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World Bank Trying to `Subvert' UN Fix for Emission Offsets, Lobby Says
Three environmental groups called on the World Bank to stop obstructing the overhaul of the United Nations program for awarding emission credits tied to hydrofluorocarbons.
The World Bank included factual and analytical errors in a report dismissing concerns that the UN Clean Development Mechanism has generated “fake carbon credits” for HFC-23 projects, the Environmental Investigation Agency, CDM Watch and noe21 said today in a joint e-mailed statement.
Regulators of the CDM, the world’s second-largest carbon market, are boosting scrutiny after allegations that some developers are seeking excessive credits related to the industrial gases, whose warming potential is 11,700 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. They are assessing whether the methodology for awarding those offsets should be changed.
“The World Bank’s position is both scientifically and morally indefensible,” Clare Perry, a senior campaigner for Environmental Investigation, said in the statement. “It should stop trying to subvert the CDM investigation and allow the UN to do a job they are far better qualified for than the World Bank.”
The World Bank said earlier this month that the UN program hasn’t inflated production of chlorodifluoromethane, known as HCFC-22 and used in the air-conditioning and refrigeration industries. The availability of UN credits is “clearly not” driving demand at chemical plants, the report said.
Officials at the Washington-based bank couldn’t immediately be reached to comment on the environmental groups’ statement.
Incineration Projects
The World Bank’s Umbrella Carbon Facility invests in two of the biggest HFC-23 incineration projects, the lobby groups said. The facility pools funds for the purchase of greenhouse-gas emission reductions from CDM and other UN-offset projects. UN offsets can be used for compliance in the European Union’s carbon cap-and-trade program, the world’s largest.
Regulators of the CDM announced reviews of seven issuances related to HFC-23 projects this month, including one today. Credits from HFC-23 projects make up about half the supply of offsets issued in the CDM. HFC gases are a byproduct in the making of chlorodifluoromethane.
The environmental groups said that manufacturers in China and India earn “as much or more” for destroying HFC-23 gases than for producing chlorodifluoromethane, which encourages production and use of HCFC-22 only for the purpose of generating offsets.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at ekrukowska@bloomberg.net;
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