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U.N. Committee confirms Romania's suspension from green certificate trading

The United Nations Compliance Committee of the Kyoto Protocol in a public meeting on Sunday confirmed that Romania had been suspended from the trading in emission certificates, the Ministry of Environment and Forests announced.

The Committee communicated its final decision relating the nonconformity found in the National Inventory of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions that Romania sent in 2010, the ministry added.

The U.N. Committee's final decision confirms the preliminary conclusions adopted on this July 8, that say Romania should ensure the conduct and development of the measures meant to secure the proper achievement of all the activities and functions specific of the national inventory and of the national system for the estimation of the anthropic greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, the final decision confirms the suspension of Romania's eligibility to take part in the flexible mechanisms under articles 6, 12 and 17 of the Kyoto Protocol until the found nonconformity is resolved. The suspension of the eligibility took effect upon the decision communication.

Romania has noted the final decision of the Compliance Committee and has announced it will continue the moves aimed at ensuring the compliant functioning of the national system and of the national inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, the Environment Ministry stressed.

It added that Romania, at this moment, is already implementing the measures meant to ensure that the U.N. Committee's requirements are met with respect to the constant improvement of the national system and the compliance of the national inventory of greenhouse gas emissions with the UNFCCC guidelines.

Romanian Environment Protection Agency Head To Be Fired Over Breaches In Carbon Emission Inventory

Romanian Environment Minister Laszlo Borbely said Friday he will dismiss the head of the National Agency for Environment Protection (ANPM), Iosif Nagy.

The minister highlighted a new ANPM head might be appointed on Monday, August 29, when a final decision on suspending the country from trading green certificates will be official. The National Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for 2011 was the task of ANPM.

The suspension from green certificate trading means Romania temporarily loses the chance to sell its green certificates.

Romania loses hundreds of million euros

The Romanian state loses hundreds of million euros because of the suspension of at least a few months of transactions with carbon emission certificates, a situation generates by irregularities in completing the national emission inventory for which head of ANPM , Iosif Nagy will be demoted.

The final decision about Romania's suspension from transactions with these certificates will be announced on Monday 29 August, two days after the conclusion of the meeting of the Conformity Committee – Implementation of Kyoto Protocol, a document based on which signatory states receive emission certificates known as 'pollution certificates' or 'green certificates'.

Romania's suspension was suggested at the previous meeting of the forum on 6-8 July in Bonn, Germany. According to procedures, although conclusions are preliminary, at the 25-27 August meeting also held in Bonn Romania no longer has the right for a new hearing but can only make an official declaration.

On 7 July, while the meeting on Romania's suspension was carried out, environment minister Borberly Laszlo declared in Targu Mures that other countries had been suspended from the transaction of gas emissions with greenhouse effect but he hoped that thing would not happen in Romania's case.

'The question is extremely delicate,' a Romanian team of experts on Kyoto Protocol declared on Thursday for Mediafax. According to the quoted expert, Romania 'will be probably suspended' after the Bonn meeting. 'My colleagues will do everything possible to avoid Romania's suspension, but it is likely they will not be able to avoid it,' the specialist said.

The cause of Romania's imminent suspension is 'the distrust in the capacity of Romanian public authorities to manage the problem of gas emissions with greenhouse effect at national level.'

'More exactly, Bucharest could not report correctly the quantity of gas emissions at national level and make an inventory of them.'The National Inventory of Gas Emissions with Greenhouse effect for 2011 should have been completed by the National Agency for Environment Protection (ANPM).

Once the preliminary decision on Romania's suspension was made in July 2011, the government accepted to increase the number of employees from ANPM to handle the inventory from 5 to 21, but the positions have not been filled yet, a representative of the institution told Mediafax on Thursday.

It is extremely difficult to calculate the damages the Romanian state will suffer in case of suspension.

'First of all, some people do not agree with the term of 'losses'. For them Romania does not lose money but the opportunity of making money', the specialist said. In this respect he said that although Romania has not been suspended from transactions yet it has not sold any certificates which were received in 2008.

'Now we have to sell about 300 million units, which means about 1.8 billion euro which could be used for green areas,' the minister of environment said at a press conference in January 2011.

Florentin Marea, the director of Climate Changes Department in the Ministry of Environment, declared in April that Romania was negotiating the sale of certificates with companies in countries like Japan, Spain, Portugal of Canada, which had not fulfilled obligations of Kyoto Protocol.'It would be a good thing if certificates were sold by 2012. We hope to have correct transactions in the following period of time,' Manea said at a press conference.

According to official statistics, Romania has a plus of 300 million certificates for gas emissions with greenhouse effect, evaluated in 2009 by the Environment Ministry for 3 billion euros. In 2011 the price of certificates , established by a complicated mechanism of demand and offer dropped to 5-6 euro/unit, compared to 10 euro in 2009-2010.

During its suspension Romania will lose a few hundred million euro. Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia had similar suspensions in the past. The green certificate is a tradeable commodity, providing proof that a 1 MWh of electricity was produced from renewable energy sources. The mandatory annual quota of green certificates for 2011 is 8.3 pct of the electricity supplied by each supplier to end-users.

The national targets for the share of renewable electricity of the final consumption of electricity in the years 2010, 2015 and 2020 are 33 pct, 35 pct and 38 pct, respectively.For the interval 2008-2014 the trading value of the green certificates ranges between a minimum of 27 euros per certificate and a maximum of 55 euros per certificate. The value in domestic lei will be calculated for the average exchange rate set by the National Bank of Romania for December of the previous year.

Sursa: http://www.actmedia.eu

Tags: national inventory decision final environment greenhouse emissions euros which million romanian effect committee ministry green certificate suspension romanias confirms certificates trading emission romania meeting kyoto protocol euro

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