UN Searches for New Employees as CO2 Projects Swell

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Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — The United Nations is looking for project managers and carbon-market experts to approve a backlog of wind farms, industrial-gas reduction projects and other ventures to cut carbon-dioxide emissions.

The UN is flooded with record numbers of clean-development mechanism, or CDM, projects, John Kilani, sustainable development mechanisms director at the UNFCCC, said. Full-time employees are needed to speed the processing of developments that aim to qualify for tradable carbon credits, he added.

“We really need people who have experience in development of projects and document design,” Kilani said in an interview from Bonn. “In doing this, we will be better able to cope with all the projects in the pipeline. It’s difficult at the moment.”

Wind-farm applications, hydroelectric plants, tree-plantings and other projects that reduce carbon emissions and qualify for the UN’s carbon certificates are at record levels as more companies anticipate tougher rules on emissions that contribute to global warming.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, wants to boost CDM case workers by 47 percent to 137, the program regulator said on its Web site. There are 4,586 projects being processed or requiring approval, with registration requests likely jumping to 1,000 from 666 last year, the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board said.

There’s a shortage of people with the skills and experience to assess projects that curb greenhouse gases, said Georgina Edwards, a global carbon-markets analyst at New Carbon Finance.

Need ‘More Staff’

“More staff would improve the situation,” she said from London. “People have to develop experience and that takes time. The CDM is still a young scheme.”

Companies have increased requests for credits as growing environmental awareness spurs tighter legislation. About 11,000 factories and power stations belong to the European carbon- trading system, the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas market. The first UN-certified emission-reduction credits, which can be used by European companies to offset their emissions, were issued in October 2005.

What will limit registrations this year is the capacity of the UNFCCC to process requests as well as bottlenecks in the market for the certification firms, Edwards said. The certification firms ensure the emission-reduction projects comply with rules of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 climate treaty.

The registrations, she added, are “a portion of the supply pipeline that is unlikely to be affected by the recent contraction in project finance.”

The expected surge in new projects comes at a time of record low prices for carbon certificates.

EU carbon-dioxide allowances for delivery in December increased as much as 15 percent to 9.95 euros ($12.56) a metric ton today on London’s European Climate Exchange. On Feb. 12, the permits touched a record low of 8.05 euros.

UN credits can be used for compliance in the EU system. Prices in the EU program have plunged by three-quarters from a two-year high in July on concerns that a recession will slash demand for credits.