20 November 2012: The Project Developer Forum (PD-Forum), a group representing companies developing international emissions reduction projects, has offered to use Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), carbon credits registered with the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), to offset the estimated emissions from travel and accommodation from all attendees of the Doha Climate Change Conference.

The PD-Forum is donating 25,000 CERs, an amount it estimates is enough to offset the carbon footprint of 10,000 conference attendees and a total of 25,000 tons of carbon. PD-Forum, a group representing the interests of key players in international carbon mitigation, is campaigning to save the Clean Development Mechanism and to spark investment in clean energy and low carbon projects in developing countries. The group noted that the donation is currently valued at US $25,000, reflecting a radical drop in recent years of the value of CERs. PD-Forum estimated that two years ago the same amount of CERs would have cost over US $500,000, and said a lack of trust in carbon markets has negatively affected carbon market stability of late, and that negotiators have a duty to keep the CDM alive.

In a letter to the PD-Forum, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), expressed appreciation for the group’s gesture, and noted that since the UNFCCC Secretariat was also providing offsets for the Doha conference, this would be the first “climate positive” Conference of the Parties (COP). [UNFCCC letter to PD Forum] [IISD RS Sources]