The UN has given green light to two new generations of carbon offsets that will bring carbon reductions to a mass market in developing nations.

The panel that oversees the running of the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) approved in principle last week a substantial project that will deploy over 30 million compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in Mexico.

Details of the project can be found in www.unfccc.int.

The project is designed by energy efficiency project developer Cool nrg International and the CFLs will be distributed in phases over the next 2-3 years with the purpose of generating up to 7.5m offsets under the Kyoto's CDM scheme called Certified Emission Reductions (CER).

Each offset will account for the equivalent of one tonne of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions.

CDM has been criticized for the high administration costs of rubberstamping the UN's approval. Trying to put together smaller projects that bring emissions reductions to significant numbers of people, such as energy efficient lighting schemes, is very expensive.

Under what is known as a programmatic CDM, developers deploy projects in unlimited numbers (in theory) providing each uses the same approved standards or methodologies from the outset. Therefore fees and redtape are kept to a minimum.

On the other hand, the UN also recently approved the the first agricultural methodology, or biological approach, for CDM projects. The UN’s announcement coincides with the USDA’s analysis report that shows the economic benefits to agriculture from the US cap-and-trade legislation.

The agricultural methodology, which will be used to design projects that eliminate the use of synthetic nitrogen on legumes like soybeans and cowpeas, was developed by Amson Technology LC, a greenhouse-gas-reduction and sustainability consulting firm, Becker Underwood Inc., a leading developer of bio-agronomic and specialty products and Perspectives GmbH, a Point Carbon company, a high-quality greenhouse gas reduction market solutions provider.

Carbonica very much supports these initiatives. We believe that they are very beneficial to developing nations, and they are pivotal in our global strategy to cut GHG emissions.

Brunella  

brunella@carbonica.org

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