As Copenhagen finally winds down, UN negotiators have agreed to incorporate the Copenhagen Accord into formal talks on Kyoto next year.

While not all countries are in support of the Accord and many are angry that the negotiations here did not evolve into a legally-binding agreement, the Accord will be used as a framework for discussions in the future.

While many negotiators are still finalizing their support for the Accord, the UN did make progress on CDM reform. The UN working group responsible for CDM reform published a text that includes the following recommendations for CDM reform:

• ·         Requests that the CDM Executive Board (EB) improves its compliance with its own timeline procedures and to improve its efficiency on the operation of the CDM
• ·         Requests the EB to publish detailed explanations of its formal decisions and to improve its communications with project participants and stakeholders directly.
• ·         Requests EB to improve its communications, training and performance reviews on DOE’s
• ·         Requests the EB to establish a process that allows project developers and stakeholders to appeal EB decisions
• ·        Requests the SBSTA to work on a methodology for CCS technology in the CDM
• ·         Asks to defer registration fee for projects in countries that have less than 10 CDM projects registered and to establish a mechanism that provide loans to pay for the costs of the PDD, validation and verification for projects in these countries. This mechanism could be used through interest that has been collected on the CDM Trust Fund
• ·         Requests to create a simple system that demonstrates additionality for renewable energy projects with less than 5MW and energy efficiency projects with a power generation of less than 20GWh per year