CDM a part of future emission trading schemes

Shanghai 01.06.2010: “CDM should play an important part in future emission trading schemes because it has demonstrated that it leads to both emission reductions and technology transfer,” said Senior Vice President Bjørn K. Haugland of DNV at a Sino-Norwegian round-table in Shanghai. DNV is building up its resources in China to meet the growing demand for services in the world’s largest market for CDM projects.

“Carbon trading is important in our global efforts to reduce our footprints of greenhouse gases,” Mr. Haugland said. “It is a cost-effective way of reducing GHG emissions, it brings sustainable development to the host country by generating revenues locally, reducing local pollution and transferring technology. It also raises private capital for reducing emissions.”

“The future of carbon trading and CDM is very much dependent on what happens to the European emission trading scheme, the EU ETS. It also depends on whether the USA will allow for off-set projects. If EU-ETS set limits that increase the demand side and USA finally gets an energy law in place that also allow for international offset projects, then a mechanism such as CDM is probably the best tool that we have in place today for producing carbon credits as well as transferring technology,” Mr Haugland said.

“The price of certified emission credits (CER) has been lower in 2009 than the year before,” Mr Haugland pointed out, “but we have not seen any dramatic price effects after the failure of Copenhagen to arrive at a binding agreement. This indicates that the global markets seem to be confident that emission trading will continue to play an important role in mitigating climate change. And for DNV we have not seen any reduced demand for validation and verification services,” Mr Haugland said.

China counts for 50 % of all CDM projects in the world. DNV has validated 30 % of all Chinese CDM projects. The independent foundation is building up its resources as it expects the CDM market in China to grow. By the year-end, DNV will have some 50 technical experts working on CDM projects in China.

DNV