Zambia's open-door investment policy is coming under criticism from rights activists for passing on the real cost of development to the poor, who are being evicted to make way for the new prestige projects.
Campaigners describe the victims as 'internally displaced persons' (IDPs) - a description usually applied to people made homeless as a result of conflict or disaster. But it's an analogy that Joseph Chilengi, executive director of the Africa Internally Displaced Persons' Voice, a lobby group championing IDP rights, claims is appropriate.
"Zambia's IDP situation is actually even worse than in conflict-prone areas," said Chilengi. "[At least these] populations have the potential to return to their places when the situation stabilises."
President Levy Mwanawasa's administration has courted foreign investors, offering land and tax breaks as inducements. The policy has been credited with helping fuel an annual growth rate of five percent over the past five years, cutting inflation to single digits, and appreciation of the kwacha against foreign currencies.
But critics argue that the country's growth, as well as a string of environmental protection and tourism promotion programmes, has come at a cost: turfing people out of informal settlements when they are in the way of the developers, with little hope of compensation from the authorities.
The backlog in affordable public housing has compounded the problem and led to mushrooming squatter camps. "We have a deficit of housing units for 1.2 million people, who are now resorting to living in unplanned settlements," acknowledged Local Government and Housing Minister, Sylvia Masebo. With limited rights, the residents are vulnerable to eviction.
George Salano, 57, is one of thousands of Zambians to have lost out to commercial development. His informal settlement in the capital, Lusaka, is located on land that has been allocated to the Chinese government for the construction of a multimillion dollar Chinese economic zone, the second of its kind in Zambia.
"I have personally lived here for many years; my children were born here. Some of my friends have lived here even longer. Now we have been told to relocate to Chongwe town [about 50km east of Lusaka], but we have nowhere to start from - we have no houses there, and we have no farms there," he said.
Compensation was not on the cards, said Masebo. "We don't allocate formal residential land to investors ... but as long as land is illegal [occupied without formal ownership], it can be planned or allocated for anything else."
James Siakalima, 54, is another victim of the developers. He was one of over 2,500 residents of Mazabuka town in southern Zambia, whose homes were erased to make way for Zambia's only nickel mine, Albidon Mine, owned by Albidon Limited of Australia.
The area's opposition member of parliament, Gary Nkombo, encouraged Albidon to build some houses, but the quality was allegedly shoddy. "I lived in their [Albidon] house for just about five months. When the rain started it developed a crack, three weeks later part of it collapsed," said Siakalima. The two cows he was given died because of the lack of pasture in the area where he was relocated.
"We all know that nickel is about the most expensive base metal on the world market, [so] how do you allow such poor quality houses to be built for the people who are the owners of the land?" asked Nkombo.
Dependence
"We are still very far from attaining economic independence because of the manner in which we are displacing our people, who are actually supposed to benefit from all our economic activities. The issue of IDPs resulting from economic activities is very real in Zambia."
Zambia's first experience with large-scale internal displacement was in 1959, with the construction of the Kariba Dam. It created the world's largest man-made lake on the border with Zimbabwe, and cost 57,000 Tonga farmers and pastoralists their homes and livelihoods.
Attempts to help the resettled Tonga have achieved little; a US$50 million project, sponsored by the World Bank, is currently stalled due to the landmines in parts of the resettlement area.
Thomas Mabwe, head of Development Studies at the Zambia Open University, said internal displacement "has been a huge cost to this country; it repeatedly forces government to divert resources meant for other developmental programmes ... It affects people's productivity, causes loss of land and contributes to the culture of over-dependency."
Masebo argues that the vulnerability of the poor is in part the fault of the previous administration of president Frederick Chiliba. Ahead of the 1996 election, the government sold off public housing to sitting tenants for as low as US$3, leaving hardly any money for investment in new homes.
"To address the situation of poor housing we are now encouraging all our local civic authorities [municipalities] to open up more formal land, with basic services being provided, to try and cover the housing deficit quickly," said Masebo.
Here is the full article.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Zambia: A New Kind of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) - Uncompensated Poor Being Evicted for Prestige Projects
Monday, February 4, 2008
McGill University Lecture - “Forest Fraud – Say No to Fake Carbon Credits.”
The overwhelming majority of governmental and volunteer organizations are naive in their support of Carbon Trading, according to Durban Environmental Group member Jutta Kill, who gave a talk at in the McConnell Engineering Building Friday.
The talk, titled “Forest Fraud – Say No to Fake Carbon Credits,” focused on the effects of Carbon Trading on developing countries, and how polluting industries generate profit from carbon-offset projects.
(The development of Patagonia, Chile is a perfect example: Chile's 21st Century Gold Rush , Kyoto ratification crucial in Australian plans for Chile hydro-development – Carbon Offsets purchased in Europe critical to dam construction. )
“This is just another example of the North using extra land in the South to deal with its problems,” Kill said.
(More here: The Environmental Movement in the Global South - The pivotal agent in fight against global warming? , Indigenous Peoples protest World Bank carbon scam in Bali )
She explained that the Northern hemisphere is using the Southern hemisphere’s unused resources – diamonds, coal, or most recently, pollution credits, whose value fluctuates and has ranged from $2 for up to $30 per credit.
Carbon trading establishes a cap-and-trade carbon credit system, which sets pollution targets, or “caps”, and allows the difference to be bought and sold – so those who emit more can buy credits from those who emit less. This trading can occur between countries, such as under the Kyoto Protocol, or between corporations at the governmental level.
“It’s the ‘polluters pays’ principle turned on its head where the polluter earns,” Kill said of carbon trading after the talk. “This is providing additional capital to those that caused and continue to cause the problem.”
(See: "The Kyoto Protocol has proved totally ineffective on the practical side", says Italy's Enel / Endesa CEO , Italy's Enel (Endesa Owner) Plans to Use Chilean Geysers to Offset European Carbon Emissions by Selling Carbon Credits via Clean Development Mechanism )
Kill cited the European Union’s failed attempt to cut emissions with its Carbon Emissions Trading system in 2005 as evidence of the system’s futility.
She explained that companies like Shell, Esso, and British Petroleum predicted much higher levels of pollution than they actually expected to consume to ensure a higher allowance of credit, while schools and hospitals made honest attempts to cut down on their emissions – and were later forced to purchase credit from larger corporations.
Shell, Esso, and British Petroleum each made several million dollars in sales of carbon credits. RWE, a German power utility company that supplies electricity to many European countries, made $1-billion, aided by the fact that it increased electricity prices for ordinary consumers, she said.
In light of the failures of the first round of the E.U. Carbon Trading scheme, Kill explained that governments slightly reduced the number of carbon credits available for trade – but have instead moved toward carbon offsets, which allow companies emitting more carbon to pay for environmental projects.
Kill called carbon offsets “a dangerous distraction from climate change.”
“There’s no transparency, no obligation to publish or publicize [offset projects], it’s also not possible for anyone to trace whether or not an offset project is selling credits more than once.”
(See: US House of Representatives buys $98,000 worth of Carbon Offsets that went to emission reduction projects that were going to happen anyway. )
In addition, an offset project in Uganda run by the FACE foundation planted trees at the boundary area of the Mount Elgon national park. Indigenous peoples have been prevented from growing their crops and others living on the disputed inside the park have been evicted.
