Capacity Building for China’s National CDM Project Management Centre

Project Overview

Location:
China

Dates:
January - December 2007

Funding Body:
UK Global Opportunities Fund (GOF)

Project Status:
Completed

The aim of this current project was to support the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in addressing the identified need gaps in the CDM project development cycle. The project supported the Chinese government in the establishment an internationally compliant system for the registration and monitoring of Chinese CDM projects.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was initiated by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) and has been defined as allowing emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialised countries to a meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

China has placed significant emphasis on developing national level infrastructure to cope with the large potential for CDM projects across China and facilitate the associated opportunity for European companies to invest sustainable and clean technologies in these projects. The NDRC,-China’s Designated National Authority (DNA) - has identified a bottleneck between obtaining CDM project approval by the DNA on a national scale, and obtaining approval internationally from the UNFCCC. As of February 2006, there were a total of 18 projects approved by the NDRC, yet only five of those had been approved by the UNFCCC.

The NDRC therefore requested assistance in developing China’s National CDM Project Management Centre established under The Centre for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Research (CEECC) of the Energy Research Institute (ERI). This ultimately included a series of capacity building activities based on UK best practice techniques, focusing on the latter stages of the CDM project cycle. These were supported by the national CDM management centre in areas such as management of CDM projects post-approval, the monitoring and verification of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) abatements, handling and informing on CER trading and further international cooperation.