Validation of Forest-based Carbon Projects Sebastian Hetsch Carbon Management Service TÜV SÜD Industrie Service GmbH Roundtable on Validation and Verification of LULUCF Projects 24 August 2009

TÜV SÜD Carbon Management Service Department in the TÜV SÜD Industry Service 50 Professionals HQ (Munich) Worldwide >100 Auditors Active in CDM Projects (all 15 scopes), Renewable Energy and GHG Inventory

General Impressions Mostly high quality projects with ecologic and social co-benefits Large number of AR methodologies, with little differences. (ACM important step) Limited number of consultants working in the field, expanding slowly. Project participants on the ground with vague knowledge on process and requirements Limited interest of compliance market, due to a) small volumes up to 2012, b) unclear demand (i.e. no EU-ETS) and c) unfamiliarity with AR-CDM

Validation Experience - I Challenges in PDD and Project Development: 30-40 % of all requests are on formal aspects (i.e. participants table, dates, version numbers, etc) Boundary delineation often difficult and time consuming, but important for validation and verification (consider use of GIS) Eligibility assessment often difficult, in particular when nation forest definition differ from national CDM forest definition

Impressions on Eligibility Potential confusion of CDM forest definition with other national forest definitions Partially crown cover not put to relation to minimum forest area but entire plot. Discrete parcels smaller than minimum area Information sources used: Mostly remote sensing, and mostly with well developed expertise Partially not the “right“ dates available for images (e.g. early 90ies). Consistency of image resolution (e.g. Landsat, 30m) and min. area partially item of discussion.

Validation Experience - II Baseline assessment, often stepwise approach not applied, general baseline study ahead of final stratification Additionality: mostly barriers (in particular financial) in future potentially more investment analysis

Validation Experience - III Calculation tools complicated to apply -> use of standardized tools Monitoring in old methodologies too bulky (close to 100 parameter) -> reduction in number of parameters (as ACMs)

Summary and Discussion Still little, but growing experience in PDD development / AR-CDM framework Still many inconsistencies in methodologies through updates and EB decisions not considered Methodological tools help to ease the process Consolidated Methodologies (and SSC) are a major improvement (monitoring & use of tools)

Summary and Discussion Capacity building on key concepts / Guidelines for AR project development including lessons learned: for project developers for traders and buyers

Thank you for your attention Sebastian Hetsch TÜV SÜD - Carbon Management Service sebastian.hetsch@tuev-sued.de www.tuev-sued.de/climatechange