects registered in 2006
(about triple the ODA support and equivalent to private investment in the
renewable energy and energy efficiency fields in these same countries)
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CDM design | Governance
CDM governance balances authority and practicality
Work and responsibility is distributed
• DOEs validate projects, request registration, verify/certify emission
reductions and request issuance
• DOEs decide on registration and issuance (EB review may change it)
But work occurs under central supervision of the Executive Board
• Accredits DOEs against standards
• Approves methodologies for baselines and monitoring
• Can review requests for registration of projects and issuance of CERs
• Establishes expert panels to formulate recommendations
• Supported by the secretariat
EB accountable to and guided by the CMP
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CDM design | Original challenges
• Ensuring environmental integrity
• Cost effectiveness
• Avoiding perverse incentives of seller and buyer to
overstate emission reductions
• Choosing a top down or bottom-up approach
• Ensuring transparency and allowing public scrutiny
• Keeping process times reasonable
• Centralized versus distributed structure
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CDM design | Additionality
Challenging exercise to define globally working standardized methods
(competing views and methods) at operational level which describe a
counterfactual situation in relation to a project activity
• Kyoto states that emission reductions are to be “additional” relative
to a what would have happened in the absence of the project activity
• CMP provides guidance on what approaches can be taken
(=subset of many choices)
To address this challenge, the process under CDM for addressing
additionality as well as setting and selecting methodologies is designed
to receive input by all stakeholders (project operator (orginator of
proposal), public, Parties, expert panel) before EB approves
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Status of the CDM | Registered projects, by project type
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Status: 10 October 2008
* Note that a project activity can be linked to more than one sectoral scope
CDM | Agriculture sector projects
Project types:
• Animal Waste Management Systems GHG mitigation projects
(AM006)
• GHG Capture and combustion from swine manure management
systems (AM0016)
• Biomass electricity Generation projects (AMS I.D and AMS III.E)
• Biogas recovery and heat generation from palm oil mill effluent
plants (AMS. I.C and AMS III.H)
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CDM | Agriculture sector scope
•
•
Some activities such as AWMS have seen successful projects in CDM.
Other activities not so successful despite the existing potential. For
example IPCC Fourth AR lists the following:
– Soil carbon sequestration (enhanced sinks) is the mechanism
responsible for most of the mitigation potential (high agreement,much
evidence), with an estimated 89% contribution to the technical
potential.
– The role of alternative strategies changes across the range of prices
for carbon.
– Despite significant technical potential for mitigation in agriculture, there
is evidence that little progress has been made in the implementation of
mitigation measures at the global scale.
– Conservation tillage and zero-tillage are increasingly being adopted,
thus reducing the use of energy and often increasing carbon storage in
soils. According to FAO (2001), the worldwide area under zero-tillage
in 1999 was approximately 50 Mha, representing 3.5% of total arable
land. However, such practices are frequently combined with periodical
tillage, thus making the assessment of the GHG balance highly
uncertain.
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CDM | Agriculture sector
Challenges:
• Uncertainity of net effect:
– “Since soil disturbance tends to stimulate soil carbon losses through
enhanced decomposition and erosion (Madari et al., 2005), reducedor no-till agriculture often results in soil carbon gain, but not always
(West and Post, 2002; Ogle et al., 2005; Gregorich et al., 2005;
Alvarez 2005).
– Adopting reduced-or no-till may also affect N2O, emissions but the net
effects are inconsistent and not well-quantified globally (Smith and
Conen, 2004; Helgason et al., 2005; Li et al., 2005; Cassman et al.,
2003). The effect of reduced tillage on N2O emissions may depend on
soil and climatic conditions. In some areas, reduced tillage promotes
N2O emissions, while elsewhere it may reduce emissions or have no
measurable influence (Marland et al., 2001).”
• Rigorous Monitoring; Costs, frequency in relation to magnitude of
emission reductions.
• Fulfilling the CDM criteria that emission reductions should be real,
measurable and verifiable ... hence not all activities permissible in first
committment period
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Future Efforts | Agriculture sector potential
•
•
•
•
IPCC Fourth assessment Report: Recognizes the potential for agricultural
sector activities in mitigation
– Agriculture makes up10-12% of total global anthropogenic emissions
of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
– options are improved crop and grazing land management (e.g.,
improved agronomic practices, nutrient use, tillage, and residue
management), restoration of organic soils that are drained for crop
production and restoration of degraded lands.
– To a lesser extent mitigation is possible with improved water and rice
management; set-asides, land use change (e.g., conversion of
cropland to grassland) and agro-forestry; as well as improved livestock
and manure management.
Parties emphasised on ‘agriculture sector’ in ongoing negotiations
– workshop on ‘Challenges and Opportunities for Mitigation in the
Agriculture Sector’ in 2009
CMP requested that EB enhance methodologies in agriculture sector,
energy efficiency and forestry
Develop synergies: science and enabling environment
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Concluding messages
• Agriculture sector projects have the potential
• Maybe start with simpler ones first and create awareness on measurement
and monitoring techniques, finance etc.
• CDM balances many complex and sometimes contradictory needs
- Environmental integrity
- Cost effectiveness/simplification
- Distributed operational decisions
- Consistency
- Input/feedback loops
- Minimization of process times
- Transparency
• Even in this stage, CDM is already a major force to
- trigger private sector investment
- finance additional emission reductions
- provide assistance to achieving non-Annex I sustainable development
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CDM scaling up | Programme of activities
Programme of activities is
Voluntary coordinated action by a private or public entity
which coordinates and implements
any policy/measure or stated goal ...
which leads to GHG emission reductions
or increase in net GHG removals by sinks
that are additional to any that would occur
in the absence of the PoA,
via an unlimited number of CDM project activities,
perhaps over a large area (e.g. town, state, region)
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Thank you
Information
cdm.unfccc.int
CDM Bazaar
http://www.cdmbazaar.net/
Catalogue of decisions (test):
http://test.cdmis.net/catalogue-test
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