(See: A gift from Scotland to Brazil: drought and despair , Indonesia: WALHI Protest against Kyoto, Carbon Trade, Clean Development Mechanism )
During the question and answer period, Kill stressed that carbon emissions can’t be properly regulated through carbon trading systems.
“The only solution is to keep fossil fuels in the ground,” Kill said.
(And that is problematic: US Cancels Clean Coal Power Plant)
Here is the full article.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
US House of Representatives buys $98,000 worth of Carbon Offsets that went to emission reduction projects that were going to happen anyway.
The House of Representatives has presumably learned that money cannot buy love or happiness. Now, it turns out it's not a sure solution to climate guilt, either.
In November, the Democratic-led House spent about $89,000 on so-called carbon offsets. This purchase was supposed to cancel out greenhouse-gas emissions from House buildings -- including half of the U.S. Capitol -- by triggering an equal reduction in emissions elsewhere.
Some of the money went to farmers in North Dakota, for tilling practices that keep carbon buried in the soil. But some farmers were already doing this, for other reasons, before the House paid a cent.
Other funds went to Iowa, where a power plant had been temporarily rejiggered to burn more cleanly. But that test project had ended more than a year before the money arrived.
The House's purchase provides a view into the confusing world of carbon offsets, a newly popular commodity with few rules. Analysts say some offsets really do cause new reductions in pollution. But others seem to change very little.
To environmentalists, the House's experience is a powerful lesson about a market where pure intentions can produce murky results.
"It didn't change much behavior that wasn't going to happen anyway," said Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who writes a blog calling for more aggressive action on climate change. "It just, I think, demonstrated why offsets are controversial and possibly pointless. . . . This is a waste of taxpayer money."
The House bought its offsets through the Chicago Climate Exchange, a five-year-old commodities market where greenhouse-gas credits are traded like pork bellies.
This month, officials at the exchange vigorously defended the sale, saying the House's purchase had done a great deal of good by funneling money to those who were helping to combat climate change.
"It basically rewards people for having done things that had environmental good in the past and incentivizes people to do things that have environmental good in the future," said Richard Sandor, the exchange's chairman and chief executive.
He rejected the argument that the exchange shouldn't sell offsets until it can prove that the pollution reductions wouldn't have happened if the money wasn't paid. "We can't, as an exchange, trade hypothetical things," Sandor said.
The offset purchase was part of a Green the Capitol initiative, begun after Democrats took over last year. House leaders bought compact fluorescent light bulbs to save energy and ordered the Capitol Power Plant to burn natural gas instead of dirtier coal. For emissions they couldn't avoid, they bought offsets: 30,000 metric tons at about $2.97 per metric ton.
The Senate has taken some similar steps to reduce energy use but has not purchased offsets.
Daniel P. Beard, the House's chief administrative officer, said he asked the Chicago exchange for offsets based only on U.S. projects. But, he said, he asked not to be told where the projects were, so representatives could not buttonhole him about projects in their districts.
The carbon offset market has taken off in the United States -- worth an estimated $55 million, according to a study last year -- despite its odd-sounding premise. Its stock in trade is, in essence, a claim that some pollution might have been emitted but wasn't.
In Europe, offsets are regulated and often expensive, more than $30 per metric ton. In the United States, offsets are hardly regulated and generally far cheaper.
Many environmental groups say any offset must meet one all-important criterion, called "additionality": Buying an offset must cause some new reduction in emissions that wouldn't have happened if the money hadn't been paid.
"If you don't have additionality," said Mark Trexler, a consultant in Portland, Ore., who advises companies on offset purchases, "you know what you're getting. You're getting nothing."
A review of three projects that got about a third of the funds from the House's offset purchases shows that, in all three cases, it did not appear that offset money was the sole factor causing any of the projects to go forward.
About $14,500 of the House's money went to the North Dakota Farmers Union, some to pay farmers to do "no-till" farming. The farmers stopped using conventional plows and instead make tiny slits to plant their seeds. The practice increases the amount of carbon, a component in heat-trapping carbon dioxide, kept in the soil. But organizers said that some farmers had started the practice before the offset money came in because it saves fuel, brings in federal soil-conservation funds and could increase crop yields.
"When we first started, the financial incentive was trying to raise better crops . . . and that's still the biggest incentive," said Mark Holkup, who raises wheat and sunflowers in Wilton, N.D. He said, however, that the contract for his offsets would prevent him from abandoning this practice in the near future.
That's a troubling sign, according to Wiley Barbour, director of Environmental Resources Trust in Arlington County, which evaluates the worth of potential carbon offsets.
"If they say, 'Well, they were already doing no-till,' then immediately that raises a big, red flag," Barbour said. "Nothing changed."
Another $14,500 went to a project that enabled a power plant near Chillicothe, Iowa, to burn switch grass instead of coal. This was a test program to learn more about making power from plant matter, and it reduced the facility's emissions for 45 days in spring 2006. Officials conducted the test with the expectation that they would get offset money.
Would it have happened in the absence of such funds?
"I don't know," said David Miller, of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, who helped broker the deal.
About $1,400 went to the Nez Perce Indian tribe to pay for tree plantings on tribal land in northern Idaho. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.
An official involved said the offset money was welcome in this case but was not the only factor that made the project worthwhile.
"No one is changing any practices for carbon offsets right now, because it doesn't make economic sense" with prices so low, said Ted Dodge, executive director of the National Carbon Offset Coalition, based in Butte, Mont., which handled the transaction.
Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers (R-Mich.) said this month that he was concerned about the real effect of the House's offset purchase.
"This is just extra money in their pocket for something they're already doing," Ehlers said. A member of the House committee that oversees Beard's office, Ehlers said he wanted the money spent on energy-efficiency measures on Capitol Hill.
But Beard said he did not regret the purchase, despite questions about the role that offset money played in the individual projects.
"Whether they were going to do it or not" without the House funds, "the point is that they did do it."
Here is the full article.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Bali climate conference reaffirms carbon trading scam - a giant shopping extravaganza, marketing the earth, the sky and the rights of the poor.
Amid audible gasps of relief, on December 15 the US delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Bali signalled that Washington would be part of the “Bali Roadmap” for combatting global warming. With the US on board, a two-year process of discussion would begin — hopefully to culminate in the adoption of a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.
But no-one was breaking out the champagne. The US consent had come at an ominous price. Time-frames had been left vague or non-existent. Negotiators for US President George Bush’s administration had forced any specific targets for emission cuts to be dropped from the roadmap. The point had been rammed home that any international pact that grew from the Bali conference would depend strictly on Washington’s readiness to accept its provisions.
And well before the tense, drawn-out final session at Bali, it had emerged that the shambolic system of international carbon emissions trading set up on the basis of decisions taken at Kyoto in 1997 would remain. Moreover, the system had been given a new reach into the Third World. Carbon trading had been accepted as one of the cornerstones of a new adaptation fund, meant supposedly to help poor countries deal with the effects of global warming.
