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

offsets – the fossil economy’s new arena of conflict 297But surely there must be more encouraging examples somewhere that can pointa way forward for the carbon market.Well, there are plenty of positive initiatives in all the countries mentionedin this chapter. Costa Rica has stopped oil exploration in sensitiveareas. Indian groups are organising to stop sponge iron productionacross four states. Thai villagers are working against coal-firedpower plants.The trouble is that such initiatives exist in opposition, as it were, tothe carbon credit market, which is designed to extend fossil fuel use.If you look for ‘alternatives’ within the CDM and the carbon ‘offset’market, you’re likely to be repeatedly disappointed.Let’s nail down this point by looking at one final South African CDMproject – probably as good a carbon project as you’re likely to see anywhere.This is the Kuyasa low-cost housing energy upgrade project.Certified by the CDM Executive Board on 27 August 2005, Kuyasais the first Gold Standard project in the world to generate certifiedemissions reductions credits and has been widely applauded both nationallyand internationally.There! That’s the sort of example I want to know about. Tell me more.Well, I’m not sure you’ll want to hear it. What Kuyasa shows, in theend, is that such ‘good’ schemes are unlikely to survive in the carboncredit market and seem virtually incompatible with it.How do you fi gure that?Well, let’s go over the history of the project and its virtues first.Planning for the Kuyasa scheme, located in a neighbourhood inthe township of Khayelitsha outside of Cape Town, got underwayin 2002. Its pilot phase, launched in July 2003, involved retrofittingeight Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) homesand two crèches with insulated ceilings (where there would normallyjust be a corrugated steel roof), replacing regular lighting with lowwattcompact florescent bulbs, and installing solar water heaters onthe roofs. Partly because residents would have used grid electricity toheat their water in the absence of the solar heaters, the project is heldto reduce demand for coal-fired electricity. The claim is that in total,2.85 tonnes less CO 2 are generated per household per year as a resultof the project. The project’s next phase will see the target group expandfrom 10 to 2,309 RDP homes throughout Kuyasa.The scheme’s pilot phase has been a source of great pride for theproject developers – the city of Cape Town and SSN – as well as its