KEY POINTS:
A small parcel of Kyoto-quality carbon credits has been offered for sale on the online auction site Trade Me.
The 20 certified emissions reductions (CERs) are offered for sale by a Hamilton carbon trading company, Carbon Market Solutions.
Each CER represents one tonne of carbon dioxide of emissions avoided.
Unlike the verified emissions reductions (VERs) sold through Trade Me by Meridian Energy six months ago, which are good only in the voluntary market, CERs can be used by a New Zealand emitter to meet official obligations under the emissions trading scheme.
The CERs are generated by a project in southern India which uses crop residues to generate 4.5MW of power, which is sold into the local grid.
To be certified a United Nations-body called the executive board has to be satisfied that the project meets the "additionality" test, that is, that without the additional revenue from the sale of the credits the project would not have gone ahead.
The project had been right through that process, said Carbon Markets Solutions director Wayne King.
And besides, the CERs were certified by Gold Standard Foundation, a Swiss organisation endorsed by more than 40 NGOs including Greenpeace and the WWF. It was the equivalent of an AAA+ credit rating from Standard and Poor's, he said.
It was the first time Kyoto CERs had been transferred from the Swiss national registry to New Zealand.
Parliament has only just begun to debate the rules for the emissions trading scheme but as designed only a small number of large enterprises, including the oil companies and some of the power companies, will be required to participate.
Others may opt to do so if they would benefit from grandfathering arrangements or if they wish to manage the financial risk of a carbon price in their energy and fuel costs, but at this stage a threshold annual emissions level of 50,000 tonnes is proposed.
Small parcels like those offered by Carbon Markets Solutions, like a new lot of 50 VERs put up for auction by Meridian yesterday, are in practice aimed at the voluntary market - people who are not required to have them but who want to for ethical or branding reasons or merely to trade.
An opening bid of $1000 (or $50 a tonne) failed to meet the reserveprice.