(It is driving Chile dam construction: Kyoto ratification crucial in Australian plans for Chile hydro-development – Carbon Offsets purchased in Europe critical to dam construction. )
If these countries wanted help from the fund, it was made plain, they would have to pay for it by surrendering large elements of their national sovereignty. In particular, natural assets such as forests would have to be opened to the operations of the world emissions market.
(See: Africa: Poor Countries Fail in Demand for Control of New Clean Development Mechanism Fund )
In the words of an NGO delegate quoted by writer Brian Tokar, the Bali conference had been turned into “a giant shopping extravaganza, marketing the earth, the sky and the rights of the poor”.
Cap and trade
The commercial mechanism put in place by the Kyoto Protocol is known as “cap and trade”. Setting the goal of reducing developed-country emissions to 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012, the system assigns an emissions “cap”, consisting of a certain number of tonnes per year of “carbon dioxide equivalent”, to participating states. If countries manage to keep their emissions below this permitted level, they have the right to sell “carbon credits” corresponding to these savings to other countries that exceed their caps.
Over time, the plan is to reduce the size of the caps, increasing the scarcity and raising the price of carbon credits. In theory, emitters will respond to these cost pressures by changing their practices and cutting their emissions.
As projected by its enthusiasts, carbon trading is to extend far beyond mere country-to-country adjustments to become a worldwide system of emissions-related investment. As well as being rewarded for setting up greenhouse gas-reducing projects elsewhere in the industrialised world, developed-country governments and corporations are to receive credits for undertaking emissions reduction or avoidance projects in underdeveloped countries.
“Win-win” outcomes?
In theory, the scheme promotes “win-win” outcomes for all involved. But the officials who set it up reckoned without the fact that in capitalism, the all-important bottom line measures profits, not environmental benefits. In practice, corporations have regularly found it cheaper to sidestep the new system or to subvert its purpose rather than to join in saving the planet.
(So says: "The Kyoto Protocol has proved totally ineffective on the practical side", says Italy's Enel / Endesa CEO )
The only large-scale carbon trading program yet to be initiated under the Kyoto Protocol is the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which began functioning in January 2005. In the program’s first phase, emissions licences were “grandfathered” — that is, granted free of charge to established corporations. With little independent information, the people administering the scheme were often forced to rely on emissions estimates prepared by the firms themselves. Needless to say, these figures gave the corporations generous leeway.
Add in corporate lobbying and the result was massive over-allocation of emissions permits, which in some areas of industry exceeded actual emissions by as much as 50%. In May 2006, after the scale of this over-allocation burst into the open, the market in carbon credits collapsed.
For European companies to have sufficient incentives to actually reduce their emissions, estimates hold, the price of carbon credits needs to be in the range of 30 to 50 euros (A$50-85). But in the period since the crash, the market price of these credits has regularly fallen below one euro. When the “right to pollute” can be had so cheaply, investing money in cutting emissions becomes irrational behaviour.
Subsequent emissions trading schemes, pro-market commentators assure us, will avoid such fiascos. Instead of emissions permits being handed out gratis when schemes are launched, these licences will be sold at auction. But the enthusiasts for cap-and-trade systems forget another propensity of the corporate world: for corruption.
Even if carbon credits retail for not much more than a dollar each, they are good business if they can be created for almost nothing. Perhaps the easiest way to create them cheaply is to claim them for changes that were going to be made anyway.
Deciding whether such changes are genuinely “additional” — that is, made primarily in order to reduce emissions — can be extremely difficult. In the Third World, with its weak state bodies and ill-paid officials, the openings for malfeasance are endless. “It’s routine practice for Indian project developers to fake documents, for example back-dating board approval, that they considered a project on the basis of the Kyoto Protocol”, one former UN adviser acknowledged.
Scandals and rorts
Some of the sharpest practice, technically speaking, has not been illegal at all. British science writer George Monbiot described one such manoeuvre: “Entrepreneurs in India and China have made billions by building factories whose primary purpose is to produce greenhouse gases, so that carbon traders in the rich world will pay to clean them up.”
In 2006, according to the World Bank, 64% of the emissions credits traded came from changes in the refrigerant industry — above all, from reduced emissions by Chinese and Indian refrigerant plants of a gas known as HFC-23. This gas has a greenhouse potential no less than 11,700 times that of carbon dioxide.
For the industrialists who have cut back on emitting it, the journal Nature revealed last year, HFC-23 has so far yielded some US$5.9 billion. Meanwhile, the total worldwide cost of installing chemical scrubbers to halt emissions of the gas — something that could readily be compelled by environmental laws — would not be much more than $100 million.
While the opportunities for rorting the Kyoto system have been a boon to Third World elites — or at least, to their more crooked members — the system as a whole does not promise well for underdeveloped countries. The new adaptation fund set up at the Bali conference, it turns out, is to be administered by the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank. In its lending for development projects, the World Bank is notorious for favouring schemes that lock the economies of poor countries into the priorities of US and European capital.
(See: Environmental & Human rights NGOs put the World Bank on Trial )
In practice, the adaptation fund is likely to act as a tool for taking control of important natural assets of poor countries. This applies particularly to these countries’ forests — both the old-growth forests now being eyed as “carbon sinks”, and new tree plantations.
(See: Indonesia: WALHI Protest against Kyoto, Carbon Trade, Clean Development Mechanism )
The forests lie at the heart of a key financial “product” pioneered by the Kyoto system — “carbon offsets”. Industrialists who pump carbon into the atmosphere can “offset” their transgressions by buying credits created by the planting of trees, which as they grow will absorb carbon dioxide. Or, emitters can buy credits created on the basis that governments and corporations graciously decide to leave existing forests intact.
Carbon offsets are a questionable proposition for a long list of reasons. How much carbon dioxide a forest will absorb over a given period is at best an educated guess. Forests can burn, releasing their carbon. Old-growth forests absorb much less carbon dioxide than new plantations, which enhances the temptation to clear-fell the former in order to plant the latter.
The problems are multiplied wherever regulation is lax and officials corrupt. Tropical forests, it can be expected, will at times both be logged and claimed as carbon sinks. Where such forests are protected with any vigour, the “protection” is often likely to be aimed at indigenous people who practice a sustainable shifting agriculture. The increased incentives for plantation forestry threaten to cost tenant farmers their land.
(See: A gift from Scotland to Brazil: drought and despair )
So far, the most glaring absurdity to arise from the “carbon offset” provisions of the Kyoto Protocol has not appeared in the Third World, but in Australia. Though refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the former Howard government regularly stressed that Australia was on track to meet its Kyoto targets. Technically, this was true; on the basis of “offsets” earned through restrictions on additional land-clearing, Australia was permitted under Kyoto to increase its emissions by 8%.
(More on Australia: Kyoto deal to clear air for Australian investors, say experts - Pacific Hydro's manager says, Australia is "now open for business". )
The land-clearing, however, had already been encountering fierce criticism from environmentalists, and much of it would have been halted anyway. Meanwhile, fossil-fuel emissions from Australia’s coal-fired economy have continued to boom. Supporters of carbon trading argue that potential critics should forgive the youthful fumbling of a previously untried system. But with the Bali Roadmap promising an extension and elaboration of carbon trading, the system’s record in actually curbing greenhouse emissions deserves to be looked at.
