UNITED

NATIONS

Distr.
LIMITED

FCCC/KP/CMP/2009/L.10
18 December 2009

Original: ENGLISH

CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES SERVING AS THE

MEETING OF THE PARTIES TO THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
Fifth session
Copenhagen, 7–18 December 2009

Agenda item 6
Issues relating to the clean development mechanism

Draft decision -/CMP.5

Further guidance relating to the clean development mechanism

Proposal by the President

The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol,
Recalling the provisions of Articles 3 and 12 of the Kyoto Protocol,
Cognizant of decisions 7/CMP.1, 1/CMP.2 , 2/CMP.3 and 2/CMP.4,

I. General
1. Takes note of the annual report for 2008–2009 of the Executive Board of the clean
development mechanism;1
2. Designates as operational entities those entities that have been accredited, and
provisionally designated, as operational entities by the Executive Board to carry out sector-specific
validation functions and/or sector-specific verification functions as listed in the annex to this decision;
3. Urges the Executive Board to take effective action to ensure compliance with established
timelines for each of its procedures as well as with decisions of the Conference of the Parties serving as
the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and, where possible, to reduce the established timelines;
4. Welcomes the measures adopted by the Executive Board to improve the efficiency of the
operation of the clean development mechanism, as outlined in annex IV to its annual report;
5. Requests the Executive Board to continue its efforts to improve the efficiency and
impartiality of the operation of the clean development mechanism and strengthen its executive and
supervisory role by, inter alia, ensuring effective use of its support structure, including its panels, other
outside expertise and the secretariat, taking into consideration the increasing caseload, and to make

1
FCCC/KP/CMP/2009/16.

GE.09-71516
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recommendations on further improving and reforming the system and its efficiency and impartiality to
the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol for
consideration at its sixth and subsequent sessions;

II. Governance
6. Encourages Parties to give active consideration to the nomination of women as members
and alternate members of the Executive Board, in accordance with decision 36/CP.7;
7. Requests the Executive Board, as its highest priority, to continue to significantly improve
transparency, consistency and impartiality in its work by, inter alia:
(a) Continuing its efforts to improve consistency in its decision-making;
(b) Publishing detailed explanations of and the rationale for decisions taken,
including sources of information used, without compromising the confidentiality
of the opinion of any individual Executive Board member or alternate member;
(c) Taking into account input from relevant international organizations and Parties
involved in addition to project participants and the designated operational
entities in its decision-making process;
8. Requests the Executive Board to enhance its communications with project participants
and stakeholders, including through the establishment of modalities and procedures for direct
communication between the Executive Board and project participants in relation to individual projects,
and to report on actions taken to the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the
Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session;
9. Requests the Executive Board to take fully into account, in its work and in the work of its
support structure, the laws, regulations, policies, standards and guidelines that apply in the host
countries, and in case of need seek inputs from designated national authorities of the host countries;
10. Affirms that it is the prerogative of the host country to decide on the design and
implementation of policies to promote or give competitive advantage to low greenhouse gas emitting
fuels or technologies;
11. Requests the Executive Board to ensure that its rules and guidelines related to the
introduction or implementation of the policies referred to in paragraph 10 above promote the
achievement of the ultimate objective of the Convention and do not create perverse incentives for
emission reduction efforts;
12. Requests the Executive Board to consolidate, clarify and revise, as appropriate, its
guidance on the treatment of national policies;
13. Acknowledges that the Executive Board has adopted a code of conduct for its members;
14. Requests the Executive Board to recommend terms of reference for membership of the
Executive Board that clarify the desired set of skills and expertise as well as the expected time
commitment required of members and alternate members, for consideration by the Conference of the
Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session;
15. Requests that the curricula vitae of Executive Board members, statements on conflicts of
interest and details of any past and current professional affiliations of members be published on the
UNFCCC CDM website;
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III. Accreditation
16. Encourages the Executive Board to continue to develop measures to enhance the
impartiality, independence and technical competence of designated operational entities and to develop
arrangements to protect from undue prejudice proposed clean development mechanism project activities
that are undergoing validation and verification by a designated operational entity that has lost its
accreditation status or had this status suspended;
17. Reiterates its request to the Executive Board to develop and apply, as a priority, a system
for continuous monitoring of the performance of designated operational entities and a system to improve
the performance of these entities and to report on the implementation of these systems to the Conference
of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session;
18. Requests the Executive Board to improve access to information on the performance of
designated operational entities, including through improved reporting on performance, capacity and
accessibility of services of these entities;
19. Requests the Executive Board to adopt measures to increase capacity and improve
performance of designated operational entities, including systems to promote improved levels of training
for auditors involved in validating and verifying activities;
20. Requests the Executive Board to adopt a procedure for designated operational entities to
provide the secretariat with information on the number of project activities under validation or
verification per qualified auditor, and the time frames and average fees for the validation and verification
of clean development mechanism project activities hosted in developing countries, divided by region;
21. Requests the secretariat to prepare a compilation of this information without attribution
for publication on the UNFCCC CDM website;
22. Requests the Executive Board to continue to update the Clean Development Mechanism
Validation and Verification Manual, including by further exploring the possible introduction of the
concepts of materiality and the level of assurance, and to report to the Conference of the Parties serving
as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session;

