Prototype Carbon Fund

9.7 Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF)

Recognizing that global warming will have the most impact on its borrowing client countries, the World Bank approved the establishment of the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF). The PCF is intended to invest in projects that will produce high quality greenhouse gas emission reductions that could be registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the purposes of the Kyoto Protocol. To increase the likelihood that the reductions will be recognized by the Parties to the UNFCCC, independent experts will follow validation, verification and certification procedures that respond to UNFCCC rules as they develop.

The PCF will pilot production of emission reductions within the framework of Joint Implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The PCF will invest contributions made by companies and governments in projects designed to produce emission reductions fully consistent with the Kyoto Protocol and the emerging framework for JI and the CDM. Contributors, or "Participants" in the PCF, will receive a pro rata share of the emission reductions, verified and certified in accordance with agreements reached with the respective countries "hosting" the projects.

9.7.1 Size of Market for Emissions Reductions

• All estimates of market volume are speculative at this early stage in the market’s development.
• One way of looking at the potential size of the market is to assume that about one billion tonnes of carbon emissions must be reduced per year during the commitment period of 2008-2012 in order for the industrialized countries to meet their obligations of a 5% reduction in their 1990 levels of emissions.

Under Prototype carbon fund programme of the World Bank. Government of India has approved a municipal solid waste energy project for implementation in Chennai, which proposes to use the state of art technology for extracting energy from any solid waste irrespective of the energy content. Many industrial organisations in the private sector have also sought assistance under this fund.

9.8 Sustainable Development

9.8.1 What is Sustainable Development?

Sustainable development is often defined as 'development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'.

Sustainable development encompasses three basic and inter-related objectives:

• Economic security and prosperity
• Social development and advancement
• Environmental sustainability

Sustainable development demands that we seek ways of living, working and being that enable all people of the world to lead healthy, fulfilling, and economically secure lives without destroying the environment and without endangering the future welfare of people and the planet.

Sustainable development as applied to energy and environment should consider the following:

• inputs - such as fuels and energy sources, land and raw materials - are non-renewable they should be used up only as far as they can be substituted in future
• where they are renewable they should be used up at a rate within which they can be renewed,
• outputs - in production and consumption - should not overstrain ecosystems or the assimilation capacity of the ecosphere.