There is no doubt that huge sums of money are changing hands — probably as much as US$60 billion in 2007. But even in the relatively orderly conditions of Europe, where the trading so far has been concentrated, the results in terms of greenhouse gas abatement have been lacklustre.
As of the end of 2005, emissions by the 15 “core” European Union countries were 2% below the Kyoto base year of 1990, compared to a target of 8% below by 2012. “Emissions have in fact been rising since the year 2000”, a November 2005 Skyscraper City report stated.
The December 5 Australian noted that the vast majority of Kyoto signatories were exceeding their emissions allowances, “in many cases by huge amounts”. Most of them, the newspaper observed, have “given up on Kyoto”, and are waiting for the Bali parameters to come into force after 2012.
Why go with the market?
If carbon trading has performed so badly, why persist with it? The question has been posed from some unlikely quarters. At the Bali conference, New York Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg argued that the cap-and-trade system should be replaced by straight carbon taxes.
“It’s a very inefficient way to accomplish the same thing that a carbon tax accomplishes”, Bloomberg was quoted as saying of the cap-and-trade market. “It leaves itself open to special interests, corruption, inefficiencies.”
Why, indeed, not simply make the polluters pay, using a combination of carbon taxes, state regulation and fines to force them to cut their emissions? Since the carbon trading system only covers relatively large emitters, keeping track of their emissions would be well within the capacities of a determined state apparatus, especially in developed countries.
The 1997 decision at Kyoto to go with carbon trading is especially curious since experience at the time pointed in the exact opposite direction. In the 1990s, various approaches had been tried in order to cut the sulphur dioxide pollution that was causing “acid rain”. In the US, a cap-and-trade system had been instituted in 1990. By 2001, US levels of sulphur dioxide were down by 31%.
In Europe, a rule-based approach scored much better results. For Western Europe, the reduction was 57%.
As noted by Bloomberg, carbon trading “is attractive to many politicians because it doesn’t have that three-letter word ’tax’”. A key tenet of modern capitalist thought is the “need” to oust taxation, along with other forms of state intervention, from all possible areas of economic life.
But the real reason why carbon trading was selected at Kyoto goes deeper. It was summed up recently by British researcher Kevin Smith in a September 20 Transnational Institute article: “The problem lies in the fact that carbon trading is designed with the express purpose of providing an opportunity for rich countries to delay making costly structural changes towards low-carbon technologies. This isn’t a malfunction of the market or an unexpected byproduct: this is what the market was designed to do.”
Once this real function of the carbon market is understood, a great deal else falls into place. The low price of emissions credits ceases to be a mystery. Key features of the carbon trading system — the over-allocation of free emissions permits in the EU, the far-fetched offset credits, and more — take on their true shape as devices for keeping the costs of polluting to a minimum.
That is not to say that a shift to rules and taxes would, of itself, cure the problems. In any battle between polluting corporations and aggrieved populations, capitalist governments stand, to the extent that mass pressures permit, with the polluters. The problem, in short, is capitalism.
We cannot, however, delay campaigning for greenhouse gas abatement until capitalism has been packed off to the historical graveyard. The demand for the carbon trading system to be dismantled, and for strict regulations, taxes and fines to be set in its place, has a firm place in today’s agenda of struggle.
Here is the full article.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Italy's Enel (Endesa Owner) Plans to Use Chilean Geysers to Offset European Carbon Emissions by Selling Carbon Credits via Clean Development Mechanism
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Tourist guide Patricia Salazar sees a marvel of nature when she looks at Chile's El Tatio geysers shooting plumes of heated white water vapor high into the air. Italy's Enel SA sees an untapped energy source.
Enel and Empresa Nacional del Petroleo, known as Enap, want to convert water heated by magma into electricity. Surrounding towns are lobbying the government to reject the proposal, saying it threatens their revenue from almost 100,000 tourists who visit the geysers annually.
``Chile is going through a period of energy scarcity, so they are considering every option,'' said Salazar, 41. ``But this is how people make their living.''
The conflict underscores Chile's desperation for energy, said Juan Lindau, a political scientist specializing in Latin America at Colorado College. Neighboring Argentina began slashing natural-gas supplies in 2004, driving up electricity costs 42 percent in the past year and dragging down Chile's economic growth.
Chile does not have an energy problem but a mining problem which consumes almost 40% of Chile's electrical generating capacity. Of which nearly 70% are Foreign Owned : Ransacking Chile - Fabulous Profits for Multinationals )
The venture of Enel, Italy's largest utility, and Chile's state-run Enap is seeking approval for a $20 million project to drill test holes as deep as 2,500 meters (8,200 feet). If temperatures are high enough, they would drill more wells and use the steam to run electric generators, said Carlo Zorzoli, Enel's head of business development for Latin America.
Enel probably would sell carbon credits (See: "The Kyoto Protocol has proved totally ineffective on the practical side", says Italy's Enel / Endesa CEO ) from the project to companies seeking to comply with requirements to reduce emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, said Brian Chase, an analyst at UBS Pactual in Santiago. It might sell them in Europe, where prices are higher than in the U.S., said Manlio Coviello, an analyst at the United Nations' Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
(So instead of solving the problem at its source these corporations believe that industrializing Chile will cool the planet: SN Power, Norway, & Pacific Hydro, Australia, move on La Confluencia dam project on the Tinguiririca River- effort to reduce Europe's Carbon Emissions )
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The power shortage is forcing Chile to choose ``energy (mining) over tourism or energy over the environment,'' Lindau said in a telephone interview from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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President's Vow
Chile imports almost three-quarters of its energy. President Michelle Bachelet vowed to develop new power sources and boost alternative energy to 15 percent of new supplies after Argentina's cutbacks.
``You can't turn your back on the energy sources you have,'' said Jaime Orpis, a senator from northern Chile who is on the Senate's mining and energy committee. (QED)
The project could produce about 40 megawatts of power, said Jesus Figueroa, director of the Mining Ministry's geothermal unit. One megawatt is enough to supply about 1,000 U.S. homes.
The shortage increases costs for the energy-intensive mining industry, which consumes 30 percent of the country's power. More than a third of the world's mined copper comes from Chile.
``It's a problem of scarcity, prices, necessity and dependence (on foreign mining companies),'' said Patricio Valdivieso, a political scientist at Pontific Catholic University of Chile in Santiago.
No `Fiasco'Enel contends that the geysers won't be affected by drilling. The companies expect to find a heated underground reservoir, separate from the surface water feeding the geysers, Zorzoli said. The wells would be far enough away that tourists wouldn't see them, he said.
``We wouldn't put all this effort in if we were not truly convinced that we can develop a project compatible with the environment,'' Zorzoli said in a telephone interview from Rome. He said Enel won't risk an ``environmental fiasco.'' (See: Activists Occupy Enel Power Plant being Converted to Coal Maybe they ought to solve their carbon problem in Europe before proposing greenhouse reduction projects in Chile?)Here is the full article.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Future Norway King & Queen to Lay the Cornerstone of SN Power's New Plant in Chile to offset Carbon Emissions from Norway's Thriving Oil Industry.
