The Hindu Business Line : ‘Lack of awareness hampering Gold Standard CDM registration’

Hyderabad, April 14 Though there are around 400 projects registered under Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) from India, the lack of awareness on Gold Standard Clean Development Mechanisms (GS CDM) has resulted in just two registrations.

“The Gold Standard label and methodology offer a widely recognisable brand for carbon reduction projects, allowing GS projects to fetch premium prices and reputation benefits,” Mr A. Mohan Reddy, Director, Zenith Energy Services (P) Ltd, told Business Line on the sidelines of a workshop on GS CDM here last week.

According to him, unlike conventional CDM projects the GS projects go through two stakeholder consultations, one at initial stage during design phase of the project and the other at a later date, before the project is submitted for validation.

For a GS validation all the relevant local stakeholders from the local community and all regional GS supporter NGOs have to be invited to participate in the initial stakeholder consultation.

“The process is designed to promote transparency and ensure credibility. It also encourages members of the local population to participate in the socio-economic development of their region and contribute to global climate change mitigation,” Mr Reddy said. The premium that a GS project gets for its credits is sometimes 50 to 100 per cent more than the normal Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) price.

“Using the GS, project developers can profit from a fair priced niche market,” Mr Reddy added. Earlier, while delivering the inaugural address, Mr T. L. Sankar, Chairman, Zenith Energy, said, “Earlier, in the Government circles there was very little hope for renewable energy but in the last five years things have change a lot as rural and renewal energy has taken centre stage.”

He also reiterated the problems that people faced in carbon credits were not there in GS CDM.

“An engineering college in Tamil Nadu has put up a bio-mass plant and uses methane captured from faecal material and food waste for meeting its entire power requirement. Now, engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh are also looking at a similar model instead of depending on the grid for power supply,” Mr Sankar said.

More Stories on : Environment | Andhra Pradesh

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page