14 July 2009 | Luca Del Buono

 

Proposals by the European Union to tighten a U.N.-run global carbon offsetting regime will help China rather than hinder it, a policy official with the European Commission said.

China has complained it will lose out if EU proposals aimed at eliminating low-quality carbon offsets were to be implemented.But the new system will also "scale up" the volume of carbon credits and still benefit China, said Jurgen Lefevere, European Commission policy coordinator for climate change negotiations.

"There will be a continuing and even a strengthened role for China to play in the global carbon market and added benefits to the situation we are in at the moment," he told Reuters.

China has been one of the most active countries in the carbon credit system known as the "clean development mechanism," generating 60 percent of all U.N.-backed offsets produced through the scheme.

The CDM allows industrialized countries to meet mandatory carbon dioxide (CO2) cuts by buying offsets generated from clean energy projects in the developing world.

The offsets are meant as an incentive to develop projects that would not otherwise have been financially viable.

The EU has said the system has thrived on easy but environmentally dubious projects such as industrial gas abatement and that rules should be tightened.

Such projects capture and destroy powerful greenhouse gases but also generate large volumes of offsets and there are growing doubts such projects are in the spirit of the CDM.

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Source: Reuters

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