A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

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162 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradinghave undermined the possibility of generating CDM credits through‘avoided deforestation’, the existence of the bars was referred to onlyin a footnote. When delegates discovered that the IPCC panel hadchanged already-approved estimates regarding sequestration by factorsof up to 10 times in a way that made biotic carbon sequestrationseem more plausible, panel chair Robert T. Watson offered the excuseof a ‘simple typing mistake’. Throughout, IPCC scientists have beencareful to avoid putting themselves in a position in which they mightbe forced to assess carefully the threat various risks and uncertaintiespose to the Kyoto market’s accounting system. 362 The carbon-tradingtail was wagging the scientific dog.The wagging has continued. Recently, several European governments,desperate for cheap credits, have let slip that they plan to tryto allow carbon sink credits back into the EU ETS. In addition, carbonsink credits continue to be popular in the voluntary market. Andthere has recently also been a renewed push to include forest conservationprojects in the CDM. 363‘The Kyoto Protocolto the UN FrameworkConvention on ClimateChange may be themost important economicagreement penned in the20th century.’Aaron Cosbey,Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs,LondonBut maybe these governments and their expert advisers just don’t understandthe issues.It’s unlikely that’s the entire explanation. 364 Trading advocates such asMichael Grubb are very clear that it is ‘impossible’ to measure or definethe climatic difference between with- and without-project scenarios.It’s just that they later backtrack to the position that it’s merely‘difficult’. 365 In this same way, another expert admitted that carbonsavings ‘cannot be measured’ only later to slip into the claim that ‘accurate’or ‘inaccurate’ measurements can be made. 366Baselines that are at first admitted to be ‘inherently impossible to verify’are often then treated as merely imprecise, with error bars of, say,‘45 per cent in either direction’ that can be ‘managed’ by ‘putting inplace safeguards and taking a conservative approach’. 367 In 2003, carbonproject proponents were forced to admit that some projects thathad been CDM candidates – and rejected for being business as usual– were indeed going forward without carbon money. The responsefrom some trading proponents was that even if such projects were notbusiness as usual ‘at the time of application,’ perhaps they became solater – or that perhaps it was only initial CDM interest that enabledthem to find the finance that allowed them to proceed.Similarly, many carbon consultants at first denied the need to quantifysocially-mediated carbon effects of CDM projects, or protestedthat it was ‘not their job’ to do so. 368 Others tried to float the ideathat (for example) the indirect and long-range effects of establishing
lessons unlearned 163subtropical carbon plantations on timberland management in temperateregions could be satisfactorily quantified years in advance. 369 TheIPCC’s panel on land use once tied itself in knots trying to figureout how carbon credits might be given out for good conservationistpolicies. Eventually the panel decided that since ‘quantifying theimpact of policies themselves is unlikely to be feasible’, measurementattempts should confine themselves to the apparently easier task offinding out how much carbon is taken up in specific projects. This, ofcourse, landed them back in trouble, since the emissions baseline ofany given project will vary under different policies.But surely reality must be catching up with these fantasies of quantifying theunquantifi able?Yes, but it’s taking a while. Because the job of measuring the climaticbenefits of carbon-saving projects is permanently impossible, themore seriously experts try to carry it out, the more complicated andfanciful – and hard to untangle – their techniques get. 370 Like roguetrader Nick Leeson trying to cover his tracks at Barings Bank, carbonconsultants pile complexity on complexity in an ultimately fruitlessattempt to evade the inevitable reckoning. That, of course, jacks upthe ‘transaction costs’ of doing the projects. 371Sequestering Carbon or Fiddling Data?In 2005, a template document for BioCarbonFundproject developers to use to estimatesequestration rates was posted onthe World Bank’s carbon finance website.Examples were helpfully provided to illustratehow to fill in certain fields.In the field ‘contact (preferably email)’ appearedthe sample entry‘fred@data_fiddling_Inc.jail.com’.Small projects lose outThe escalation of transaction costs is one reason that communityfriendlyrenewable-energy carbon projects that generate few creditslose out. Particularly threatened are CDM projects attempting tocompensate for less than 50,000 tonnes of CO 2 -equivalent emissionsper year. 372 Transaction costs for some prospective micro-schemeswould run to a prohibitive several hundred Euros per tonne of CO 2equivalent, at a time when the average price of CDM credits is runningat less than €7.
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PRESS RELEASEContact:Linda Chiavaro
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ContentsEditorial note 2Chapter 1 I
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editorial note 3in Dorset, UK - poi
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6 development dialogue september 20
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Chapter 2‘Made in the USA’A sho
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‘made in the usa’ - a short his
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Chapter 5Ways forwardIn which the c
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ways forward 331‘Tinkering around
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ways forward 333suggests that the
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ways forward 335more stringent than
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ways forward 337Unlike carbon tradi
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ways forward 339hold little appeal
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ways forward 341Waiting their Chanc
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ways forward 343ways - many of whic
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ways forward 345energy - loan benef
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ways forward 347From an Open Letter
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ways forward 349be answered in the
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ways forward 351rogated by Indian v
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ways forward 353argue, they’ve he
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ways forward 355‘The US alone acc
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appendix - the durban declaration o
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appendix - the durban declaration o
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A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

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