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Contact: Kevin Fay
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October 26, 1998, Arlington, VA   The International Climate Change Partnership (ICCP) today released a series of position papers that contain the organization's principles on emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM), and credit for early action. The papers outline a set of broad principles on these three key issues that are considered critical to making progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions trading and CDM are two of the provisions included in the Kyoto Protocol that allow reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to occur wherever they are most cost-effective. Credit for early action is a method of encouraging immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by rewarding companies that act early, before any regulatory mandate.

"The flexibility mechanisms included in the Kyoto Protocol such as emissions trading and CDM are key provisions on which the economic viability of the treaty rests," stated Kevin Fay, ICCP Executive Director. "It is important that the Parties work to establish the programmatic details of these provisions and that no limitations are placed on their use." ICCP believes that the flexibility provisions should be sufficiently simple to encourage active participation by industry, and that artificial restrictions and bureaucratic impediments should be avoided to ensure that transaction, compliance, and administrative costs are minimized.

Fay stressed that credit for early action will provide the incentives industry needs to take voluntary actions now, and will also insure that companies who act early are not penalized during any mandatory reduction phase by having to make even more costly reductions. One of ICCP's principles is that credit for early action will require new statutory authority, and Fay noted that a Senate bill (S.2617) was recently introduced that will begin the policy discussion on how to address the credit issue legislatively.

While the ICCP has commended the inclusion of the flexibility mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol, the group has cautioned that ratification of the agreement still requires additional work to resolve these details, as well as the negotiation of developing country commitments and establishment of a better-defined long-term objective.

The International Climate Change Partnership is a coalition of US industry representatives and associations, as well as international associations, interested in the policy development process with respect to global climate change. ICCP was organized in 1991 to provide a forum to address the issue of global climate change and to be a constructive participant in the policy debate.