OSLO: The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has registered its 1,000th project, an energy efficiency project in Andhra Pradesh, India which has been validated by DNV. The project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 34,000 tonnes annually.
“The CDM has passed another milestone and it is time to reflect on our success and redouble our efforts to improve and expand the mechanism,” said Rajesh Kumar Sethi, Chair of the CDM Executive Board which is appointed by the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), at a workshop in Bonn, Germany this week. Mr Sethi had just signed off on the 1,000th project.
CDM projects have so far generated more than 135 million certified emission reductions (CERs). The mechanism is currently anticipated to generate more than 2.7 billion CERs in the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period.
Under the Clean Development Mechanism umbrella, industrialised countries or companies in these countries can receive credits for financing emission-reduction projects in developing countries. In this way, developing countries gain a new source of financing for their sustainable development while companies in industrialised countries can supplement their commitments to reduce emissions at home.
DNV – a leading validator of CDM projects
DNV was in 2004 one of the first companies to be accredited by the CDM Executive Board to validate greenhouse gas emissions reductions from projects in the developing world. This accreditation consolidated DNV’s strong position at that time in the international climate change arena.
Close to 50% of the 1,000 registered CDM projects have been validated by DNV. The company’s involvement with climate change project validation and verification is increasing from month to month. Today, DNV has over 200 trained climate change auditors worldwide, with technical expertise and a local presence. DNV also has a strong base in India and the team in India carried out most of the validation of the energy efficiency project in Andhra Pradesh, which became the 1000th CDM project to be registered.
“India has been an early mover in the CDM arena and is still one of the major host countries for CDM projects. Our early efforts to build local capacity and competence relating to the validation and verification of CDM projects have now been rewarded with an Indian project validated by DNV becoming the 1000th registered CDM project,” says Chandrashekara Kumaraswamy, the manager of DNV’s climate change services in India.