As an input to the European Parliament (EP) debate on the EU Climate Package, Ecologic led the organisation of a workshop entitled "Effort sharing under the Climate Package - assessing the role of the Clean Development Mechanism" on behalf of the EP directorate for Internal Policies. The workshop was held on 3 June 2008 at the European Parliament. It was chaired by Satu Hassi, MEP, and moderated by R. Andreas Kraemer, Director of Ecologic.

The workshop explored the role of CDM under the proposed legislative climate package. A panel of prominent experts focused on the contribution of CDM in meeting the EU target of limiting climate change to +2°C compared to preindustrial levels, the quality and types of projects and the link with the UNFCCC negotiations on an international agreement for after 2012. Expert speakers included Dr Jürgen Salay (European Commission), Lambert Schneider (Oeko Institute), Dr Niklas Höhne (Ecofys) and Dr Joyeeta Gupta (Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije University).

In addition, views of key stakeholders from industry and environmental NGOs were also presented. Christoph Sutter from South Pole Carbon Asset Management commented on the EU proposal from the perspective of project developers, while Greenpeace representative Mahi Sideridou highlighted NGO concerns regarding climate and development benefits of CDM projects.

The workshop raised many important issues, most prominently the problems regarding the calculation of additionality, the lack of attention to sustainable development benefits and the untapped potential of energy efficiency projects. In order to ensure that emissions are tackled effectively not only in developing countries but also in the EU, speakers and participants demanded tighter qualitative and quantitative limits on CDM. In regard to the future evolution of CDM, several speakers emphasised the need for developing clean-development funding mechanisms that cause additional emissions reductions rather than merely offset EU emissions.

The workshop programme and the presentations are available on the Ecologic event website.