Country variation of Clean Development Mechanism project registration time: an exploratory analysis by the Cox model

Abstract Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one of the flexibility climate mitigation schemes created under the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM project processing time can be used to indicate capacities of the CDM project proponents, as well as policy regulatory and implementation capacities of host country governments. It is of critical importance to identify and measure factors that greatly affect the competence in the emerging global carbon market. By using the Cox proportional hazards model of survival analysis approach, this study analyzes the processing timing differences among different countries in registering their CDM projects. The study investigates CDM projects that submitted to the CDM Executive Board for registration during the 2004-16 period. By focusing on the top CDM host countries of China, Brazil, India, and Mexico, it involves project type, scale, government supporting level, project submitting phase as covariates into the model. Empirical results indicate that survival analysis provides a novel approach to examine the CDM project processing time by incorporating censored time information into consideration, and the Cox model shows that countries vary in the time spending for project registration, with China averagely spending the shortest time in registration and India taking the longest time.