Standardized Baselines for the CDM – Are We on the Right Track?

This policy paper by the Stockholm Environment Institute and other experts evaluates the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) framework for standardized baselines. The authors argue that the current approach is too rigid, potentially leading to both under-crediting and over-crediting of emission reductions, and recommend a more flexible, data-driven, and sector-specific methodology to ensure environmental integrity and practical applicability.

• The current CDM framework for standardized baselines employs a single methodological approach across diverse sectors, project types, and locations, which the authors argue is inadequate. This uniformity can lead to significant over-crediting for some projects, undermining environmental integrity, and under-crediting for others, which removes market incentives.
• The voluntary nature of using standardized baselines creates a risk where project developers only choose them when they result in higher baseline emissions than project-specific baselines, potentially leading to the over-crediting of emission reductions.
• The use of constant baseline emission factors over long crediting periods (up to 10 or 30 years) fails to account for technological innovation and changing emission intensities in many industries, sometimes relying on data that is over a decade old.
• The current guidelines face significant practical hurdles regarding data availability, as they require extensive activity and technology data for entire markets or sectors that may be commercially sensitive or unavailable, particularly in certain countries.
• The authors identify a risk that proposed rules may remove the 'prior consideration' requirement for projects using standardized baselines, which could allow the registration of projects that are not actually additional.
• To improve the system, the authors recommend that standardized baselines should be mandatory once approved, should be developed based on actual projects and sector-specific data, and should include a pre-determined path for emission factors to change over time to drive technological change.

APA

Schneider, L., Broekhoff, D., Fuessler, J., Lazarus, M., Michaelowa, A., & Spalding-Fecher, R. (2012). Standardized Baselines for the CDM – Are We on the Right Track? Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Policy-paper-2012-Standardized-baselines-CDM.pdf

Chicago

Schneider, Lambert, Derik Broekhoff, Juerg Fuessler, Michael Lazarus, Axel Michaelowa, and Randall Spalding-Fecher. Standardized Baselines for the CDM – Are We on the Right Track? Stockholm Environment Institute, 2012. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Policy-paper-2012-Standardized-baselines-CDM.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Schneider |first1=Lambert |last2=Broekhoff |first2=Derik |last3=Fuessler |first3=Juerg |last4=Lazarus |first4=Michael |last5=Michaelowa |first5=Axel |last6=Spalding-Fecher |first6=Randall |title=Standardized Baselines for the CDM – Are We on the Right Track? |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=20 November 2012 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Policy-paper-2012-Standardized-baselines-CDM.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{schneider2012standardized, author = {Schneider, Lambert and Broekhoff, Derik and Fuessler, Juerg and Lazarus, Michael and Michaelowa, Axel and Spalding-Fecher, Randall}, title = {{Standardized Baselines for the CDM – Are We on the Right Track?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2012}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Policy-paper-2012-Standardized-baselines-CDM.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }