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

offsets – the fossil economy’s new arena of conflict 307impacts that Plantar and its activities have caused… [W]e want to preventthese impacts and construct a society with an economic policythat includes every man and woman, preserving and recovering ourenvironment. 191In the face of all this opposition, how does the project go forward?The scheme probably couldn’t have got off the ground without thehelp and sponsorship of the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) of theWorld Bank, which would feed any credits it generates to its roster ofNorthern corporate and government clients. Plantar was the Bank’sfirst carbon sink project and the Bank expected it to ‘prepare theground for similar projects in the future’. 192 Plantar’s carbon schemealso gains legitimacy from the involvement of the FSC, as do similarschemes in Ecuador and Uganda (see ‘From the Netherlands to theAndes – A tale from Ecuador’ and ‘The story continues – carbon forestryin Uganda’).What if Plantar can’t deliver the credits? Suppose the plantation burns downor the project verifi ers fi nd problems with the carbon accounting?One of the buyers of Plantar’s carbon credits, The Netherlands, insiststhat if more than 30 per cent of its credits are delivered late, Plantarwill have to pay a penalty. The World Bank would get off withoutpaying anything.But doesn’t the involvement of the World Bank, as an internationally reputabledevelopment institution, at least guarantee certain environmental standards andprovide safeguards against abuse of local people?On the contrary. Many local people feel that the Bank’s involvementmerely legitimises environmental damage and the intimidation thatPlantar uses to control local people – intimidation which, as in Thailand,is nowhere acknowledged in carbon project documents.Many local residents are afraid to let interviewers cite their names.Some receive death threats. When a representative of the Rural Unionof Workers of Curvelo went to the climate negotiations in Milan inDecember 2003 to raise awareness about the negative environmentaland social effects of Plantar’s operations (which won a special ironicNGO award there for ‘worst CDM sinks project’), the company’s directorsbullied other union members into signing a letter of supportfor the company, threatening massive layoffs if carbon credits werenot forthcoming. (One longstanding union opponent of the expansionof eucalyptus plantations in Minas Gerais did manage to insertthe legible notation ‘under pressure’ beside her signature.)