News | Climate Change

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-12/eu-says-members-showing-broad-support-for-co2-offsets-limits.html

European Union Climate Chief Connie Hedegaard said the bloc’s member states showed “broad support” for a proposed ban on certain United Nations carbon offsets related to industrial gases.

The European Commission, the EU regulator, put forward a proposal last year to ban UN credits generated by projects linked to hydrofluorocarbon-23 and nitrous oxide from adipic acid production from the use for compliance in the bloc’s emissions system starting Jan. 1, 2013. The commission has said such credits may create windfall profits for investors and undermine the integrity of the UN Clean Development Mechanism.
“We’re not discussing whether to do this but when to do this,” Hedegaard told a hearing in the European Parliament in Brussels today. “There were no member states calling for action prior to Jan. 1, 2013. I’ll be reluctant to urge member states to take unilateral action prior to 2013 because it’ll undermine investors’ confidence.”
Member states had a “constructive” debate when they last met to discuss the commission proposal in December, Hedegaard said. The commission draft needs to be approved by the EU’s Climate Change Committee, including representatives of 27 national governments, before it goes into effect.
The commission has said a vote in the committee is likely at the next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 21.
UN Credits
More than 11,000 facilities in the EU system, the world’s largest cap-and-trade program, may use UN credits as a cheaper way to comply with their pollution quotas.
The current five-year phase in the EU emissions trading program ends in 2012 and the deadline for surrendering allowances for that year is the end of April 2013.
The International Emissions Trading Association called last year on the commission and the EU governments to consider delaying the planned ban to May 1, 2013, and provide for banking of international credits from emission reductions achieved up to Dec. 31, 2012.
“The position of the commission is we should do it at the first possible date,” Hedegaard said. “Jan. 1, 2013 would be the first possible date.”
While HFC-23 projects represent less than 1 percent of all registered CDM projects, their credits account for more than half of offsets issued so far. The 19 projects cutting the gas under the CDM program are located mainly in China and India.