GUADALAJARA, MX. November 5 - 7, 2008

I presented my paper, The Use of the Kyoto Protocol and its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to Help Finance Wind Plants in Latin American Countries, at the Latin Mexican Wind Conference and Expo (LAWEA) in Guadalajara, MX, November 5-7, 2008

To learn more about the 2008 Latin American Wind Conference and Expo go to http://www.windexpo.org/ing/  

During the 25th Chicago Latin American Film Festival (17-29 April 2009), you could have downloaded an electronic copy of my LAWEA 2008 lecture handouts without the user name and password. You would just have gone to the very bottom of this page and pressed on LAWEA 2008 Handouts. I gave the username and password to LAWEA 2008 attendees after my  lecture.  Until the 26th festival, you have to schedule an appointment to get a copy of these handouts.

For the festival schedule go to the festival website: http://www.latinoculturalcenter.org/cinema-festival/

P Think Green 

Abstract--

This presentation discusses the effect that the Kyoto Protocol and one of its development mechanisms, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),  is having in financing Latin American wind plants during the Protocol’s first commitment period. The Kyoto Protocol was created to reduce global warming by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Protocol measures GHG in metric tons (t_m) of carbon dioxide (CO₂), the major GHG. The Protocol sets the first commitment period (2008-2012) by which certain developed nations (Annex B) must reduce the amount of CO₂ that they can emit. The Latin American (LA) countries being non-Annex I (developing) countries are not required to reduce emissions in the first time period but may do so using the Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM). The paper discusses the sections of the Protocol that could affect the cost of wind electricity in Latin American CDM projects. The paper is both global carbon cap and LA wind centric. Topics include the Protocol’s AAU and CER emission units, Protocol’s emission control architectures, international emissions trading, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the CDM, CDM additionality, Annex B nations’ emission control architectures and their relationship to the CDM, the EU ETS CER linkage, the effect of the CDM on global carbon emissions, the market price of AAU (CER) emission allowances (€/CER; MX$/CER; US$/CER), the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) and the CDM’s reduction in the cost of Latin American wind electricity (€/MWh; MX$/MWh; US$/MWh). The CDM will make LA wind electricity cost more competitive with coal or gas plants that pay market prices for fossil fuel, but not with LA hydroelectric plants. Unfortunately the CDM has been used to finance the burning of NO_x and HFC instead of wind plants. The presentation concludes with two suggestions that will both reduce global carbon emissions and improve the relative cost of wind electricity in Latin America during the "Kyoto-II" commitment period.

1. Latin American Countries should improve their utility regulations to make them more wind friendly (i.e. a wind-feed-in tariff; a smart grid with hydro storage at existing dams; wind access to transmission).

2. “Kyoto-II” should define additionality more precisely and should list some LA countries in Annex B

This presentation is the 5^th paper in the author’s series of papers/presentations on carbon caps and wind electricity. His first paper[1] was presented at WindPower 2000.