UN's Clean Development Mechanism 'crucial' for Paris goals

The UN's Clean Development Mechanism has a key role in helping countries achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Tuesday quoted government officials meeting here as saying.

The Paris agreement became an international law on November 4 to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius.

The Clean Development Mechanism was established under the Kyoto Protocol, and has been successful in generating climate action on the ground, with almost 8,000 projects and close to 300 large-scale programme of activities established in 125 countries.

The call was made at a meeting of the Nationally Designated Authorities under the Clean Development Mechanism in the Moroccan city where the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) is underway.

In Marrakesh, officials also launched a portfolio of projects designed to boost the development of carbon market instruments as a means to help countries achieve their national climate action plans, to a large extent making use of the Clean Development Mechanism, the UNFCCC said.

"Over the past decade, we have built significant expertise in Clean Development Mechanism and in Nationally Designated Authorities about how to identify mitigation opportunities, build capacity to enable implementation of projects," Global Nationally Designated Authorities Forum co-chair Albert Magalang said in a statement.

The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties and the 12th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP12) are scheduled to be held here till November 18.

--IANS

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