Impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism

This report analyzes the unintended mitigation impact of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in 2014, finding that depressed market conditions led to a net mitigation of 480 MtCO2e (roughly 1% of global emissions) as projects continued operating without issuing offsets. It further examines how different CER price recovery scenarios (EUR 2 vs EUR 5+) would affect the supply of credits and the gap between actual reductions and credit issuance.

• The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) produced an unintended and undesirable annual net mitigation impact of approximately 480 MtCO2e in 2014, which may have reduced global emissions by about 1% that year. This occurred because projects continued to operate mitigation equipment but stopped issuing offsets due to depressed market conditions.
• The study analyzed the price elasticity of market recovery for Certified Emission Reductions (CER). A price recovery to EUR 2 would result in only a modest increase in supply. A CER price of EUR 5 would reduce the unintended net mitigation impact by more than 50% compared to the EUR 2 scenario, though this would require non-market interventions or substantial demand increases. Prices exceeding EUR 5 could restore market confidence by narrowing the gap between actual emission reductions and the volume of credits issued.

APA

NewClimate Institute (2015). Impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism. http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/impacts-of-the-clean-development-mechanism

Chicago

NewClimate Institute. Impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism. 2015. http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/impacts-of-the-clean-development-mechanism.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=NewClimate Institute |title=Impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism |date=30 November 2015 |url=http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/impacts-of-the-clean-development-mechanism |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{newclimateinstitute2015impacts, author = {{NewClimate Institute}}, title = {{Impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism}}, institution = {NewClimate Institute}, year = {2015}, month = nov, url = {http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/impacts-of-the-clean-development-mechanism}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }