Russia submitted for registration its first carbon emissions reduction project under a special United Nations procedure, a step the UNFCCC has said can signal “a substantial increase” of followers, Bloomberg reported. 

The joint implementation (JI) project will be located at the Shaturskaya Thermal Power Plant near Moscow. Under the Kyoto Protocol, JI projects generate tradeable emissions-reductions units that countries can use to meet their obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

“This is a much anticipated and very welcome development,” Christiana Figueres, head of UNFCCC, said in a statement. “It’s another clear sign that JI has an important role to play in directing investment to emission reduction in industrialized countries.”

The UNFCCC said the Russian project assumes building an additional electricity generation unit using an energy-efficient combined cycle gas turbine. It is one of 15 JI projects approved by the Russian government at the end of July and its registration will be deemed final after 45 days if it passes the UN-supervised scrutiny.

The project is the first in Russia under the Track 2 procedure, where the verification of emission reductions is supervised by the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee, according to Bloomberg. Under Track 1, the verification procedures and the issuance of emission-reduction units are left up to the host country.