-Caveat Lector-
License to Pollute?
Despite broad public, scientific and political consensus about
the need for urgent action to combat climate
change, greenhouse gas emissions continue to be spewed into the
atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. Years of
negotiations have resulted in a mere 39 industrialised countries
agreeing to a pitifully low collective reduction
of 5.2 % by 2008-2012. [2] In fact, a global reduction of at least
60 - 70% percent is needed in the first half of
the 21st century in order to avoid cataclysmic climate change
due to global warming.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was celebrated by the nations of
the world as the first legally-binding treaty to set limits to
greenhouse gas emissions. The climate debate entered
quieter waters after Kyoto, and the negotiations have since circled
around the three market-based 'solutions' enshrined in the
Protocol- emissions trading, joint implementation (JI) and the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Emissions trading allows
the 39 governments committed to collective
reductions under the Protocol to trade the right to pollute
among themselves. Under this scheme, due to start in 2008, a
country might choose to buy emission credits from another
country that managed to reduce its emissions below its
Kyoto targets. Joint implementation and the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) grant Northern governments and corporations
emission credits through special projects aimed at reducing
greenhouse gas emissions in the host country. These projects can be
carried out among industrialised countries and corporations (JI)
or between one industrialised government or company and one
Southern country (CDM). Although the rules and procedures have
not yet been agreed upon, hundreds of projects are already
planned and many are even being implemented. Typical JI and CDM
projects could be respectively the Dutch government financing
a factory producing energy-efficient light bulbs in Russia, or
BP Amoco installing solar panels in Zimbabwe. The logic behind the
market-based mechanisms is that it is less expensive for Northern
countries to invest in reduction projects abroad than it is for them
to reduce emissions domestically.
A disturbing reality lurks behind these benign-sounding mechanisms-
they enable industrialised countries and their corporations to
buy the right to pollute and to escape even the meagre commitments
laid down in the Kyoto Protocol. It has been argued that similar
trading schemes, such as the US programme to reduce sulphur dioxide
emissions to combat acid rain, have worked successfully.
However, this argument does not take into account the negative
health and economic impacts suffered by poor and disadvantaged
communities in the US through these schemes- a phenomenon referred
to as 'environmental racism'. [3]. The hypothesis that such
schemes will be efficient on the international level is also flawed.
One must not forget the absolute impossibility of monitoring
emissions from millions of sources spread all over the world,
not to mention the lack of a binding regulatory system to enforce
emissions limits. [4]
Not only will the market-based mechanisms fail to achieve the
agreed reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, they could
catalyse serious environmental and social catastrophe on a
scale unimaginable. These mechanisms effectively turn greenhouse gases
into commodities, locking-in existing North-South inequities
in the use of the atmosphere and natural resources and opening-up many
new and harmful profit-making opportunities for transnational
corporations- essentially creating a new market out of thin air.
Through these schemes, TNCs and their Northern governments
will be entitled to buy countless cheap emission credits from the
South, through projects of an often exploitative nature,
thereby imposing on the South what the India-based Centre for Science and
Environment refers to as 'carbon colonialism'. [5] Furthermore,
all of the `low-hanging fruit´, or cheap credits, will have been
harvested by the North when it comes time for Southern countries
to reduce their own emissions, saddling them with only the most
expensive options for any future reduction commitments they might make.
Since the introduction of these market-based solutions in 1997,
subsequent international climate negotiations have been deadlocked
around technical discussions about their scope and implementation,
essentially paralysing the process. The political pressure to open
the floodgates for these commercial escape mechanisms continues
to intensify, further weakening an already anaemic Protocol and
scuttling any hopes of securing the political agreement necessary
to avert the climate crisis.
A recent study released by the German Federal Environment
Agency clearly stated that current Kyoto Protocol emission reduction
targets are hopelessly insufficient for the goals of climate
stabilisation and prevention of serious damage. [6] The report estimates
that if industrialised countries do not go beyond the 5.2 %
reduction by 2008-2012 as outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, average global
temperatures will increase by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100.
This would not only cause a dramatic 41 centimetre rise in sea levels, but
would also threaten agricultural production and up to 40% of
natural vegetation around the globe. The report prescribes an emissions
cut by industrialised countries to far less than half of 1990
levels by 2030 in order to avoid this nightmare scenario. [7]
But there is no need to look far into the future to see the
horrendous impacts of climate change. The number of catastrophes caused
by rainstorms, tropical cyclones, droughts, and other
climate disruptions is increasing year by year, resulting in terrible damage and
human suffering. Examples from the recent years include
enormous mudslides in Venezuela, a devastating cyclone in the Indian state
of Orissa, and massive floods in Mozambique. [8] A team
of scientists from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam recently confirmed
that climate change is clearly having an impact on the
frequency and intensity of natural disasters. [9] The authors conclude that, "at
least part of the damage caused by weather extremes is
due to human-induced climate change."
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