Clean Development Mechanism (CDM):
Intends to do two things: 1) help developed countries (such as Canada) in achieving sustainable development and 2) help developed countries meet their emissions reduction targets.
These goals are achieved by allowing developed countries to invest in reduction projects that exist in developing countries. It basically allows developed countries to achieve emissions reductions wherever it is cheapest for them to do so. Even though these projects don’t take place in the country that is seeking emissions reductions, the projects act to provide credits. Most of these projects are in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and fuel switching.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
The basic idea behind CCS is to capture carbon dioxide that is emited through sources such as fossil fuel plants and store it so that it is not emitted into the atmosphere. The storage is often done in large underground reservoirs.
CCS is currently not recognized under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism framework, yet a number of countries yesterday are strongly pushing for this to change. For example if CCS was considered a mechanism under CDM, Canada could develop the CCS technology in another country and count the results seen in this project towards its own emissions reduction goals. This issue of including CCS was raised at COP15 and was postponed until this meeting in Cancun where the issue was expected to re-emerge.
Several countries including Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Grenada, and othersyesterday urged for CCS to be included in the CDM. CCS appears to be a controversial issue and it will be interesting to see how it continues to develop over the final week of the conference.
The countries advocating for this were also successful in winning first place for fossil of the day yesterday given out by CAN International (Climate Action Network) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeCtzZLsFMo), so it’s obvious that many environmental groups feel strongly that carbon capture and storage is not the correct approach to be taking in emissions reductions.