Russia Gets UN Approval for a Major Emissions Reduction Project

Russia submitted for registration its first carbon emissions reduction project under a special United Nations procedure, a step that can signal “a substantial increase” of followers, says the UN regulator. The joint implementation project is located at the Shaturskaya Thermal Power Plant near Moscow.

By Ewa Krukowska for Bloomberg News (31 August 2010):

Russia submitted for registration its first carbon emissions reduction project under a special United Nations procedure, a step that can signal “a substantial increase” of followers, the UN regulator said today.

The joint implementation project, created under a UN Kyoto Protocol mechanism, will be located at the Shaturskaya Thermal Power Plant near Moscow, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said in a statement from Bonn today. The so-called JI projects generate tradeable emissions-reductions units that countries can use to meet their obligations to cut greenhouse gases under the UN climate-protection treaty.

“This is a much anticipated and very welcome development,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said in the statement. “It’s another clear sign that JI has an important role to play in directing investment to emission reduction in industrialized countries.”

The Russian project assumes building an additional electricity generation unit using an energy-efficient combined cycle gas turbine, the UNFCCC said. It’s one of 15 joint implementation projects approved by the Russian government at the end of July and its registration will be deemed final after 45 days if it passes the UN-supervised scrutiny.

The project is the first in Russia under the Track 2 procedure, where the verification of emission reductions is supervised by the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee. Under Track 1, the verification procedures and the issuance of emission-reduction units are left up to the host country.

‘Extremely Positive’

There are now 234 Track 2 projects in the pipeline and 177 Track 1 projects registered, accounting for potential reductions of about 500 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by the end of 2012, according to the UNFCCC.

“This is an extremely positive first step, considering that Russia is the country with the largest potential for JI,” said Benoit Leguet, the JISC chairman. “The carbon community has been waiting for this for four years, since the JISC launched the Track 2. We also need to look to the future, and to the essential role of JI Track 2 in the post-2012 world.”

The Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012, and climate- change envoys worldwide are bracing for the next round of negotiations on a new climate-protection framework. The talks are due to start toward the end of November in Cancun, Mexico.

Source: www.bloomberg.com