Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism Snarled In Red Tape, Squabbling

[hatrack]

LONDON - One of the Kyoto Protocol's main tools for curbing greenhouse gas emissions is struggling to take off as projects get bogged down in red tape and investors worry about risky deals with developing countries.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) -- which lets rich nations earn emissions-reduction credits towards Kyoto targets through investment in green projects in poor countries -- has registered just three schemes since its launch in 2001. Potential CDM investors are wary of credit risk, while the executive board charged with approving projects has been slow to process applications, market sources say.

"There is a huge backlog of work for an under-resourced executive board," Moe Moe Oo of environmental trading company GT/SKM told a recent emissions trading conference.

A spokeswoman for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said there were no plans to expand the board, whose members answer to the Conference of Parties to Kyoto -- the international pact on fighting climate change which kicked in last month."

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29893/story.htm