Japan selects new batch of bilateral offset projects

Japan’s Environment Ministry said on Thursday that it has adopted 29 carbon projects under a bilateral offset mechanism, as part of nation’s efforts to achieve its climate goal to cut emissions.
The projects were selected from among 77 proposals made between April 28 and May 26 and cover such areas as waste management, transport, energy savings and avoided deforestation and degradation, the ministry said in a statement.
Of the 29 projects, 24 are located in Asia, three in Latin America and two in Africa, while the proposals were made by firms and groups such as Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Research Institute and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co.
Nine of the projects cover the area of energy-savings, seven are dedicated to REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) and the rest focus on waste management, biomass utilisation, transport and renewable energy.
The Asian project host countries are Thailand, Indonesia, China, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia. The Latin American host countries are Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, while the African host countries are South Africa and Angola.
Feasibility studies on the projects will be subsidised by the ministry, which has earmarked about 3 billion yen (US$37.5 million) in its budget for fiscal 2011, which started on April 1, for efforts to establish the carbon credit mechanism.
A ministry official told Point Carbon News that the ministry will not solicit any more bilateral offset mechanism project proposals for the current fiscal year, although the latest batch of projects is a sharp increase from only three for fiscal 2010.
Separately from the Environment Ministry, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Meti) also adopted a new batch of 26 bilateral offset mechanism projects earlier this month.
Meti has also been soliciting pilot bilateral offset mechanism projects under its own subsidy programme since last year.
Japan has been pushing for the bilateral offset mechanism recently as part of efforts to achieve its ambitious target of slashing GHG emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 from the 1990 level.
Japan’s new carbon credit mechanism bypasses the UN climate change process, as all necessary arrangements are made under bilateral pacts between governments concerned alone.