Upsetting the Offset - Transnational Institute

Upsetting the Offset
that baseline and not punishing those that do not. At the moment we have
concocted a ‘carbon poverty trap’ whereby a country limits its availability for
getting CDM projects if it improves its emissions reduction policies. A policy
giving credits to countries that improve their policies and enforce them – such
as by strengthening the national building codes – could change that.
Finally, an exciting new instrument is now on the table. Its aim is not to help
rich countries to avoid making sufficient reductions at home but to help finance
voluntary reduction actions in developing countries. The NAMA’s (National
Appropriate Mitigation Action) was introduced by South Korea a couple of
years ago. It is a voluntary system where developing countries can report to a
register which projects they are going to carry out. These NAMA are eligible for
up front support from credit-short rich countries which in turn are able to
purchase credits achieved by documented resulting reductions.
Let this book bring home to the world the huge problems created by the
CDM and spur the effort to reform it. We must get away from business as usual
in the way the CDM works. Just as importantly, let it be remembered that CDM
can only be one aspect of the architecture of managing climate change. We must
also continue to work on real sustainable development involving changes in
lifestyle, production forms, housing, transportation, forestry and agriculture.
Instead of offsetting its responsibilities, the richer countries need to take a lead
in bringing about real changes at home. This is their historical duty, given that
they are mostly responsible for creating the problem of climate change in the
first place. But of course there is no point for the rich world to clean up its act,
if the developing world just reproduces a development model that literally will
‘cost the earth’.
My hope is that the Copenhagen conference will bring the world closer
together and back on a track that leads us not to chaos, but to a brighter, more
equitable and sustainable future.
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