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Registration
Registration is the final approval of a CDM project by the Executive Board. This entitles the project to start earning carbon credits.

RMU Removal Unit
A RMU is a carbon credit unit produced by LULUCF projects.

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Sinks/sequestration
‘Sinks' and ‘sequestration' are projects that use biomass to absorb carbon out of the atmosphere, such as reforestation. These types of project were formally known as Land Use Change and Forestry projects (LUCF). The number of credits that have been earned through sinks allowed to be counted towards emission reductions is only 1% of the total target.

Sinks and sequestration projects are not eligible to the Gold Standard because tackling climate change requires an energy transition and the offsets should be assisting this and methodologies for forestry are less solid. Accounting might be difficult and leaking poses a serious problem. Also, while having a doubtful impact on the climate, sinks and sequestration projects often are relatively easy to achieve and thus result in cheap credits crowding out the more valueable credits from Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency projects.

Small scale CDM projects
Small scale CDM (SSC-CDM) projects are renewable energy projects under 15 MW, energy efficiency projects that reduce energy consumption by up to 15 GWh per year; or project activities which emit less than 15 kilotonnes CO2 equivalent per year. SSC-CDM projects are heralded as bringing about a relatively higher development dividend. Simplified modalities and procedures apply for the SSC-CDM to keep the overproportional transaction costs low.

Currently, no PDD exists for SSC-CDM projects that would like to validated against the Gold Standard.

Stakeholders
Communities, groups, or individuals affected by, or likely to be affected by the CDM project.

Sustainability Matrix
The Sustainability Matrix aids the project developer to assess the impact of the project on local stakeholders, environmentally and socio-economically. It was developed by SouthSouthNorth and is used as the Sustainability Screen in the GS PDD.

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Target
The target is the level of emission reduction that industrialised countries are committed to reach according to the Kyoto Protocol. The targets are an overall 5% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 emission levels, which have to be achieved by 2010.

Scientists doubt that this will be enough to avoid dangerous climate change, defined as a raise in global temperature of more than 2° C.

Transaction costs
Transaction costs are the costs involved in developing a CDM project. It includes costs incurred through the PDD-related work, fees, the adaption fund levy, monitoring emission reductions that it achieves during the crediting period and so on.

While additional transaction occur for developing a Gold Standard project, these are thought to be more than compensated by the higher inherent value of a Gold Standard credit. No fees apply for using the Gold Standard methodology and registering a validated project in the Gold Standard project registry.

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UNFCCC
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The UNFCCC is the Convention signed at the Earth Summit in Rio De Janiero in 1992. This stipulated that industrialised countries listed in Annex 1 were required to reduce their stabilise their emissions at 1990 levels by 2000. The Kyoto Protocol was later drawn up as the initial agreement was not sufficient.