China's Opportunities with CDM      

In recent years, China has been actively participating in an international cooperation on CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and has achieved positive progress.  　　"CDM helps the developed countries to realize part of their obligations of reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and meanwhile helps the developing countries to realize sustainable development, hence a win-win mechanism," said Zhou Fengqi, senior advisor for the Energy Research Institute of National Development & Reform Commission (NDRC) at the China CDM Summit 2009, held by Noppen on February 26th-27th in Beijing Municipality, "China has established CDM management institutes in almost 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to promote CDM development."
   As of January 16th, 2009 the NDRC had approved 1 847 CDM projects, and as of February of this year, 411 CDM projects have been registered by the EB (CDM Executive Board), accounting for 29.55% of total registered projects.  However, because of the global financial crisis, CER (certified emission reduction) price in the international market began to decrease at the end of 2008 which affected the CDM market seriously.  "CER is a dynamic market, affected by the GHG emission of developed countries due to economic development, and the market will develop under appropriate price and demand," said Lu Xuedu, an official of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.  He also pointed out that once the deal of future GHG emission reductions of developed countries at Copenhagen can be achieved, CDM will have a good future.
    During China's Eleventh Five-year Program period (2006-2010), the total energy consumption for RMB10 000 GDP shall drop by 20% or so, and according to the targets of the Medium-and Long-term Special Energy Saving Program, between 2010 and 2020, the annual energy saving rate shall be 3.56%.  According to the aforesaid energy saving rate, about 100 million tons of standard coal shall be saved per year, equivalent to reducing 260 million tons of CO2 emission, thus China's CDM market has a huge potential.
　　"The key areas of China's CDM projects include developing and utilizing new energy and renewable energy, improving energy efficiency and recycling and utilizing coal bed methane," said Zhou Fengqi.
  
By John Zheng
February 26th, 2009