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Green Investment Scheme |
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The Green Investment Scheme (GIS) is a plan to achieve environmental benefits by trading ‘hot air’ according to the Kyoto Protocol. According to the Kyoto Protocol many countries with transitional economies were assigned emission commitments or “assigned amounts” above their emission levels. The surplus from the commitment level allows the emission to increase while their economies recover. With the fast emission growth, emissions will be still under their target to countries having a deficit.
Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol permits countries having surplus emissions termed as Assigned Amount Units (AAU). One ton of emitted carbon dioxide is equal to 1 AAU. Many European nations and environmentalists oppose the trading as it undermines the ambitions of the Kyoto Protocol. It allows more emissions by buyers without any effort to reduce emissions or ‘hot air’ by the sellers.
The revenue from the sale of AAU’s should be greened. This means it should be invested in development and implementation of the projects dealing in reducing greenhouse gases emission (hard greening) or developing the framework for this (soft greening).
The Green Investment Schemes are expected to offer environmental benefits of hot air trading by allocating revenues from transfers for environment purposes in the selling countries. There are a number of GIS proposals which require strict quantification of actual reduced emissions. The EU along with individual member states may invest in quantifiable projects with addition requirements and strict verification through GIS.
Japan may be the largest buyer of Russian AAU’s. Japan believes that GIS should include non-quantifiable and quantifiable activities where investors will be free to determine their greenness degree.
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