IV. Baseline and monitoring methodologies and additionality

23. Authorizes the Executive Board to prioritize, informed by an analysis of the potential use
of methodologies and potential for emission reductions, the consideration and development of baseline
and monitoring methodologies that are applicable to under-represented project activity types or regions,
in order to improve the efficiency of operation of the methodologies processes;
24. Requests the Executive Board, starting at its next meeting, to further work and report to
the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol on the
enhancement of objectivity and transparency in the approaches for demonstration and assessment of
additionality and selection of the baseline scenario by means of the following activities:
(a) Further development of guidelines for demonstration and assessment of barriers
and of standardized methods to calculate financial parameters;
(b) Development of guidance for project participants on the use of first-of-its-kind
barrier and the assessment of common practice, including the definition of the
applicable region, similar technologies and thresholds for penetration rates;
(c) Establishment of simplified modalities for demonstrating additionality for project
activities up to 5 megawatts that employ renewable energy as their primary
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technology and for energy efficiency project activities that aim to achieve energy
savings at a scale of no more than 20 gigawatt hours per year;
(d) Development of guidance for the treatment of feed-in tariffs in the additionality
analysis for renewable energy project activities;
25. Requests the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to recommend
modalities and procedures for the development of standardized baselines that are broadly applicable,
while providing for a high level of environmental integrity and taking into account specific national
circumstances, and to forward a draft decision on this matter to the Conference of the Parties serving as
the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session;
26. Invites Parties, intergovernmental organizations and admitted observer organizations to
make submissions to the secretariat, by 22 March 2010, on their views on the matter referred to in
paragraph 25 above;
27. Requests the secretariat to compile the views submitted by Parties and intergovernmental
organizations in accordance with paragraph 26 above into a miscellaneous document for consideration by
the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice at its thirty-second session;
28. Also requests the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to assess the
implications of the recommendation regarding “forests in exhaustion”, as contained in annex I to the
annual report of the Executive Board;
29. Recognizes the importance of carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological
formations as a possible mitigation technology, bearing in mind the concerns related to the following
outstanding issues, inter alia:
(a) Non-permanence, including long-term permanence;
(b) Measuring, reporting and verification;
(c) Environmental impacts;
(d) Project activity boundaries;
(e) International law;
(f) Liability;
(g) The potential for perverse outcomes;
(h) Safety;
(i) Insurance coverage and compensation for damages caused due to seepage or
leakage;
30. Further requests the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to
continue to work on the possible inclusion of carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological
formations in the clean development mechanism by working on the issues listed in paragraph 29 above,
with a view to the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol
adopting a decision on this matter at its sixth session;
31. Invites Parties to make submissions to the secretariat, by 22 March 2010, on their views
on the issues listed in paragraph 29 above;
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32. Requests the secretariat to compile the views submitted by Parties in accordance with
paragraph 31 above into a miscellaneous document for consideration by the Subsidiary Body for
Scientific and Technological Advice at its thirty-second session;
33. Invites interested entities to submit methodologies, considering the current work of the
Executive Board and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, on new technologies
that have the potential to reduce in net terms the concentration of carbon or carbon dioxide already in the
atmosphere;
34. Requests the Executive Board to further improve the “Tool to calculate the emission
factor for an electricity system” for project activities hosted in countries with a paucity of relevant data,
including by providing flexibility for the calculation of grid emission factors;
35. Encourages the Executive Board to further explore the possibility of including in
baseline and monitoring methodologies, as appropriate, a scenario where future anthropogenic emissions
by sources are projected to rise above current levels due to specific circumstances of the host Party;

