Recently CDM Executive Board has tightened all the CDM methodologies. In addition the validation is also stringent which makes it difficult for several potential projects to qualify as a regular CDM project. As per the CDM regulation, the CERs are only issued after the registration of the project. Hence, the projects which were in operation before registration of the project have no option other than selling the accumulated emission reduction in the voluntary market.
Voluntary markets are small; yet they contribute significantly in carbon trading. There is no universally accepted standard and therefore all the voluntary markets are unregulated.
Some of the most prominent voluntary standards in Asia are Voluntary Gold Standard, Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), TUV+ and ISO 14064.
In the last 2-3 years the voluntary market picked up well in several Asian countries. In 2008, out of the voluntary offsets originated, Asia alone contributed to 39%. However, the sale price of emission reduction under voluntary regime is much lower than that of the price in CDM scheme. The current market price of VER is of only 30-40% of the market price of CER.
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