FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The CDM in Africa Cannot Deliver the Money
18 April 2012 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
The CDM in Africa Cannot Deliver the Money
Download the full report here (2.1mb)
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Learn why the carbon trading gamble and ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ won’t save the planet from climate change and why African civil society is resisting. Read the second EJOLT report, “The CDM in Africa Cannot Deliver the Money”, by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and Dartmouth College Climate Justice Research Project. A dozen researchers from around the globe, under the guidance of Professor Patrick Bond, explain in full detail – and through case studies from South Africa, Niger, Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia, the DRC and Tanzania – why the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is failing. The West’s strategy to reduce emissions is causing more harm than good to Africa –the continent that contributes the least to climate change but that suffers the heaviest toll. Disguised as a ‘solution’ to the climate change crisis, the CDM is now creating a second injustice above this existing injustice.
The 105 pp report is available at http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za for download. It is being launched today in Durban at the Bisasar Road landfill (Africa’s largest, and a major CDM pilot); in Addis Ababa at the African Carbon Forum of carbon traders which begins this morning; in Hanover, USA, at Dartmouth College (whose president, Jim Yong Kim, was this week chosen as World Bank president); and in Brussels at the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, in advance of today’s European Union Environment Ministers meeting which will deliberate on a bail-out for the crashing EU carbon market.
Across Africa, the CDM subsidizes dangerous for-profit activities, making them yet more advantageous to multinational corporations which are mostly based in Europe and the US. In turn, these same corporations can continue to pollute beyond the bounds set by politicians especially in Europe, because the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) forgives increasing pollution in the North if it is offset by dubious projects in the South, especially in China, India, Brazil and Mexico (the main sites of CDMs). But because communities, workers and local environments have been harmed in the process, various kinds of social resistances have emerged, and in some cases met with repression or ‘divide-and-rule’ strategies.
After explaining in details the problems with the CDM in Africa through several cases, the authors come to a firm conclusion: “All these cases suggest the need for an urgent policy review of the entire CDM mechanism’s operation (a point we made to the United Nations CDM Executive Board in a January 2012 submission), with the logical conclusion that the system should be decommissioned and at minimum, a moratorium be placed on further crediting until the profound structural and implementation flaws are confronted. The damage done by CDMs to date should be included in calculations of the ‘climate debt’ that the North owes the South, with the aim of having victims of CDMs compensated appropriately.”
EJOLT is a large collaborative project bringing science and society together to catalogue ecological distribution conflicts and work towards confronting environmental injustice. More info on EJOLT. We would be grateful if you could spread news about this report.
Contact details: Patrick Bond, Lead Author: pbond@mail.ngo.za +2783 425 1401;
Leah Temper, EJOLT editor: leah.temper@gmail.com
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I think the material is worthy reading to see the other side of the coin! Damian
‘The CDM in Africa’ website is clear about its objectives, in the subtitle on the home page head banner: ‘Why the Clean development Mechanism won’t save the planet from climate change, and how African civil society is resisting’. The report argues strongly against UNFCCC’s CDM program which is an initiative that most of the world’s countries have supported, including almost all developing countries. It is also a stinging attack on Norway, and it criticizes Green Resources. We feel Green Resources is targeted because it is a active in CDM development and because we are a private company, not because of what we are doing. Green Resources is disappointed by the poor effect of CDM in Africa and the extensive bureaucracy around the mechanism. Correctly implemented, however, CDM can have huge development effect for Africa.
It dedicates one chapter, Chapter 5 (pp52-66) to ‘East African trees and the green Resource Curse’, as one of six case studied presented. The report is criticizing Norway as the carbon buyer, quoting the Timberwatch report and saying about the project that ‘it is Norway – one of the world’s leading oil producing nations – rather than Tanzania that stands to benefit’. We do not believe any of the authors visited our plantation areas, and that the report is entirely based on a desk study.
A number of serious allegations are presented over these pages, but none of them are substantiated. The allegations include: 1) that GRL, our Tanzanian subsidiary, ‘flaunt additional criteria and lack Free and Prior Informed Consent from local, forest dependent communities’ (p 53 and p58). We follow Tanzanian law in all our land acquisition, where the District administrations play an extensive role in advising the local communities ahead of and during the decision process, where SEIAs are required, the business plan must be approved by the investment authorities and the entire process is checked and approved by District and Central Governments. 2) the GRL activities ‘lead to outright eviction of local communities’ (p53). We have not evicted anybody from any of our plantations. We have paid resettlement compensation to a small number of people, but these have been entirely free to remain at their homesteads or accept our compensation 3) referring to the Timberwatch report and argues that a ‘bio-diverse’ grassland is replaced by ‘alien pine or eucalyptus trees’ (p58). Green Resources is adhering to strict environmental regulations and is setting aside conservation areas with the original vegetation. Typically, about 50%, and often less, of the areas are planted with the remaining being conserved. By preventing the regular fires to spread in the areas, wet lands and valley bottoms typically see a recovery of the natural tree vegetation and forests are being re-established. The result is increased bio-diversity.