(Fwd) Carbon trading rejected

[Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Download this free book arguing for the decommodification of... the
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For immediate release

On Eve of Nairobi Climate Conference, New Book Exposes Scandal of Carbon
Trading
“Bad for the South, bad for the North, and bad for the climate”

International negotiators are trying to find ways to further the carbon
market in Africa at the November 2006 climate summit in Nairobi. A new
book published this week exposes the dangers and promotes eco-friendly
alternatives.

The book is published by Sweden’s Dag Hammarskjold Foundation together
with the international Durban Group for Climate Justice and the UK-based
NGO The Corner House.

Carbon Trading argues that the Kyoto Protocol and the EU Emissions
Trading Scheme are ineffective and unjust, and that carbon trading is
particularly detrimental to African interests.

Carbon trading ‘dispossesses ordinary people in the South of their lands
and futures without resulting in appreciable progress toward alternative
energy systems,’ said Larry Lohmann of The Corner House, the book’s
editor. ‘Tradable rights to pollute are handed out to Northern industry
to allow them to continue profiting 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.’1

‘This is the most absurd and impossible market human civilization has
ever seen,’ said Indian activist and researcher Soumitra Ghosh, a
contributing author on carbon projects in the South. ‘Carbon trading is
bad for the South, bad for the North, and bad for the climate.’

‘Claims that carbon credits mitigate climate change have not been
verified’, added Jutta Kill of Sinks Watch, another contributor to the
book. Carbon trading impedes positive investment in the South while
thwarting popular movements against subsidies for fossil fuel
extraction, she said.

In detailed case studies from nine Third World countries, the book shows
how carbon offset projects such as those promoted under the Kyoto
Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have had a detrimental
impact on local communities. At the same time, they prolong
industrialized countries’ excessive pollution of the atmosphere.2
Included are projects to ‘offset’ Northern emissions using tree
plantings on contested lands in Uganda and Tanzania.

So far, Africa has been largely left out of the CDM, as carbon project
investment has gravitated to richer developing countries such as China,
India, Brazil and Korea. Yet if more carbon investments are made, the
book argues, the result is likely to be neither climatically effective
nor people-friendly. ‘Carbon trading slows down the social and
technological change needed to cope with global warming by unnecessarily
prolonging the world’s dependence on oil, coal and gas,’ Lohmann said.

Moreover, evidence from South Africa is particularly disturbing, as the
World Bank and large corporations like Sasol demonstrate the
untenability of emissions trading projects, in Durban and Steel Valley.
As major Clean Development Mechanism pilot schemes, a methane extraction
project at Africa’s largest landfill and a Mozambique-SA natural gas
pipeline are flawed beyond repair.

Sajida Khan, a cancer victim who has fought hard against the Durban
project, warns: ‘The poor countries are so poor they will accept crumbs.
The World Bank know this and they are taking advantage of it.’

Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation
and Power is available for download at http://www.dhf.uu.se. A paper
edition will be published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in November.


For further information or interviews:

Larry Lohmann (UK): +44 (0)1258 821218, +44 (0)1258 473795,
larrylohmann@gn.apc.org.
Patrick Bond (South Africa): +27 83 425 1401, pbond@mail.ngo.za.
Timothy Byakola (Uganda): +256 41 342 685, acs@starcom.co.ug.
Rehana Dada (South Africa): rehana@greenit.co.za
Jutta Kill (Germany): +44 7931 576538, jutta@fern.org.
Trusha Reddy (South Africa): trusha.reddy@gmail.com.
Wally Menne (South Africa): plantnet@iafrica.com.
Soumitra Ghosh (India): +91 353 266 1915, soumitrag@gmail.com.
Daphne Wysham (US): +1 301 573 2468 or +1 202 234 9382, ext. 208,
dwysham@seen.org.
Graham Erion (Canada): +1 416 7958044, graham@erion.ca.
Esperanza Martinez (Ecuador): tegantai@oilwatch.org.
Anna Pinto (India): anarchive.anon@gmail.com.
Dr. Michael K. Dorsey (US): +1 734 945 6424, Michael.K.Dorsey@Dartmouth.EDU.
Roy Laifungbam (India): roy.laifungbam@gmail.com.
Tom Goldtooth (US): +1 218 751 4967, ien@igc.org.
Ricardo Carrere (Uruguay): +598 2 413 2989, rcarrere@wrm.org.uy.
Anne Petermann or Orin Langelle (US): +1 802 482 2689,
globalecology@gmavt.net.
Tamra Gilbertson (Spain): +34 685 35 66 95, tamra@tni.org.
Olle Nordberg or Niclas Hallstrom (Sweden): +46 18 10 27 72,
olle.nordberg@dhf.uu.se, niclas.hallstrom@dhf.uu.se.
Javier Baltodano (Costa Rica): licania@racsa.co.cr.
Marcelo Calazans (Brazil): marcelo.fase@terra.com.br.
Adam Ma’anit (UK): adam@carbontradewatch.org.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. Carbon trading has two parts. First, governments hand out free
tradable rights to emit carbon dioxide to big industrial polluters, as
under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Second, companies buy additional
pollution credits from projects in the South that claim to be emitting
less greenhouse gas than they would have without the carbon market
investment.

2. Carbon trading was made the centrepiece of the Kyoto Protocol at the
insistence of the US, which claimed that its trading scheme to reduce
sulphur dioxide emissions had been a great success, and remained in
place after the US pulled out of the treaty. Carbon Trading
demonstrates, however, that the US’s sulphur dioxide scheme was
radically different from the Kyoto Protocol’s trading arrangements and
dealt with a radically different problem.

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