Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Japanese Propose Extending CDM Credits to Nuclear. And: The Chinese Carbon Scam

This stuff can be hilarious. Last week we linked to a story dated April 2, that Germany thought they should get carbon credits for decommissioning nuclear power plants. Here's Japan saying they should get carbon credits for building nuclear plants (which makes more sense).
Personally, I think anyone who buys a renewable energy stock should receive carbon credits. Good grief.
Via Environmental Finance (dated April 3):
The Japanese delegation also called for extending the CDM to include both nuclear and carbon capture and storage projects, the latter of which is already under discussion and supported by Australia.

Here's a whopper from the Chinese:
China proposed that the additionality test – whether the project brings about emissions reductions that would not have happened without the CDM – be removed from certain project types. This was despite an earlier comment from the same delegation that the environmental integrity of the mechanism must be preserved.

At an industry event in Copenhagen last month, there was speculation that some late-starting renewable energy CDM projects in China may fail such a test as the prospective revenue from the sale of electricity is large enough to warrant the project happening in the absence of the carbon financing.