Mexico adopts emissions protocol

Mexico has become the first nation to adopt a greenhouse gas protocol designed by the World Resources Institute (WRI).

 The voluntary protocol, which works on a company-wide or entity scale rather than by project or at factory level, requires companies to account for the six Kyoto greenhouse gases as assets or liabilities.

 Environmental groups lauded the move.  WRI President Jonathan Lash said, The GHG Protocol is voluntary, but if and when the Kyoto Protocol is ratified, and in an increasingly carbon-constrained world, mandatory caps will be imposed.  Common sense tells us that businesses that adopt voluntary accounting standards now will remain ahead of the game when emission caps become mandatory.

Judi Greenwald of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a leading front group for businesses that hope to profit from energy rationing, compared the program favorably to the U. S. Department of Energys 1605(b) registry, saying, Everyone is basing what they do on the protocol.  1605(b) lets you do whatever you want, while WRI constrains your choices.  WRI’s is ultimately preferred if there’s a legal requirement and state and federal governments want choices nailed down.

Mexican government official Miguel Cervantes admitted that it would be a challenge to get Mexicos big emitters to sign up for the protocol.  One of the companies that will prove a challenge is reportedly Comision Federal de Electricidad, Mexicos state-owned electricity utility (Greenwire, Aug. 31).