Crown Prince Haakon of Norway (See: SN Power, Norway, & Pacific Hydro, Australia, move on La Confluencia dam project on the Tinguiririca River- effort to reduce Europe's Carbon Emissions )
There as yet have been no changes (to visit the Mapuche maybe?) made to the official program of Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who are due to launch their visit to Chile on January 28. They're expected to lay the cornerstone for one of SN Power's new plants.
The three-day royal visit, the first since the late King Olav visited Chile in 1967, will include a large delegation of business executives from Norway. The royals are often used as so-called "door openers" (pawns) for Norwegian business keen to establish new contacts overseas, and all royal visits are aimed at strengthening ties between Norway(i.e. parasite) and the host country.
(No visits are scheduled for Uganda: Power for the Mapuches but not for Uganda- Norwegian Government owner, SN Power, pulls out of Uganda hydroelectric venture citing economic unviability )
Ironically(???), the Norwegian-owned SN Power has instead incurred the wrath of some living in southern Chile. The native Mapuche population claims SN Power's plans to build four hydroelectric plants in their area will threaten holy lands, dry up an important waterway and riverside land and dramatically alter their lifestyle.
(To undersand why, see what Spain (Endesa) has done to the Mapuche:
Journeyman Pictures presents "Damming of the Biobio River" - Endesa SA verses the Mapuche - What to expect from Endesa during the HydroAysen struggle.
Switch Off - 2004 Documentary of the Mapuche struggle against the international energy conglomerate, Endesa SA
Endesa Strategy & Tactics I – Revisiting the Ralco & Pangue Hydroelectric Projects on the Rio Bio Bio )
In an advertisement (wake up call) placed in newspaper Aftenposten last November, representatives for the Mapuche people claimed they have long opposed SN Power's plans and their concerns have been overlooked. They claim the new power plants also violate international treaties ratified by the Norwegian state regarding territorial rights and consideration.
SN Power, which specializes in renewable energy (while Norway is the world's third larget oil exporter), is 50 percent owned by Norway's Statkraft and 50 percent by Norfund. It develops, owns and operates wind and hydropower assets in India, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Peru and Chile.
(While Simultaneously: The Norwegian government is an active participant in and co-owner of Norwegian petroleum operations, both through the state-owned oil company Statoil and the government’s direct financial involvement. See: Cognitive Dissonance)
It describes itself as a long-term investor, and SN Power officials claim they are committed (in their opinion) to "social and environmental sustainability." Mario Marchese, the SN Power executive in Chile who was shot at on Monday, suggested the local population has misunderstood (?) the company's intentions.
(The Mapuche understand only too well: Hydroaysen Keeping Public in the Dark, Say Chile Dam Critics )
"They hear the word 'hydro' and think (Rio Biobio, Ralco, Pangue & Endesa) that large land areas will be submerged," he told newspaper Cronica Digital. "There aren't any power projects that won't affect the environment, but we want our effects to be minimal (tourists love dry rivers). Our alternative is the best for the country (like the SN Power projects in Uganda). We won't pollute the waters. All facilities will be built underground (and all profits will go to Norway)..."
Company director Nils Husby was careful not to blame the Mapuche people for the shooting, and their representatives have denied having anything to do with it.
One local mayor in Chile, however, said SN Power hasn't inspired confidence. "The people must be respected," Alejandro Kohler, the mayor of Panguipulli in Chile's Los Rios area, told Cronica Digital. He said they fear damage to the environment and increased long-term unemployment, even though development of the power plant can provide new jobs (???).
(IBENER S.A.'s two run of the river hydroelectric stations on the Duqueco River require 25 employees to operate: Professionals & Executives = 8, Technicians = 10, Administrative = 5, Aides = 2. See: IBENER S.A. 2002 Annual Report.)
Here is the full article.
Related Stories:
SN Power (Statkraft Norfund) to cancel 600 million dollar hydro-power project after exec. shot at by Mapuche sympathizer in Santiago, Chile
Mapuche Protest against Norwegian Hydroelectric Power
Power for the Mapuches but not for Uganda- Norwegian Government owner, SN Power, pulls out of Uganda hydroelectric venture citing economic unviability
SN Power, Norway, & Pacific Hydro, Australia, move on La Confluencia dam project on the Tinguiririca River- effort to reduce Europe's Carbon Emissions
Monday, January 7, 2008
Members of Durban Group For Climate Justice on Carbon Trading Speaking Tour this Winter
In 2004, the Durban Group for Climate Justice convened in Durban, South Africa to question the central role of carbon trading and carbon offsets in governments’ responses to the climate crisis. Members of the Durban Group are traveling in various cities throughout the US and Canada in January, February, and March 2008 to share experiences of the failures of carbon trading in Europe, India, Brazil, Uganda and elsewhere, and to learn more about U.S. carbon trading plans and climate politics.
Four internationally recognized experts, fresh from the climate meetings in Bali, Indonesia, will be visiting campuses and communities Canada, the Midwestern and Western US, Vermont and New York City. With over fifty groups in over forty cities, they’ll speak on carbon trading, carbon offsets, the effects of climate change and current international campaigns to keep the fossil fuels in the ground and affect meaningful change.
The four visiting activists are:
- Larry Lohmann, the editor of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power, an exhaustively-documented new book critiquing carbon trading. Carbon trading “dispossesses ordinary people in the South of their lands and futures without resulting in appreciable progress toward alternative energy systems,” says Lohmann. “Tradable rights to pollute are handed out to Northern industry, allowing them to continue to profit from business as usual. At the same time, Northern polluters are encouraged to invest in supposedly carbon-saving projects in the South, very few of which promote clean energy at all.”
- Kevin Smith, a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch. Smith’s report “The Carbon Neutral Myth” documents and exposes the booming industry dedicated to avoiding the core of the climate issue, and offers expert advice on constructive ways forward.
- Tamra Gilbertson, the Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Project at the Transnational Institute and a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch. Gilbertson edited the recent report “Agrofuels - Toward a Reality Check in Nine Areas“. This report documents the use and abuse of biofuels in the Global South, often under the guise of “offsetting” tradeable carbon credits.
- Jutta Kill, the Coordinator of Sinkswatch. In “Forest Fraud - say no to fake carbon credits,” Kill exposes the funding of monoculture tree plantations and the enormous market offering incentives to seize communally-held forests in developing countries. “Indigenous peoples and rural communities already struggling against the encroachment of these ‘green deserts’ onto their lands will be hit twice by climate change.”
For more information and a complete list of tour dates, see: Speaking Tour
Monday, December 17, 2007
Bali's crying shame
The drama of the UN climate change talks caught the world’s attention, but critics wonder whether they will secure its future.
The baby turtles were cute, but they were also clearly suffering. The tropical sun was beating down on the beach in Bali as they swam round and round in their big plastic bowls full of slowly warming water. They were waiting to be liberated into the ocean – but first came the talking.
The turtle release was a side event to the United Nations climate change conference taking place a few hundred yards away in the Bali international convention centre, and that meant a host of dignitaries first had to make themselves heard.
