While the CDM Executive Board continues its investigation regarding the possibility that some industrial gas producers destroying the gas HCF23 might have received undeserved credits, European Commissioner for Climate Action Hedegaard has announced that a proposal to increase the quality standards for the use of credits from such activities will be drafted by her services for the third phase of the EU ETS.
This move comes after mounting scrutiny as to the environmental integrity of the industrial gas production within the CDM crediting system and numerous calls for clarity including that of the International Emission Trading Association (IETA), which had sent a letter to the EC earlier this week. IETA asked the Commission to detail how many additional CDM credits would be allowed in the event that the Union decided to go for the stricter target – a 30 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. In particular, IETA suggested that only half of the additional burden should be allowed to be covered by such credits. Under the current target about 1.7 million CDM credits will be used by European companies between 2008 and 2020. Following Hedegaard’s announcement, the Carbon Market and Investor’s Association joined the debate by calling for the EU to announce precise rules for industrial gas activities under CDM

Climate Policy News

• This news is extracted from the Climate Policy News : a CMCC weekly column that summarises the latest news on international climate change agreements, the updates on the carbon market and the energy and technology updates in the realm of climate change. Go to the web page and see all previous issues since March 2007.
• This week:  EC looks into quality controls for CDM; Voluntary market in Australia stalls; Canada, the US and climate policy: better together?; China to exhaust hydro capacity?; The carbon market this week – Download the August 23-29 [100 Kb], 2010 Newsletter