Five EU countries cancel surplus Kyoto Protocol units

Paris, 4 December 2015. The Kyoto Protocol is currently suffering from an 11 gigatonne hot air loopholes that undermines its environmental effectiveness. In this context, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom today announced that they will cancel part of their pre-2020 surplus units (AAUs) under the Kyoto Protocol.

The five countries have announced to cancel 634.9 million surplus units from the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period with the goal to send a positive signal of support for an ambitious Paris climate agreement.

The cancellation initiative is a welcome step to put the spotlights on the dangers of hot air.  We hope to see this initiative extended to all surplus units that could potentially harm climate commitments post-2020” commented Femke de Jong, Carbon Market Watch’s EU climate policy advisor.

Under the current rules, the surplus AAUs under the Kyoto Protocol cannot be used after 2020. However, other Kyoto Protocol units, such as pre-2020 carbon offsets, could still severely undermine the environmental integrity of the Paris climate treaty if Parties would allow them to be carried-over.

ENDS

Information for journalists:

Policy Brief: Avoiding hot air in the 2015 Paris agreement here

Play the CAPMAN videogame to help this climate superhero take carbon out of the game here

Author

Related posts

EU’s 2040 credit line risks bankrupting the climate

The inclusion of flawed carbon credits in any compliance or voluntary market – particularly within the EU’s 2040 climate architecture – would pose a serious risk to environmental integrity. If the EU allows these credits to count towards its legally binding climate targets, it will effectively undermine real domestic mitigation by replacing it with credits that exist only on paper.

First wave of Article 6 carbon credits misfire spectacularly

A new Carbon Market Watch analysis, based on currently available project data, has uncovered that the first project transitioning from the CDM to the Article 6.4 market is poised to issue an astonishing 27.4 times more credits than it should as compared to the values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Join our mailing list

Stay in touch and receive our monthly newsletter, campaign updates, event invites and more.