As they droned on, with each speaker placing their own particular emphasis on the threats presented by global warming – not least to endangered species such as turtles – the energy of the captives began ebbing away. They stopped swimming and sat still in the water.
By the time those gathered on the beach were allowed to scoop up the turtles and carry them down to the water’s edge, some had almost lost the will to live and, when released, lay motionless on the sand.
Pushed into the cool of the water they did gradually revive and paddled slowly away, but to many observers it seemed the perfect metaphor for the events of the past fortnight in Bali: a lot of humans talking endlessly while nature suffers.
Last Thursday the World Meteorological Organisation revealed that 2007 had been one of the 10 hottest years on record, as were eight other years in the past decade.
In Bali, the best response that the politicians could manage yesterday was to agree a “road map” for more talks without any specific targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.
Getting that agreement was certainly dramatic. Yesterday saw Yvo de Boer, the UN’s main climate change official, burst into tears while addressing the conference. The strain of multiple sleepless nights and tortured negotiations had become too much.
America even appeared to have been forced into concessions after its representative, Paula Dobriansky, was booed by delegates from other countries.
Optimists, including Hilary Benn, Britain’s environment secretary, hailed the agreement as “historic” yesterday, mainly because America had signed up to it.
Others, however, fear that it will prove too weak to achieve anything. As the exhausted delegates and politicians board their planes to travel home today, are the real prospects of controlling global warming any better than before the Bali talks began?
THE precedents are not good. It is 10 years since the world’s politicians held a similar gathering in Japan where they signed the Kyoto treaty. At the heart of Kyoto was a commitment from industrialised countries such as Britain, America, Australia and Russia to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. John Prescott, then environment secretary, helped to broker the agreement and proclaimed it as the deal that would save the world.
In reality Kyoto was a disappointment. The draft treaty had promised that the industrialised nations would reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases – there are six in total – by 6% from 1990 levels by 2008. The final version referred to only three gases, the date had slipped to 2012 and the level of cuts had fallen to 5.2%.
Australia ratified the treaty only after the election of a new prime minister last month and America, the world’s biggest emitter, has still not done so.
In 1997 mankind was already generating the equivalent of 40 billion tons of CO2 a year. Kyoto was meant to herald a new era in which such emissions would stabilise and then reverse. Instead they have risen faster than ever – up to 50 billion tons last year.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), an energy policy adviser to 27 industrialised countries, believes that trend is unlikely to change. In its recent World Energy Outlook report, it said emissions would be pushed well above 65 billion tons by 2030.
The IEA concluded that we still had a faint chance of keeping global temperature rises below 2.4C by 2020, but only if energy-related CO2 emissions were cut by 25% to 40%. Such a cut would be, said the IEA, “unprecedented”.
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The question now is whether the process that has begun in Bali has the potential to achieve the dramatic cuts in carbon emissions that the scientists say are needed.
It seems unlikely. Even if the political will is there, the science mitigates against it.
Vicky Pope, of the Met Office’s respected Hadley Centre for climate prediction, was just one of many scientists presenting new research in Bali. Sitting under the palm trees fringing the idyllic Nusa Dua beach, she pointed to the “small but scary” graph showing the latest predictions on the global temperature rises that we might expect as greenhouse gas levels rise.
The natural background level of CO2 is 273 parts per million (ppm) but human activities have pushed this up to 379ppm. At some time before 2030, greenhouse gas levels are predicted to reach the equivalent of 450ppm.
At this level, said Pope’s graph, global temperature rises of 2C are 80% certain. If CO2 levels reach 550ppm, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of respected scientists has said they will, probably before 2030, then there is a 70% chance of the global rise exceeding 3C.
Here is the full article.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Bali's business bonanza and what it means for Chile - Pacific Hydro has as many people in its Santiago office as its Melbourne headquarters.
Bali's business bonanza
Dorjee Sun is huddled into his mobile phone, one of many players jostling for position as the nascent global carbon market opens up a goldmine of opportunity.
Dorjee Sun is huddled into his mobile phone, laptop slung over one shoulder, pacing dangerously close to the edge of the pool.
His white shirt has stuck to him in Bali's evening heat and mosquitoes are nibbling at his ankles. But the 30-year-old internet millionaire from Sydney's North Shore has a grin on his face and a hand in the air, waiting for a reciprocal high five.
He has had a breakthrough in negotiations for his latest venture, Carbon Conservation, with three Indonesian provincial governors. Sun wants to facilitate the sale of carbon credits to developed countries from projects which prevent or reduce deforestation in Aceh and Papua. He has managed to get Merrill Lynch on board and is pretty happy about it.
(While Merrill Lynch may be ecstatic the indigenous people who lands the scheme depends on are not: Indonesia: WALHI Protest against Kyoto, Carbon Trade, Clean Development Mechanism , Africa: Poor Countries Fail in Demand for Control of New Clean Development Mechanism Fund , Indigenous Peoples protest World Bank carbon scam in Bali , A gift from Scotland to Brazil: drought and despair . On top of that, such projects deforestation projects rarely bear close scrutiny: The great carbon trading scam? )
Sun has no background in science or climate change. He made his fortune out of starting up and then selling a recruitment software company and an education mentoring business.
But the carbon industry is no longer just inhabited by scientists, environmentalists and policy wonks. Over the past year, entrepreneurs like Sun - keen to make a buck and feel good about doing it - as well as the big investment banks, project developers and trading firms are looking to get a piece of the action.
Their interest is not surprising. More than $US60 billion ($68.1 billion) changed hands in the global carbon market this year, double the trade of last year and up from just $US400 million three years ago. Analysts estimate the market could be worth $US1 trillion within the next 10 years.
By 2030, according to some carbon bulls, it may even be the biggest commodity market in the world, overtaking crude oil.
(Read more here: Bank says climate change is investment "megatrend" , Global warming has a financial upside , Profiteering from Carbon Trading - How the Global Carbon Market will Destroy Patagonia, Chile )
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At the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali over the past two weeks, comparisons with the internet industry and the dotcom crash of 2001 were freely made. However, despite all of the obstacles there seems to be general agreement that while there may be a shake-up of the carbon industry, it won't collapse or disappear. Like the internet before it, carbon is here to stay and it will transform the way people do business.
"I can't guarantee that nothing will happen like the dotcom bust or the US housing market," says Olga Gassan-zade, a senior analyst at research firm Point Carbon.
"But I will say that the dotcom industry didn't die. You need a carbon market to manage emissions reductions. We'll be here in 2020 and 2050, I'm quite sure."
Australia has its own challenges. With it having only agreed to ratify Kyoto after the Rudd Government was elected late last month, companies, investors and traders are scrambling to work out what it actually means for the local market.
By not ratifying Kyoto, Australia was estimated to be missing out on $3.8 billion of economic activity a year, according to research by consulting group Cambiar, prepared for the Australian Conservation Foundation. That reflected lost revenue from project development, the sale of carbon credits and services to facilitate transactions.
(See: Kyoto deal to clear air for Australian investors, say experts - Pacific Hydro's manager says, Australia is "now open for business". )
"People are still scratching their heads trying to work out what the policy means and what it means to be a company acting responsibly in the environment," says Oliver Yates, head of Macquarie Capital Group's Climate Change Practice.
