Roskilde, 1 January – New investment in the UN’s carbon reduction scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), has slumped following the enactment of new EU rules meaning that only carbon credits from CDM projects registered before December 31st are eligible for the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Roskilde, 1 January – New investment in the UN’s carbon reduction scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), has slumped following the enactment of new EU rules meaning that only carbon credits from CDM projects registered before December 31st are eligible for the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
As developers will not be able to access the ETS with new CDM projects, they are unlikely to make a financial return from investments. The change to ETS rules resulted in a seven-year low in registration submissions last month (17 new projects). In contrast, November saw the highest number of registration requests ever (547) as develops sought to beat the deadline.
The UN also issued huge amounts of carbon credits in December; 60.5 million carbon offsets under the CDM and 132.5 million credits under the Joint Implementation (JI) scheme. This has hit the depressed carbon market, with CDM and JI credits trading at less than €0.50 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, compared to €3-4 in January 2012.
For more, see the UNEP Risø Centre CDM Pipeline.