David Fogarty, Reuters 23 Jun 09;
* Thailand plans carbon standard to raise project quality
* Administration costs a hurdle to more emissions cuts
KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 (Reuters) - Thailand is developing a national standard for U.N.-backed carbon offset projects to boost quality and help developers earn a premium, a senior Thai official said on Tuesday.
Under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol rich nations can buy the right to emit greenhouse gases, and so meet binding caps on carbon emissions, by investing in clean energy projects in developing countries.
The environmental credentials of the scheme have come under increasing scrutiny, including the evidence that projects really avoided greenhouse gas emissions.
Projects that Thailand approves under the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) will now be ranked under a scoring system, and any that were above 50 percent would earn the national Crown Standard, said Sirithan Pairoj-Boriboon.
"Some projects get a low score, some a high score, so we want to make an incentive for the developer," Sirithan, executive director of the Thai government agency that approves CDM projects, told Reuters in the Malaysian capital at a carbon conference.
"If they get a high score we award the Crown Standard. This would indicate a good quality project, like the Gold Standard," he said, referring to an independent benchmark that is one of the toughest to attain for carbon offset projects.
Sirithan said projects would be ranked according to various criteria including economic benefit, community benefits and impacts on the environment.
He hoped that the Thai standard would be announced next month and incentives to meet the grade could include reduced project approval fees.
According to U.N. figures, Thailand has 17 U.N.-registered CDM projects. Some 82 had been approved nationally so far, a preliminary step in the approval process to full registration.
A major issue for developers is the administration cost of winning approval by auditors called designated operational entities (DoEs), particularly for smaller projects.
"In Thailand, transactions costs are considered high. It is 7 or 8 million baht per project because we have to import DoEs."
One attractive option was to roll up many small projects into one application, called a programmatic approach.
"It is good for small projects because they can share transaction costs." The nation's first, forthcoming programmatic project involves capturing methane from pig waste.
In other planned CDM projects, Sirithan's agency had received a letter of intent for investment in 4,000 buses in Bangkok powered by natural gas. The country's state-owned power producer EGAT was proposing a scheme to install 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs in buildings. (Editing by Gerard Wynn)
