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Abstract
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol is designed to reduce global CO2 emissions while transferring technology and investment to developing countries. Little evaluation has been conducted, however, regarding the efficiency of outcomes and co-benefits or the social costs generated by carbon-mitigation projects. This article presents a comparative case study of two carbon-offset projects funded by fossil-fuel based power generation companies in the United States: the first forestry project funded explicitly to offset greenhouse gas emissions, in Guatemala, and the first rural solar electrification–carbon offset finance agreement, in Sri Lanka. We demonstrate that achieving offset targets and development-related benefits from CDM projects cannot be assumed, and that social equity can be negatively impacted by CDM-type projects. As such, future offset agreements and post-Kyoto climate negotiations would benefit from closer attention to issues of context, transparency, and social equity in order to minimize the social costs of carbon emissions trading.
The authors acknowledge research support from the Fulbright–Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Award, the Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Cornell Institute for Food and Agricultural Development (CIIFAD), and CARE/Guatemala,as well as helpful comments from Charles Geisler, Cathleen Fogel, and Mark Johnson and the anonymous reviewers on previous drafts of this article.
Notes
Recent investigative reporting by the UK publication The Guardian suggests that more than 20% of registered CDM projects may be faulty in terms of their stated offset achievements, and that others breach the requirement for sustainable development due to polluting side effects of carbon reducing technologies (Davies Citation2007).
Afforestation refers to planting trees in areas that were not previously forested, while reforestation implies replanting harvested trees in the same location.
World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 37 (August 2000), www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/37/Camerica.html. Values used to estimate carbon sequestered by Guatemala Agroforestry: 100 t T/ha for forests, 30 t T/ha for regrowth.
World Rainforest Movement Bulletin 37 (August 2000). www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/37/Camerica.html.
Based on author interviews and observations with key informants, including CARE agroforestry program directors, during fieldwork conducted over several field trips between 2000 and Citation2007.
CARE also has received only 45–50% of the funds that it expected from AES since project initiation. E-mail communication, James Smith/Inforpress, Mario Mancilla/CARE, October 2006.
Due to the country's ethnic conflict, areas of the north and east also have large off-grid populations (80–100%). Either the grid has been destroyed or the areas are under rebel control.
In 1999, the national teacher-student ratio was 1:22; in the plantation sector it was 1:45 (Subramanian Citation2001).
The names of the corporation and the estate have been changed in accordance with rules on agreements on protecting the confidentiality of human subjects.
For more on the politics of labor registration, see Casperz (1995).
Personal communication, Mr. Pradeep Jayawardene, Shell Renewables Lanka Ltd, 2002, and presentation given by Asoka Abeygunawardhena to the Director Board, Energy Forum, 31 August 2007. As of 2002, at least 20,000 of these systems had been installed with support from the World Bank's Energy Services Delivery (ESD) Project (Gunaratne, e-mail correspondence, 12 August 2002). SELCO's market analysis assumed that Sri Lanka had suitable market conditions for the installation of 120,000 systems by one single company.
Estate management took monthly deductions from the wages of workers who had housing loans administered by The Plantation Housing and Social Welfare Trust (PHSWT). Under the PHSWT housing-loan scheme, “at least one family member of each family will be required to work on the plantation during the 15-year lease period” (PHSWT n.d.).
