Key players in emission trading market gather today

SINGAPORE - International financial institutions and players in the emissions trading market will gather today for the two-day Carbon Forum Asia 2010 to discuss trends in the carbon finance landscape and showcase new carbon reduction solutions.                                                                     

The forum, organized by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and Koelnmesse gathers carbon market players, regulators, policy makers, technology owners, and industry observers.

The event, to be held at the Raffles City Convention, will exhibit carbon reduction technologies and solutions from around the world and provide an overview of the carbon finance landscape in key markets in Asia. 

IETA president and chief executive officer Henry Derwent said Asia has dominated the supply side of the global carbon market over a short period of time. 

“But key Asian countries are now on the brink of adopting emissions trading; so investors and market players must now gauge Asian demand as well as supply,” he said.

Several countries including Australia, Germany, Japan and Singapore would host pavilions that would provide visitors information on carbon market regulations, initiatives and innovations.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will host a Special Projects Pavilion for carbon projects in developing countries.

Koelnmesse-Asia Pacific vice president Michael Dreyer said Asia is the perfect meeting place for carbon market players and financers because the continent has a 75 percent share in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) market.

CDM is a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol that allows industrialized nations to invest in emissions reduction projects in less developed countries. 

As of July 2010, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) has registered 2,300 CDM projects worldwide, an increase of 35 percent from last year.

Sixty percent of the 1,780 CDM projects in Asia are carried out in China and India. Some are implemented in emerging economies like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

A study conducted by the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS) showed that the Philippines targets to increase by 10 percent the number of its clean energy projects by 2014.

As of October last year, the country has around 30 projects endorsed and registered with the CDM Executive Board of the UNFCCC, making it the seventh country in the world with highest number of CDM projects under the Kyoto Protocol.

SEAS chairman Edwin Khew earlier said the Philippines is on the right track in its promotion of renewable energy.

“The Philippines is doing good. Concerned officials are coming out with laws that also give good incentives for companies complying with environmental laws. They are doing the right thing,” he said.

The Philippines is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding international agreement on climate change. The government signed the agreement in 1998 and was ratified by the Senate in 2003.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) previously said countries have to be more ambitious in cutting greenhouse gas emissions to effectively limit the rise in global temperature.

In the report titled “How Close Are We to the Two Degree Limit?” the UNEP conceded that there is a huge mismatch between projected emissions and emission reduction commitments.

UNEP said the annual global carbon budget or global greenhouse gas emissions should not be higher than 40 to 48.3 Gigatonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide in 2020 and should peak sometime between 2015 and 2021.

It estimates that between 2020 and 2050, global emissions need to fall by between 48 percent and 72 percent.