V. Registration of clean development mechanism project activities and

issuance of certified emission reductions
36. Requests the Executive Board to continue to revise the relevant procedures and guidance
on programmes of activities, including by defining more clearly the situations in which designated
operational entities could be held liable for erroneous inclusion of a component project activity, in order
to reduce barriers to the development of programmes of activities under the clean development
mechanism;
37. Also requests the Executive Board to adopt as soon as possible, and subsequently apply
on an interim basis, revised procedures for registration, issuance and review, under which alternative
timelines to those defined in decision 3/CMP.1, annex, paragraphs 41 and 65, and decision 4/CMP.1,
annex II, paragraph 24, can be applied;
38. Revokes annexes III and IV to decision 4/CMP.1 containing the existing procedures for
review;
39. Requests the Executive Board to ensure that the revised procedures for review:
(a) Provide designated operational entities and project participants with adequate
opportunity to address issues raised in reviews;
(b) Include an independent technical assessment of the analysis conducted by the
secretariat;
(c) Include a process for the Executive Board to consider objections raised by
members of the Executive Board to outcomes of assessments;
(d) Ensure efficient and timely consideration of registration and issuance requests;
40. Also requests the Executive Board to continue applying its existing procedures for
registration, issuance and review until the revised procedures referred to in paragraph 39 above are
adopted by the Executive Board;
41. Further requests the Executive Board to report to the Conference of the Parties serving
as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session on the revised procedures and the
impact of their interim implementation, with a view to adoption of the revised procedures by the
Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at that session;
FCCC/KP/CMP/2009/L.10
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42. Requests the Executive Board to establish, following consultation with stakeholders,
procedures for considering appeals that are brought by stakeholders directly involved, defined in a
conservative manner, in the design, approval or implementation of clean development mechanism project
activities or proposed clean development mechanism project activities, in relation to:
(a) Situations where a designated operational entity may not have performed its
duties in accordance with the rules or requirements of the Conference of the
Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and/or the
Executive Board;
(b) Rulings taken by or under the authority of the Executive Board in accordance
with the procedures referred to in paragraph 39 above regarding the rejection or
alteration of requests for registration or issuance;
43. Requests the Executive Board to design the procedures referred to in paragraph 42 above
focusing on, but not limited to, ensuring due process and to report on implementation to the Conference
of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties at its sixth session;

VI. Regional and subregional distribution and capacity-building

44. Welcomes the work of the Designated National Authorities Forum, which could
contribute to broader participation in the clean development mechanism through, inter alia, the sharing of
information and experience;
45. Encourages the Executive Board to follow up on issues raised by the Designated
National Authorities Forum in between meetings of the Forum;
46. Also encourages designated national authorities to publish the criteria they use in
assessing the contribution of project activities to sustainable development;
47. Decides to defer the payment of the registration fee until after the first issuance for
countries with fewer than 10 registered clean development mechanism project activities;
48. Requests the Executive Board to undertake the following measures for countries hosting
fewer than 10 registered clean development mechanism project activities without compromising
environmental integrity:
(a) Developing top-down methodologies that are particularly suited for application
in these countries in accordance with principles and guidelines to be established
by the Executive Board;
(b) Introducing a requirement that designated operational entities indicate the work
they are undertaking on projects originated in these countries as part of their
annual activity reports and ensure that this item be included in the subsequent
synthesis report presented by the secretariat to the Executive Board for
appropriate follow-up;
49. Requests the Executive Board to allocate financial resources from the interest accrued on
the principal of the Trust Fund for the Clean Development Mechanism, as well as any voluntary
contributions from donors, in order to provide loans to support the following activities in countries with
fewer than 10 registered clean development mechanism project activities:
(a) To cover the costs of the development of project design documents;
(b) To cover the costs of validation and the first verification for these project
activities;
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50. Decides that the loans referred to in paragraph 49 above are to be repaid starting from
the first issuance of certified emission reductions;
51. Requests the Executive Board to recommend guidelines and modalities for
operationalizing the activities outlined in paragraphs 49 and 50 above for consideration by the
Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol at its sixth session;
52. Also requests the secretariat to continue its work in facilitating coordination among
partner agencies in the implementation of the Nairobi Framework;2
53. Encourages all Parties to continue cooperating bilaterally to develop and implement
clean development mechanism project activities, and in particular to facilitate South–South cooperation
and capacity transfer;
54. Encourages designated operational entities to establish offices in developing countries in
line with the provisions of the clean development mechanism accreditation standard in order to reduce
the transaction costs for these countries and to contribute to a more equitable distribution of clean
development mechanism project activities;
55. Requests the secretariat to enhance its support to designated national authorities and the
Designated National Authorities Forum by, inter alia:
(a) Providing training opportunities for clean development mechanism stakeholders
on a continuous basis on the different elements of the clean development
mechanism project cycle;
(b) Facilitating information exchange and awareness-raising at the regional and
subregional levels;
(c) Developing and making publicly available studies on the potential of the clean
development mechanism in the countries identified in paragraph 47 above,
working in close cooperation with local authorities;
(d) Organizing subregional meetings of the Designated National Authorities Forum;

