September 3, 2007 (INTERFAX) – Northeastern China’s Jilin Province, which is traditionally an agricultural province rich in solar, heat and wind power resources, was home to 18 clean development mechanism (CDM) projects at end of July that had helped to prevent 2.28 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, state media reported last Friday.Worth RMB 1.2 billion ($159.07 million) in total, Jilin Province’s CDM projects mostly lie in the wind power, small-scale hydropower and biomass sectors, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the deputy director of the provincial development and reform department, Jia Guanghe.
More potential CDM projects are being developed, with the province currently planning to build 12 biomass power projects that will utilize maize straw produced in its golden corn belt on the central Songliao Plain. The rich hydropower resources in the province’s eastern Changbai mountain region also offer good potential resources for further CDM projects, according to the report.
As of July 13, China had approved a total of 601 CDM projects, 94 of which had been successfully registered with the United Nations (UN) and 13 of which had been issued with CER credits.
India leads the global carbon credit seller market with a market share of 34.77 percent by registered projects. Following Brazil, China is ranked third with 13.61 percent of the global market.
While it potentially holds 42.71 percent of the world’s global carbon credits, China is a latecomer to the carbon trading business. This is due to a previous lack of commitment from the government, demonstrated by the way in which it took one year to gain approval for such a transaction, Peter Corne, the managing director of Eversheds LLP’s Shanghai office, told Interfax earlier.
Things have changed though, and the Chinese government is doing more to encourage foreign investors into the CDM industry and has shortened the transaction approval period to three months. However, foreign partners can still only hold a minority stake of up to 49 percent in such projects, Corne added.
Under the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, companies in signatory countries are able to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by funding CDM projects in developing countries such as China and India and thereby obtaining carbon emission reduction (CER) credits. Such credits, which represent carbon prevented from being released, can also be traded on the global market.
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