17 September 2010: The report of the 56th meeting of the Clean Developing Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board, which took place from 13-17 September 2010, in Brasília, Brazil, to consider matters relating to the operation of the CDM, is now available on the CDM website.

At the meeting, the Board considered matters relating to: accreditation of operational entities; issuance of certified emission reductions (CERs) and the CDM registry; methodologies for baselines and monitoring plans; regional distribution of CDM projects; registration of CDM project activities; resources for the work on the CDM and the CDM management plan; relations with designated operational and applicant entities; CDM afforestation and reforestation (A/R) project activities; small-scale CDM project activities; and the CDM programmes of activities.

On the accreditation of operational entities, the Board agreed to accredit and provisionally designate the entities “CEPREI certification body” and “LGAI Technological Center, S.A.” for three years each, for the validation and verification/certification functions in the specified sectoral scopes. The Board also considered various issues of general guidance relating to designated operational and applicant entities. Regarding methodologies for baselines and monitoring plans, the Board agreed to approve methodology AM0089 “Production of diesel using a mixed feedstock of gasoil and vegetable oil” and methodology AM0090 “Modal shift in transportation of cargo from road transportation to water or rail transportation.” It agreed not to approve methodology NM0310 “Carbon dioxide emission reductions by the introduction of Hot Direct Reduction Iron in the Electric Arc Furnaces,” which, if revised, could be resubmitted.

The Board also considered issues relating to CDM A/R project activities and agreed to approve methodology AR-AMS0007 “Simplified baseline and monitoring methodology for small-scale A/R CDM project activities on grasslands or croplands.” The Board approved the revised tool “Estimation of carbon stocks and change in carbon stocks of trees and shrubs in A/R CDM project activities” and the revised “Guidelines for completing the CDM A/R forms for: the project design document (CDM-AR-PDD) and the proposed new baseline and monitoring methodology (CDM-AR-NM).” Regarding small-scale projects, the Board approved two new small-scale methodologies: AMS-III.AM “Fuel switch in a cogeneration/trigeneration system”; and AMS-III.AN “Fossil fuel switch in existing manufacturing industries.” It also agreed to revise the following approved methodologies: AMS-I.E “Switch from non-renewable biomass for thermal applications by the user,” to cover renewable energy water purification applications displacing non-renewable biomass usage; AMS-I.C “Thermal energy production with or without electricity,” to include a procedure for determining baseline efficiency for a new cogeneration system where subsystem equipment are provided by different manufacturers; and AMS.III.X “Energy efficiency and HFC-134a recovery in residential refrigerators,” to remove the requirement to conclude the installation within the first year and to include projects that may not be undertaking the recovery or claiming emission reductions from recovering hydrofluorocarbon (HFC).

The Board also considered requests for the registration of new project activities and agreed to register the project activities “Gansu Yumen Diwopu Phase II Wind Power Project” and “Huaneng Changyi Phase I Wind Farm Project.” It also agreed to register 36 other project activities, if requested corrections are made and requested additional documentation submitted. The Board considered various requests made by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP) to the Board. Regarding procedures for appeals against adverse rulings by the Board regarding requests for registration or issuance, the Board considered the draft procedures prepared by the Secretariat. It considered that the main structure of the draft is a suitable basis for the Board’s recommendation to the COP/MOP and requested the Secretariat to revise the draft incorporating the comments by members for consideration by the Board at its 57th meeting. It further requested the Secretariat to work with a small group of members to develop a proposal providing options regarding the appropriate body to serve as the appeals body. [CDM EB-56 Report]