VII. Resources for work on the clean development mechanism

56. Requests the secretariat to implement the staffing requirements in the management plan
in an expeditious manner in order to support the work of the Executive Board;
57. Requests the secretariat to improve its reporting on financial resources, including by
providing a detailed breakdown of both income and expenditure, and by explaining the status of and
rationale for financial reserves;
58. Requests the secretariat to apply a flexible recruitment process to fill vacant positions
established under the management plan of the Executive Board while ensuring that the principles of a fair
and transparent process are upheld;
59. Expresses its appreciation to the Government of Belgium and the European Commission
for having provided financial resources in support of meetings of the Designated National Authorities
Forum and to the Government of Sweden for having allowed additional participation by the least
developed countries and small island developing States in the practitioners workshop held in Bonn,
Germany on 26 October 2009;

2
<http://cdm.unfccc.int/Nairobi_Framework/index.html>.
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60. Also expresses its appreciation to the Government of Grenada for hosting the fifty-eighth
meeting of the Executive Board from 15 to 17 July 2009 and to the Government of Singapore for hosting
the eighth meeting of the Designated National Authorities Forum from 26 to 28 October 2009.
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ANNEX

Entities accredited and provisionally designated by the Executive Board of

the clean development mechanism and recommended for designation by the
Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the
Kyoto Protocol for validation and verification/certification
for specific sectoral scopes

Designated and recommended for

designation for sectoral scopes
Project Emission reduction
Name of entity validation verification
Japan Quality Assurance Organization (JQA) 1–15 1–15
JACO CDM Ltd 1–15 1–15
Det Norske Veritas Certification AS (DNV) 1–15 1–15
TÜV SÜD Industrie Service GmbH (TÜV-SÜD) 1–15 1–15
Deloitte Tohmatsu Evaluation and Certification
Organisation (Deloitte-TECO) 1
SGS United Kingdom Ltd. (SGS) 1–15 1–15
Korea Energy Management Corporation (KEMCO) 1–15 1–15
TÜV Rheinland Japan Ltd. (TÜV Rheinland) 1–15 1–15
ERM Certification and Verification Services Ltd. 1–5, 8–10, 13 1–5, 8–10, 13
TÜV NORD Cert GmbH 4–7, 10–12
Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance Ltd (LRQA) 1–13 1–13
Colombian Institute for Technical Standards and Certification
(ICONTEC) 1–5, 8, 13–15 1–5, 8, 13–15
Korean Foundation For Quality (KFQ) 1–5, 9–11, 13 1–5, 9–11, 13
Swiss Association for Quality and Management Systems 1–15 1–15
China Environmental United Certification Center Co., Ltd.
(CEC) 1–3, 8, 10 1–3, 8, 10
1–8, 10, 11,
RINA S.p.A (RINA) 13–15 1–8, 10, 11, 13–15
SIRIM QAS International SDN.BHD 1–4, 13 1–4, 13
Korean Standards Association (KSA) 1–5, 13 1–5, 13
Environmental Management Corp. (EMC) 1–8, 13–15 1–8, 13–15
1–4, 6, 8, 9,
Japan Management Association (JMA) 14 1–4, 6, 8, 9, 14
Germanischer Lloyd Certification GmbH (GLC) 1–3, 7, 10, 13 1–3, 7, 10, 13
China Quality Certification Center (CQC) 1–13 1–13
Ernst & Young Associes (France) 14 14
Note: The numbers 1 to 15 indicate sectoral scopes as determined by the Executive Board. For details, see
<http://cdm.unfccc.int/DOE/scopelst.pdf>.

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