Perverse incentives under the CDM: an evaluation of HFC-23 destruction projects

Opening the Black Box of Carbon Finance “Additionality”: The Political Economy of Carbon Finance Effectiveness across Tanzania, Uganda, and Moldova

“…The concern is that the emission reductions would have happened "anyway" and attributing them to the CDM is unjustified. While additionality is a crucial issue, most research on the topic has relied on unreliable information contained in official CDM project documents (Alexeew et al, 2010;Ganapati & Liu, 2008;He, Huang, & Tarp, 2014;Michaelowa & Purohit, 2007;Platonova-Oquab et al, 2012;Schneider, 2007Schneider, , 2011Wen & Yong, 2010). But these documents are written by project developers themselves and prone to significant information asymmetries (Wara, 2008(Wara, , p. 1799.…”

Global emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases 2005–2050 with abatement potentials and costs

“…HFC-23 can be abated through process optimization combined with thermal oxidation of the gas through incineration. The HFC-23/HCFC-22 ratio is typically in the range between 1.5 and 4 % (Schneider, 2011), depending on how the process is operated and the degree of process optimization that has been performed (McCulloch and Lindley, 2007), but can technically be reduced below 1 % (IPCC/TEAP, 2005). The removal efficiency of incineration of HFC-23 is taken to be virtually complete (99.99 %) (World Bank, 2010).…”

“…Based on this data, global baseline emission estimates are most affected by uncertainty in estimates in stationary air conditioning followed by commercial refrigeration and mobile air conditioning. To reduce uncertainty in emission estimates, it would be of particular interest to obtain measurement data on sectoral emission rates of refrigerants in various world regions, to complement currently available information from Europe and North America Schwarz, 2005;MPCA, 2012;UNFCCC, 2012). Equally important would be to improve access to measurement data which can verify reported figures, e.g., HFC-23 emissions in HCFC-22 production for major HCFC-22 producing countries.…”

Perverse effects of carbon markets on HFC-23 and SF6 abatement projects in Russia

“…Under the CDM, safeguards to prevent perverse incentives were gradually introduced and strengthened over time, following observations that the initial safeguards may not have been adequate 13,14,18 . Whereas the CDM requires using internationally agreed standards and international approval for registering projects and issuing credits, JI allows using a project-specific approach for calculating emission reductions, and either the host countries or the international Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (JISC) execute regulatory oversight.…”

“…For such projects, revenues from credits can significantly exceed GHG abatement costs and, in some instances, the costs of producing the main product 10,11 . This can create perverse incentives for plant operators to increase production or waste generation beyond levels that would occur in the absence of crediting [12][13][14]17 . If more waste gas is generated owing to the incentives from crediting, emission reductions are overestimated; the emissions baseline is inflated compared to the emissions that would actually occur without crediting, and, in consequence, excess credits are issued.…”