For us there is a very fundamental difference, in the sense that the credits we earn under CDM are related to projects, to investments, to real tangible things that are controlled by the UNFCCC. In that context, a CDM executive board was created.
To my knowledge, we have had only one accident so far, and that was projects related to HFCs in China that were relatively cheap, a cheap way of trading emissions that sparked a little bit of controversy and which we will bring to the table to redress. But it is the exception, not the rule. We have very good experiences with CDM projects. What we will have to pay attention to is that we diversify CDM projects all over the globe, and not just concentrate them in Asia or in one major country such as China. It makes a lot of sense, but at the same time we should not forget about other parts of the world, and in particular Africa.
These CDM credits are to be distinguished from trade in the so-called “assigned amount units”, the AAUs under the Kyoto Protocol, because we are less sure that AAUs being traded are corresponding with clear emissions reductions. To date, no single European country has traded AAUs outside the EU, and the reason is exactly this. Within the EU and in the context of the emissions trading system, we are exchanging AAUs, but there is a whole infrastructure behind that EU ETS to make sure that real emissions reductions are corresponding with what is being traded.
So while we are, in public opinion, definitely positive about CDM, I see a completely different case with the AAUs and in particular those that come from Russia, since we do not know exactly whether corresponding emissions reductions would happen.
Thank you.