Originally published January 8 2006
UN program would allow heavily industrialized nations to take credit for reduced emissions by funding clean energy projects in other countries
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
At the UN climate talks, a program known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) would allow rich nations to fund clean energy projects in poorer nations and claim credit for reduced emissions, and the program is designed to accommodate economies like America's that are overly dependent on fossil fuel.
A draft decision to go to ministers at the talks, which are to end on Friday, reassured investors and Third-World nations that the so-called "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) would last beyond 2012, when the first phase of the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol runs out.
Under the CDM program, rich nations can invest in Third World clean energy projects and claim credits back home for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
So far more than 40 such projects have been approved.
The draft urges nations to make "urgent" contributions to finance the CDM at about $18 million for 2006-07, up from $6 million in 2005.
It also sets up ways to reform the program's management.
The novel project, part of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol for reining in global warming, has been hit by red tape and a lack of staff to evaluate plans such as an Indian plant to generate power from rice husks or a Brazilian project to burn the woody waste from sugar cane.
If successful, some estimates say the plan might funnel $100 billion in investments to the developing world and aid a shift away from fossil fuels in power plants and factories, whose emissions are widely blamed for stoking global warming.
"This puts the CDM process on a much more professional basis," said Andrei Marcu, president of the International Emissions Trading Association.
"This represents progress and a basis to work on."
The ministers were also struggling to break deadlock on ways to entice the United States and developing nations into long-term U.N. efforts to fight climate change.
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