New CDM center for Asia-Pacific Region

Tamale, Aug 31, GNA - Clean technology in developing countries has received a further boost with the establishment of a centre to promote the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Asia-Pacific Region.

A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency by David Abbass, Public Information Officer of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, (UNFCC), said the centre would work in collaboration with the other Regional Collaboration Centres (RCCs) in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean on all CDM project.

It said the new facility would be operated in partnership with the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) a non-profit, research institute, and would support all countries in the region in identifying and designing CDM projects and offering opportunities to reduce transaction costs.

Ms Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, said: "A CDM hub in Asia-Pacific comes as nations are set to ink a new universal climate agreement in Paris in December.

The agreement needs to trigger an ever deeper transition to a low carbon economy and by the second half of the century a climate neutral world—scaled up finance, innovative technologies and creative market mechanisms that benefit people and the planet will be central to these aims."

Professor Hironori Hamanaka, Chair of the Board of Directors of IGES, praised the inter-agency cooperation as an important step towards attaining the goals set by the international community to combat climate change.

He said: "We are honoured to work in partnership with the UNFCCC in Asia and the Pacific, and this Regional Collaboration Centre in Bangkok will further tap the potential for CDM projects in the region."

The CDM allows emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reductions (CERs), each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

This is the fifth CDM RCC established by the UNFCCC in partnership with a regional organization. The first centre was established in January 2013 in Lomé, Togo to increase participation in CDM projects in West and Francophone Africa, a second centre was established in Kampala, Uganda to serve the rest of Africa and a third was established in Saint George's Grenada to assist in the development of CDM projects in the Caribbean, as well as a fourth center was set up in Bogotá, Colombia to support underrepresented countries in Latin America.

GNA