The development of the Programme of Activities
After receiving a new methodology application which proposed a national standard as a CDM project activity at EB 22, the Executive Board requested guidance from the COP/MOP on whether local/national/regional policy and standards and programmes could be registered as CDM project activities, bearing in mind Article 12(5) of the Kyoto Protocol (Annual report of the Executive Board to COP/MOP 1: Addendum, paragraph 3(e)(i)).
Article 12(5) of the Kyoto Protocol states:
Emission reductions resulting from each project activity shall be certified by operational entities to be designated by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol, on the basis of:
- Voluntary participation approved by each Party involved;
- Real, measurable, and long-term benefits related to the mitigation of climate change; and
- Reductions in emissions that are additional to any that would occur in the absence of the certified project activity (Kyoto Protocol, Article 12(5)).
This issue was clarified at 7/CMP.1, paragraph 20, which states that:
a local/regional/national policy or standard cannot be considered as a clean development mechanism project activity, but that project activities under a programme of activities can be registered as a single clean development mechanism project activity provided that approved baseline and monitoring methodologies are used that, inter alia, define the appropriate boundary, avoid double-counting and account for leakage, ensuring that the emission reductions are real, measurable and verifiable, and additional to any that would occur in the absence of the project activity.
The Executive Board released Version 1 of the Guidance on the registration of project activities under a programme of activities as a single CDM project activity (PoA Guidance) at EB 28 (EB 28, Annex 1) and after receiving stakeholder feedback, released Version 2 of this guidance at EB 32 (EB 32, Annex 38) along with the Procedures for Registration of a Programme of Activities as a Single CDM Project Activity and Issuance of Certified Emission Reductions for a Programme of Activities (Version 01) (EB 32, Annex 39).
At EB 33 the Executive Board approved a CDM Programme of Activities Design Document form (PoA-DD), CDM Programme Activity Design Document form (PoA-CPA-DD), Small-Scale CDM Programme of Activities Design Document form (SSC-PoA-DD) and Small-Scale CDM Programme Activity Design Document form (PoA-CPA-SSC-DD). The release of these documents was delayed until the 2 August 2007 to allow for "technical editing" to occur (EB 33, paragraph 59).