"These are not new concepts to international companies but they are new issues for Australian companies. We've largely had our eyes blinkered to this through not signing the Kyoto Protocol."
Macquarie has moved fast to shore up its position in the nascent industry. It set up an emissions trading desk in London, is already selling carbon credits out of China into Europe and last week bought half of Climate Friendly, one of the biggest players in the local carbon offset market. Climate Friendly offers people the chance to offset carbon emissions from their home, business, car, or travel by investing in renewable energy projects. (not by advocating a change in their lifestyle.)
----- PACIFIC HYDRO AND CHILE -----
Macquarie is not the only company ramping up its activities in the area. Renewable energy player Pacific Hydro, which has built up carbon projects in Chile and Fiji in recent years, is looking to hire up to 50 more people in Australia over the next 12 months. The company has as many people in its Santiago office as its Melbourne headquarters. Australia's decision not to ratify Kyoto had limited what Pacific Hydro could do within the country. Now that Australia is part of the Kyoto club and the Rudd Government has announced it will double the renewable energy target to 20 per cent by 2020, that's all about to change.
"Australia has the ability to be a world leader in carbon," says Andrew Richards, the company's head of corporate and government affairs.
"In the past all the investment and innovation has been sitting behind a dam wall. But that's now been broken down and we expect the investment and innovation will rush forward. There is a completely different mind set now."
(Read about the Pacific Hydro / SN Power's Chile dam plans here: Value of Pacific Hydro Skyrockets with Australian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol – Chilean rivers sacrificed to offset European Carbon Emissions. ,SN Power, Norway, & Pacific Hydro, Australia, move on La Confluencia dam project on the Tinguiririca River- effort to reduce Europe's Carbon Emissions , Chile Environment Exploited to Offset European Pollution , Kyoto ratification crucial in Australian plans for Chile hydro-development – Carbon Offsets purchased in Europe critical to dam construction , Australia's Pacific Hydro finds a loophole: Climate change, Kyoto, and carbon trading . More on how Norway's SN Power (Pacific Hydro's partner) intends to oust Chile's indigenous Mapuche people from ancestral lands to pursue hydro-development schemes: Mapuche Protest against Norwegian Hydroelectric Power , Norwegian Power Projects in Mapuche, Chile Heartland Plunder Environment )
Richards expects the increase in the renewable energy target, alone, to drive $30 billion of investment into the sector over the next 12 years.
The problem for companies like Pacific Hydro, who are looking to hire, is that there are not enough carbon experts to go around. Many Australians fled to London over the past five years as it emerged as the world's carbon trading hub. Canberra-born Geoff Sinclair, who heads up Standard Bank's carbon business in London, says you might see some of those people moving home.
Pacific Hydro has sold certificates generated from hydro projects in Fiji and Chile. But that will be much easier now that Australia is seen as one of the good guys on climate change. For a start it will be easier to win approval from the host nation and once more projects are under construction there will be more demand for bankers, lawyers, brokers and consultants. Many investment banks, law firms and research groups are starting to set up special carbon teams to deal with the extra work.
"Ratification, in my opinion, makes people aware of the issues and of the commercial opportunities that already exist," says Sinclair, who was scheduled to speak at a carbon finance panel at the UN climate change conference this week but had to pull out because he was "too busy doing deals". (It should be obvious where his priorities lie.)
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Grant says the commercial opportunities in dealing with climate change have been overlooked in Australia. "There is no doubt in my mind that the Government has been looking at the impact on the economy but not on the opportunity it presents."
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But Molitor, who handles all the carbon offsetting for the entertainer Justin Timberlake and the rock group Linkin Park, says there's incredible peer pressure on companies to address climate change even without being forced to do so by governments. He cites the example of Fiji Water, a bottled water company which, facing a consumer backlash, bought up carbon credits on the voluntary market to offset the emissions from transporting its product to the US, Britain, France and Australia.
(Justin Timberlake and many other celebrities take the issue very seriously: With five private jets, John Travolta still lectures on global warming , Virgin Atlantic launches Carbon Offset Scheme )
Here is the full article.
The high human cost of inverted logic - policymakers assert that environmental protection, not environmental degradation, obstructs economic growth.
As world leaders meet in Bali to discuss Earth's rising temperatures, climate change is emerging as the central threat to our world's economic growth. The unprecedented attention to the issue is timely, but the crucial question is what national policy leaders will actually do to confront the underlying causes of climate change.
The root cause of climate change is environmental neglect, and related energy inefficiency accompanying the drive for rapid growth. Sadly, most policymakers and their economic advisers have wrongly held the view that it's environmental protection, not environmental degradation, that obstructs growth. This inverted logic comes at a high human cost.
While the world economy expanded sevenfold over the past century, global population increased from 1.6 to 6.5 billion, the world lost half the tropical forests, and carbon dioxide levels rose to 380 parts per million (from the pre-industrial 280 ppm). A rise in temperature of 0.74 degrees Celsius in the past century is causing sea levels to rise, melting glaciers and destroying biodiversity. Once CO2 levels exceed 450 ppm, the change in temperature could top the pre-industrial era by two degrees Celsius, enough to trigger massive climatic instability.
Aside from the global impact, the local damages of environmental devastation are great too. The losses in health and worker productivity from just particulate air pollution amount to 2-3% of GNP in some Asian countries. Water stress and losses from water pollution pose immediate threats to health and well-being, and such distress is on the rise. Deforestation and soil erosion are compounding the damages of natural disasters such as floods and wind storms - especially for the poorest, most likely to be in harm's way.
Along with this picture of environmental decay, there is the story of growth delivering social gains for the people. Where it has occurred, sustained growth has been the most powerful means to reduce poverty. East Asia may be the most striking example of the gains, where growth averaged more than 8% yearly for the past 25 years, and some 600 million people were lifted out of poverty. Developing countries still have to grow a great deal as their average income is still one-sixth that of rich nations.
So the question is how a country can continue to grow quickly without allowing environmental neglect to derail the process. The remarkable fact is that taking preventive measures to address the environmental concerns is a lot cheaper than waiting for the damage to occur and then trying to take curative actions - whether it's curbing water pollution or putting in adaptive reinforcement of structures in disaster-prone areas.
Here is the full article.
The great carbon trading scam?
The Bali summit: Our attempts to end deforestation require complex solutions, not quick fixes.
Deforestation has been big on the agenda here at the climate talks in Bali, and with some good reason. About a fifth of the carbon dioxide emissions entering the atmosphere each year because of human activities are down to the clearance of forests, especially the tropical forests. Halting deforestation is also necessary because a huge proportion of the planet's biological diversity is found in forest ecosystems. Some 70% of terrestrial species are believed to dwell in tropical rainforests. It is thus very clear that deforestation must be halted, but how?
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Yesterday the World Bank unveiled plans to do just that. The chief himself, Robert Zoellick (who was also a former US trade representative), turned up to announce the launch of a new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. The idea, we were told, is to link forests into a global carbon-trading scheme that rewards the protection of a forest that might otherwise have been cut down, or by replanting a forest that has already been cut down. Sounds great: until you look a bit deeper.
