The Correlated Factors of the Uneven Performances of the CDM Countries

The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has experienced a rapid growth. Until 2010, 2763 projects have been registered, standing for about 433 million ton CO2 equivalent (CO2-eq.) of annual carbon credits. However, the performances of CDM host countries are remarkably unbalanced. Previous literatures suggested that economic and investment conditions, energy intensity, energy structure, the share of annual carbon credits from high Global Warming Potential (GWP) Green House Gas (GHG), capacity and institutional buildings of domestic CDM governance can play important roles in promoting CDM. This quantitative analysis shows that domestic economic and investment conditions are the most decisive factors determining the performance of the CDM host countries. Additionally, the influence of carbon intensity of energy consumption is relatively modest, and energy intensity of GDP as well as the share of annual carbon credits from high Global Warming Potential (GWP) Green House Gas (GHG) is less significant. Moreover, several leading CDM countries are not as successful as they seem to be, when the influences of their vast territories, distinguished economic and investment conditions are excluded. Therefore, to simply transplant the CDM governances of these countries can hardly guarantee other countries in boosting their carbon credits outputs.