Capacity Building for China’s National CDM Project Management Centre

Project Overview

Location:
China

Dates:
 

Funding Body:
UK Global Opportunities Fund (GOF)

Project Status:
Ongoing

The aim of this current project is to support the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China in addressing the identified needs gaps in the CDM project development cycle. Ultimately, the project will support the Chinese government to establish an internationally compliant system for the registration and monitoring of Chinese CDM projects.

As established under the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows for trading between developed and developing countries in credits – what are known as certified emission reductions (CERs). These CERs can be used by states for compliance with Kyoto targets or by operators of installations for compliance with EU-requirements, traded for their financial value or banked for future use.

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 National Development and Reform Commission (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. A possible reason for this could be that Chinese project developers are not fully aware of administrative documentation (i.e. audited baseline and validation/verification procedures) required for UNFCCC approval.

The NDRC have 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 will include a series of capacity building activities based on UK best practice techniques. focusing on the latter stages of the CDM project cycle. These will be supported by the national CDM management centre in areas such as management of CDM projects post approval, the monitoring and verification of GHG abatements, handling and informing on CER trading and further international cooperation.