ABSTRACT
Technical barriers result because of a poorly designed, sited, maintained or installed system. If a project fails a yearly monitoring and verification test for technical or other reasons, it does not generate Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and earn the associated revenues. For example, in Mexico, three of the six methane capture projects the author visited were not functioning properly. Local farmers were not concerned with the malfunctioning because they did not realize that the flaring of the methane to create the less potent greenhouse gas of CO2 was how the CERs and associated revenue were generated. Furthermore, they most often worked on the farm but did not own it and most likely had little incentive to facilitate the generation of CERs as they would receive none of the CDM revenues.
