Law firm launches CDM Rulebook

New website offers detailed information on complex rules governing UN's carbon trading and offsetting initiative

Firms and investors seeking to navigate the labyrinthine legislation governing the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) carbon trading scheme should find it easier to ensure their carbon reduction projects comply with the initiative's regulations following the launch last week of a new website detailing all the CDM's rules.

The CDM Rulebook has been developed by law firm Baker & McKenzie and provides a comprehensive legal CDM database, detailing all the rules governing the scheme in a "logically sequenced" manner which makes it easy to navigate and search.

The authors of the rulebook, Paul Curnow and Louisa Fitz-Gerald Baker, said that the site would also allow parties interested in setting up CDM carbon reduction projects to navigate through the project cycles of all project types, including large-scale, small-scale, forestry, small-scale forestry and programmatic CDM activities.

It also features responses to frequently asked questions about the CDM and a glossary of relevant terms.

The CDM was developed as a means of transferring clean technology to developing economies. Under the terms of the initiative, carbon reduction projects in developing economies – such as wind farms, hydro electric projects, and forestry initiaitives – can gain CDM accreditation allowing them to generate an extra revenue stream by selling certified emission reductions (CERs) to western governments to help them comply with their Kyoto carbon reduction targets.

However, the initiative has faced criticism from some commentators who claim that the rules governing the scheme are too complex, making it too costly for many small scale carbon reduction projects to qualify.

Graham Stuart, a partner at Baker & McKenzie and head of the firm's climate change team in London said the new site would seek to tackle this problem by offering access to all the legislation governing which projects are eligible and how they should apply to enter the scheme.

"There are a huge number of rules and regulations that dictate how you execute CDM projects and the challenge for both investors and project managers is how you pinpoint the relevant rules for the type of project you are working on," he said. "The site will allow people to access this information from the same place."

The new site has been funded by a number of governmental bodies, including the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Swedish Energy Agency, the Australian Department of Climate Change, the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment, the Asian Development Bank, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank and the UNEP Risoe Center.