Afforestation and reforestation (AR) projects in the Clean Development Mechanism are able to create emission permits that can be accounted against the industrialized countries' commitments for limiting their greenhouse gas emissions, as agreed under the Kyoto Protocol. The discussion of how to...

International climate negotiations have specified that projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) should not lead to a „diversion“ of official development assistance (ODA). It is however unchallenged that ODA can be used in capacity building for the CDM. Diversion can be...

The authors suggest a multi-layered system of three convergence criteria – similar to those used in the run-up to the European monetary union – that define the notion of „demonstrable progress“ towards reaching the emission commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. These are the existence of...

A whole bundle of so-called „flexible mechanisms“ has been foreseen by the Kyoto Protocol in order to help industrial countries to fulfil their agreed reduction targets in the most costeffective way. Emission permits will act as the backbone of all market-orientated mechanisms. Therefore,...

For the first time, the Protocol negotiated by the third Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto sets legally binding emission targets for the commitment period 2008-2012 for the industrial countries and countries in transition listed in Annex I....

The implementation of activities aimed to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions is more cost-efficient in developing countries than in most of the industrialized world. Thus it has been a major, but contentious topic in the climate negotiations to allow crediting of emissions reduction in...

The implementation of activities aimed to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions is more cost-efficient in developing countries than in most of the industrialized world. A Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is to assure that the interests of all parties implicated in Joint Implementation...

Joint Implementation (JI) is a potentially powerful instrument of climate policy that could lead to a high amount of additional financial flows to developing countries. Nevertheless, many NGOs and developing country representatives are very skeptical about JI and fear that it would not take into...