Impacts of the Clean Development Mechanism

The report finds that the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) achieved an unintended net mitigation impact of approximately 480 MtCO2e in 2014, reducing global emissions by about 1% because projects continued operating mitigation equipment without issuing offsets due to low market prices. It further analyzes how different Certified Emission Reduction (CER) price points would affect this unintended mitigation, noting that a price of EUR 5 would reduce the unintended impact by over 50% compared to a EUR 2 scenario.

• In 2014, the CDM produced an unintended and undesirable net mitigation impact of approximately 480 MtCO2e, which represents a reduction in global emissions of about 1%. This occurred because projects designed for the CDM continued to operate mitigation equipment but stopped issuing offsets due to depressed market conditions.
• The study's analysis of price elasticity indicates that a CER price recovery to EUR 2 would only cause a modest increase in supply. However, a CER price of EUR 5 would reduce the unintended net mitigation impact by more than 50% relative to the EUR 2 scenario, though this would require non-market interventions or substantial demand increases.
• A CER price exceeding EUR 5 is identified as a threshold that 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} }