by Mariel
December 28, 2010
The 58th CDM EB Meeting was held in Cancun from 23-26 November 2010. Being already there, it was a good chance to do an intervention and put forward some sharpened questions on GAIA’s and CDM Watch’s behalf. Hope you enjoy.
You can also watch it here.
My name is Mariel Vilella and I represent the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, a worldwide network of more than 600 organizations in 89 countries working for a just, toxics-free world without incineration. Some of our member groups are wastepicker organizations; you may remember meeting a few of them in Copenhagen, where they raised questions about the CDM’s waste sector projects. As you may remember, wastepickers are concerned about the CDM’s support for incinerators and landfill gas systems, which have had the effect of displacing wastepickers from their livelihoods. It has also create a perverse incentive to increase waste disposal and therefore, increasing as well adverse effects on climate emissions.
Regarding support from the CDM to waste incineration and landfill gas systems, we’d like to bring your attention to one of the most problematic sides of the methodologies supporting waste-to-energy technologies. PDDs for incinerators and landfill gas projects routinely state that biogenic CO2 emissions do not need to be reported, following a blanket assumption that biogenic CO2 emissions are climate-neutral. However, this assumption is not being supported by science; actually, this miscalculation has been addressed by the IPCC, which explicitly states that if incineration of waste is used for energy purposes, both fossil and biogenic CO2 emissions should be estimated.
The fact that biogenic Co2 emissions are not taken into account may be a source of non-additional CERS, which should be a great concern for the CDM EB.
In facing this situation, we would like to know what steps the CDM Executive Board is taking to refine accounting for biogenic emissions.
Thank you
On behalf of CDM Watch:
Further to the submission of the methodology revision request to AM0001, CDM Watch has made 2 additional submissions, namely a revision request of methodology ACM13 and a request for clarification of AM0001. However, the revision request to ACM13 was rejected by the secretariat with the argument that the submitting entity was CDM Watch. While clarification request (AM_CLA_0191) was successfully submitted and put on the agenda of the 46th meth panel meeting, the meeting report merely states that “the panel will conclude its consideration at a future meeting”.
Subsequently, CDM Watch was informed that the Board had started the discussion on the type of entity that might submit a request for revision of a CDM standard and that the Board had decided to request the secretariat to propose a clarification. CDM Watch was told that this discussion was scheduled to take place at EB58. However, since this discussion did not take place at this week’s meeting, CDM Watch would like to know
-how the Board is intending to address this issue,
-when the successfully submitted clarification request of AM0001 will be addressed and
-how the Board is going to address the flaws in ACM13 as outlined in the revision request.
Moreover, related to the priority of the Board to improve approved crediting methodologies, CDM Watch would like to know how the Board is addressing shortcomings of methodologies in general.
In a recent report CDM Watch has highlighted serious flaws in the methodology for the destruction of N2O from adipic acid production that result in the issuance of millions of credits which do not represent any real emission reductions. CDM Watch would like to know when the Board plans to take action with regards to this serious flaw in the methodology.
Finally more generally, GAIA and CDM Watch on behalf of civil society would like to know who concerns about the environmental integrity of methodologies can be addressed by civil society so to be taken seriously and not being rejected without even being formally considered.
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