Some worry that North Korea’s move to get cash in exchange for carbon emissions is driven by motives unacceptable to the international community, i.e. its nuclear development program: “North Korea hopes to earn much-needed hard currency by selling UN-backed carbon offsets from a series of hydro-power projects, as the country faces sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. If approved and registered by the U.N., these would be the first projects for North Korea under a scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (C.D.M.). This allows developing countries to earn tradeable carbon credits for emissions reductions from clean-energy projects.”