12 May 2008: “At a time that global cooperation to reduce the risk of climate change is more important than ever before, the prospects for developing countries benefiting from the carbon market are in question,” said World Bank Senior Carbon Market Specialist Karan Capoor, co-author of the “State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2008,” released on 7 May 2008 at the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany.

According to the World Bank, the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has had its best year ever, but the challenge is ensuring that developing countries, as well as wealthy countries, benefit from the carbon market. The bottlenecks faced by CDM projects include a shortage of qualified verifiers and increased vigilance by the regulators. To counteract the effect of these delays, a clear signal is needed from governments that greenhouse gas reduction projects will still be able to sell credits on the carbon market post-2012, under the agreement that follows the Kyoto Protocol.

[Greenhouse gas projects face carbon market bottlenecks] [State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2008]