Another Chinese renewable energy project has benefited from the Clean Development Mechanism, a key feature of the Kyoto Protocol, despite China's refusal to join other Kyoto signatories in accepting binding emission reductions.

This time, its a Chinese hydro-electric power project which has sold more than 692,000 carbon credits at an auction by the Asia Carbon Exchange in Singapore. They changed hands for €10.40.

The credits allow companies in the industrialised world to offset their CO₂ emissions by buying credits from developing nations. Like similar transactions that have benefited Chinese renewable energy and environmental projects, these credits have yet to be issued.

Instead, they will be generated by the project owners over the course of the Kyoto commitment period from 2008 to 2012.
The ACX claims to be the only the exchange market place for the trade in carbon credits. All other transactions are bilateral trades directly negotiated between buyer and seller.

Hydro-electric power is one of the oldest forms of renewable energy but it has lots of critics, not least in China where the social and environmental costs associated with the mammoth Three Gorges dam (pictured) have given HEP a bad name.

More on CDM in this EngagingChina post. More on the HEP project from Carbonpositive here.

Technorati : carbon credits, china, environment