Joint Implementation Projects do not work in Russia, though they promise to cut GHG emissions by hundreds of millions tons

Not a single Joint Implementation Project (JIP) has started in Russia yet, though this country joined the Kyoto Protocol almost five years ago, and a year and a half of its commitment period (2008-2012) has passed already. In May 2007, the Russian Government adopted the decree on the order of joint implementation of projects according to Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol on the territory of Russia. This arose a wave of JIP proposals, which could enable to cut GHG emissions by hundreds of millions tons of CO2 equivalent during the period from 2008 to 2012. But none of these projects have been started yet.

For more detail please see the article “JIPs at Crossroads” by M.Yulkin, the Director of the Centre for Environmental Investments (ecolounge.ru/2009/08/24/псо-на-перепутье)

Please find the English-language abstract of the article here

JIPs at Crossroads

Mikhail Yulkin, the Director of the Centre for Environmental Investments
(extracts)

In May 2007, the Russian Government adopted the Decree No. 332, which set the order for joint implementation of projects in accordance to Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol on the territory of Russia. With all its drawbacks, this Decree had one indisputable merit: the Russian business got the access to world carbon market, and to new investment sources and ways to raise liquidity, and foreign companies – the possibility to invest in Russian carbon projects and acquire considerable GHG emission cuts as a result of their implementation.
By the end of 2008, different companies have submitted about a hundred of projects that promised to cut GHG emissions by 180 mln tons of CO2 equivalent during the Kyoto Protocol commitment period (2008-2012). This would allow Russia to get almost 60 % of the corresponding segment of the carbon market. According to the data of the Ministry for Economic Development, over 30 projects with the total potential of emission cuts about 85 mln tons have successfully passed the assessment and were submitted to approval in accordance with the due procedure.
During the first half of 2009, the number of projects ready for joint implementation grew up to 125, and their total carbon potential – up to 240 mln tons of CO2 equivalent. According to the current market prices, this is 3.5 bln US dollars as a minimum. The business realized advantages and acquired a taste for it.
In spite of the calls and appeals of the interested Russia companies, business unions (Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Business Russia) and the regions, the count for approved projects has not been opened yet. And in June 2009, the Government decided to reconsider the acting (more precisely, not acting) order for the projects approval and included Sberbank in it. The result is disgraceful: the former procedure is actually invalid, and it is not known when will the new order introduced and how it will look like. And this takes place a year and a half after the Kyoto Protocol commitment period started, and six months before the Copenhagen Conference, where the intermediate results of the Kyoto Protocol will be summed up, and plans for the post-Kyoto developed!