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

292 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon trading‘consultations’ such as those staged by DSW under World Bank pressuremay be the only ‘substitute for marginalisation’ available. 143Patel also observes, however, that as of 2006 the dump ‘seems to havereceded as a site of struggle’ for Kennedy Road residents, ‘simply becausethere are new places and new ways to fight, and bigger thingsto fight for than the meagre prospect that a family member will get ajob picking garbage on the dump.’ 144In favour of the carbon project, isn’t there also the argument that by extractingmethane, the scheme not only prevents quantities of a powerful greenhouse gasfrom being dispersed in the atmosphere, but also benefi ts local air quality?The project might clear the air, to some degree – although a lot of associatedpollutants would still be released, including carbon monoxideand various hydrocarbons.Clean air, however, is a right South Africans are constitutionallyguaranteed even in the absence of carbon trading schemes. In a sense,therefore, Kyoto commodity production is being staked here to thenon-enforcement of environmental law. DSW, PCF and their consultantsare helping to enclose not only local communities’ air, butalso their future. In the process the World Bank is also underminingits own stated concern with ‘good governance’ and the rule of law,because it’s providing an incentive not to enforce the constitution.What’s the future of the project?Uncertain. Project opponents, backed by sympathisers in a range ofcountries, have definitely had an impact. Sajida Khan and others havefiled formal complaints, citing technical, environmental, health andsocial problems. Several newspaper articles were published on Khanand her struggles, and in November 2004, World Bank staff wereforced to visit Durban to have a look for themselves. In addition, inlate August 2005, DSW submitted a Project Design Document to theCDM Executive Board for two much smaller methane projects at LaMercy and Mariannhill, which together would yield only one- sixtiethof the carbon credits of Bisasar Road. Although the two projects hadpreviously been part of a package including the Bisasar Road scheme,the documents conspicuously avoided mentioning it.‘What are we going todo about carbon trading?Our president [ThaboMbeki] is saying, “Whereis this project? Whereis any project? Where’sanything?” [There is]a big rush to get SouthAfrica on the map. [Yetnow, due to appeals,] thefi rst project in Africa isstopped in its tracks and…literally slipping throughour fi ngers… Japan iscalling me. But I say wehave no project… [The2 per cent of people whoobject] are saying that thisis in my backyard, I can’tthink globally any more…South Africa probablywon’t be able to say thatwe spearheaded the CDMmarket or better still wespearheaded the emissionsreductions market…There is disappointment,but such projects will goon elsewhere, in Brazil orChile or India or Iran orKampala.’Lindsay Strachan,Manager ofEngineering and Projects,Durban Solid WasteAre there other carbon projects afoot in South Africa?Quite a few. One is a project associated with Sasol, a chemicals, miningand synthetic fuels company so huge – with nearly usd 12 billionin assets and usd 1.4 billion in profits in 2004 – that it has a citynamed after it.