Such a scheme would rely on someone buying "carbon credits" that are linked to the protected or replanted forests. At a price per tonne determined by market forces, a company or government would pay to count the carbon benefit of protecting or planting a forest against the carbon damage caused by its emissions at home. So, in the future we could theoretically see British Airports Authority buying carbon credits derived from the protection of a Brazilian rainforest and counting that against the carbon emitted from the construction of a third runway at Heathrow, and for the new tarmac to be declared "carbon neutral".
(This is aleady happening: Virgin Atlantic launches Carbon Offset Scheme )
This raises major problems. The first is the way in which such a mechanism would allow high polluting industrialised countries to continue with business as usual on the strength of protecting forests (that need to be protected anyway). It also raises huge issues equity and justice and in some ways can be regarded as a form of "ecological imperialism". Having cut down our own forests, and now going through the fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow, we are asking that we pay a small fee to solve our problem though counting a developing country's forests as an offset to our own pollution. The forests that we are counting against our pollution are of course located mainly in countries that have contributed very little to the problem that we are seeking to solve. In addition, these forests very often are occupied by peoples who have struggled for years to gain legal title to their ancestral territories. It is clear that turning their homes into an excuse for the west to pollute is quite wrong.
The social impacts can be huge too. Land that might to the World Bank be classified as "degraded", and a good place to put a carbon "sink" in the form of a newly planted forest, might be occupied by landless people who rely on it for their living. The World Bank has a poor track record in relocating people to accommodate its projects and a new market in carbon offsets could perpetuate injustices of this kind.
Here is the full story.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Indigenous Peoples protest World Bank carbon scam in Bali
Indigenous Peoples, including Navajo and Mohawk representatives of the Indigenous Environmental Network, are now in Bali at the 13th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Indigenous Peoples from around the world are protesting both the exclusion from the climate negotiations and the World Bank's carbon scam.
During protests outside the climate negotiations, Indigenous people wore symbolic gags that read UNFCCC, the acronym of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, symbolizing their systematic exclusion from the United Nations meeting.
A delegation of indigenous peoples was forcibly barred from entering the meeting between UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer and civil society representatives, despite the fact that the indigenous delegation was invited to attend. This act is representative of the systematic exclusion of indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC process, the group said.
"There is no seat or name plate for indigenous peoples in the plenary, nor for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the highest level body in the United Nations that addresses indigenous peoples rights," said Hubertus Samangun, the Focal Point of the Indigenous Peoples delegation to the UNFCCC and the Focal Point for English Speaking Indigenous Peoples of the Global Forest Coalition.
"Indigenous peoples are not only marginalized from the discussion, but there is virtually no mention of indigenous peoples in the more that 5 million words of UNFCCC documents," argued Alfred Ilenre of the Edo People of Nigeria.
Indigenous Peoples said this is occurring despite the fact that they are suffering the most from climate change and climate change mitigation projects that directly impact their lands.
(Read about Chile's Mapuche indian battle with the Norwegian government owned hydro-developer, SN Power: Norwegian Power Projects in Mapuche, Chile Heartland Plunder Environment , Mapuche Protest against Norwegian Hydroelectric Power , SN Power, Norway, & Pacific Hydro, Australia, move on La Confluencia dam project on the Tinguiririca River- effort to reduce Europe's Carbon Emissions )
Indigenous peoples are in Bali to denounce the false solutions to climate change proposed by the United Nations such as carbon trading, agrofuels and so-called "avoided deforestation" that devastate their lands and cause human rights violations.
"This process has become nothing but developed countries avoiding their responsibilities to cut emissions and pushing the responsibility onto developing countries," said Fiu Mata'ese Elisara-Laula, of the O Le Siosiomaga Society of Samoa, in a statement. "Projects like REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries) sound very nice but they are trashing our indigenous lands. People are being relocated and even killed; my own people will soon be under water. That's why I call the money from the projects blood money," he added.
(See more here: Indonesia: WALHI Protest against Kyoto, Carbon Trade, Clean Development Mechanism , A gift from Scotland to Brazil: drought and despair )
Marcial Arias of the Kuna People of Panama reminded the international community that indigenous peoples' right to participate was recognized in the Earth Summit in 1992 and reaffirmed this year. "On September 13th of this year, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [1] which enshrines the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and environment. It is precisely these rights recognized by the UN itself that the UNFCCC is violating," he explained.
Jihan Gearon, Dine’ Navajo Nation, IEN energy & climate campaign organizer and Benjamin Powless, Mohawk, Six Nations, Ontario, Canada, IEN youth representative, are in Bali and taking on the world's super powers.
Gearon, writing from Bali, said Indigenous People need a much bigger and better seat at the table.
“Our communities and livelihoods are the first affected by climate change. We are also the most affected by the unsustainable solutions being proposed to solve climate change – nuclear power, clean coal, carbon sequestration, reforestation, carbon trading, etc. Yet, instead of having real input in the UNFCCC process, we have to spend our time picking through words. And while we’re busy doing that, those people who want to sacrifice us to put some dollars in their pockets, make the decisions.
"This past September 13th, the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories and environment. Yet through the faulty process and false climate change solutions of the UNFCCC, it’s these fundamental human rights that are being violated.
"The Indigenous Peoples here in Bali are asking the United Nations to live up to their words, to listen to us, and to stop with the false solutions that devastate our lands, threaten our ways of life, and deny our human rights."
Here is the full text.
Africa: Poor Countries Fail in Demand for Control of New Clean Development Mechanism Fund
[11 December 2007] Bali: The fund to help developing countries adapt to global warming has been approved at the United Nations climate change conference in Bali and will become operational in early 2008, a senior UN official announced on 11 December.
Despite resistance from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the Adaptation Fund will be controlled by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a 178-member international financing body that helps developing countries fund projects and programmes to protect the global environment.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said the Adaptation Fund's decisions would be made by a representative board of 16 members, drawn from various regional groupings.
Control of the fund has been one of the major sticking points dividing the developed and the developing countries at the climate change conference.
Antonio Hill, a climate change policy advisor to the UK-based development agency, Oxfam, explained the developing countries' objections: "[GEF] operates on the one-dollar, one-vote principle - like the World Bank, where the developed countries are in control."
Nasimul Haque, Communication Expert of the climate-change cell of Bangladesh's Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, commented, "LDCs are extremely upset [over the decision], as we [LDCs] would have liked to have at least 50 percent representation on the board - we should decide what we need to do with our money, which we need now."
He accused the GEF of dragging its feet in handing out money to the LDCs in the past. "Bangladesh and other LDCs, like Kenya, have been suffering from weather-related extreme events every year; the developed world has to realise the urgency of the situation."
Bangladesh serves as the LDC secretariat. "The GEF, which also controls the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), operates the funds like any organisation would handle donations. What it has to realise is that the money being pledged to the fund is our [the LDCs'] right; we are paying the price for the luxuries citizens of the developed world have been indulging in," Haque said.
Historic emissions amount to around 1,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita for Britain and America, compared with Bangladesh's 0.14 tonnes per capita, one of the lowest in the world.
Here is the full article.
