Singapore’s Chief Negotiator for Climate Change expresses cautious optimism on global carbon market

Ambassador Burhan Gafoor, Singapore’s Chief Negotiator for Climate Change expresses cautious optimism on the global carbon market, during the opening ceremony of the annual Carbon Forum Asia 2011.

Held in Singapore again this year, Carbon Forum Asia 2011 brings together industry leaders, government agencies, policymakers, and emissions trading and CDM market experts to learn, network and discuss issues around climate change and carbon trading. This year, Carbon Forum Asia welcomes around 1,000 international participants from close to 50 countries.

In his opening speech, Ambassador Gafoor spoke about the bleak outlook for the global carbon market due to the uncertainty about the future of the Kyoto Protocol and the flexibility mechansims. However, he expressed cautious optimism about the global carbon market in the medium and longer term.

The reasons for the optimism include the start of a process of mitigation actions by both developed and developing countries under the Cancun Agreements, the majority of countries wanting the global carbon market to continue via the emissions trading and project-based mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, and growing interest in the carbon market with several countries developing or exploring their own voluntary carbon markets. Read more

Methodological Approaches for Cost-Effective Carbon Trading

Venue: MEWR Theatrette, #4-00, Environment Building, 40 Scotts Road, Singapore 228231

Speaker: Sébastien Raoux, Ph.D., J.D., Esq., President & CEO, Transcarbon International Corporation

In this presentation, Dr. Raoux will review the essential elements of carbon trading methodologies and cover topics such as additionality, anti-gaming and capping procedures, the calculation of baseline and project emissions, and monitoring methodologies. He will pay particular attention to the issue of accuracy and uncertainty in the determination of emissions reduction, and examine the tradeoffs and procedures to optimize the cost effectiveness of carbon trading projects. He will illustrate the presentation with examples taken from existing CDM methodologies (Clean Development Mechanism), in particular related to the electronics and the high-tech industry, as well as energy and waste management.

For details and registration, visit the SEI website.