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

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52 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradingInternational Climate Politics: Some Recent Highlights1990: In the wake of warnings from scientists,international support grows for requiringcountries to reduce their greenhousegas emissions to mitigate globalwarming. The US is opposed.1991: The UN Conference on Trade andDevelopment sets up a department ongreenhouse gas emissions trading.1992: The Rio de Janeiro Earth Summitproduces the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change( UNFCCC) to prevent ‘dangerous anthropogenicinterference with the Earth’sclimate system’. The UNFCCC suggests,but does not require, that emissions in2000 not exceed 1990 levels.1994: The UNFCCC enters into force,signed by 153 countries. The Alliance ofSmall Island States, in an attempt to holdsea-level rise to 20 centimetres, demandsthat emissions be cut to 80 per cent of currentlevels by 2005. The US and its alliesreject the idea of cuts, saying that it wouldbe cheaper for them to be allowed to buypermits to pollute in an emissions market.Most EU nations, believing they alreadyhave cost-effective means for domestic reductions,portray the US proposal as an attemptto shirk responsibility.1996: US proposals to avoid reductions bybuying permits from abroad and borrowingagainst future emissions continue to becondemned by the EU, G-77 nations andmost NGOs.1997: The Kyoto Protocol is adopted,binding industrialised countries to limitemissions to approximately 95 per centof 1990 levels by 2008-2012. But Northernpressure, especially from the US, opensloopholes that allow the target to be metpartly by global trading in emissions allowancesand carbon project credits, aswell as growth of domestic forest cover.1998: Increasingly worried about the costsof domestic emissions reductions and, inthe face of industry pressure, unable tomake enough progress on common regulatorypolicies and taxes, 81 the EU beginsto develop an internal emissions tradingscheme. But it insists on limits to globalcarbon trading, demanding that permitsbought in from abroad be used to meetno more than 50 per cent of any country’semissions targets. The US opposesany limits on global trading and threatensto form a pact with Canada, Japan, Australiaand New Zealand to meet all emissionstargets by buying meaningless Russiancredits created by the use of 1990 (beforethe post-Soviet economic collapse) asa ‘baseline year’.1999: The World Bank sets up a PrototypeCarbon Fund (PCF) to generatecheap credits from Southern carbonsavingprojects that can ‘reduce the costsof emissions reductions for industrialisedcountries’. 82 The PCF quickly attracts investmentfrom Mitsubishi, BP, and othercompanies, as well as several governments.The International Emissions TradingAssociation, a corporate lobby group,is established through the cooperation ofUNCTAD and the World Business Councilfor Sustainable Development. 832000: The EU rejects a compromise thatwould have allowed the US limited creditsfor its own forest carbon sinks, allowed
‘made in the usa’ – a short history of carbon trading 53it to buy credits for carbon sinks abroad,lifted the 50 per cent limit on the use oftrading to meet domestic targets, and notpunished it if it failed to meet any targets.European industrialists step up efforts toerode European opposition to unlimitedcarbon trading. Denmark experimentswith domestic carbon dioxide trading.2001: The US withdraws from the KyotoProtocol. With carbon trading freed of thestigma of being associated with US intransigence,the EU reverses its opposition tothe extensive use of trading. 84 Now holdingthe balance of power over whether theProtocol will be ratified, Japan and Russiademand extra carbon credits for their domesticforests. Desperate to hang onto theProtocol as a way of asserting EU leadershipin global climate policy, 85 and alreadycommitted to its own emissions tradingscheme and other climate legislation, theEU capitulates. Most NGOs celebrate anagreement they would have condemned ayear previously, justifying it as a ‘necessarycompromise’. A ‘rule book’ for CDM andother Kyoto Protocol trading mechanismsis adopted after much wrangling, protectingloopholes that essentially cancel outthe Protocol’s minimal emissions cuts.2003: Northeastern states of the US beginto develop a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiativethat would use trading to cut thecosts of a proposed 10 per cent cut in emissionsfrom power plants by 2020.2004: Defying environmentalist objections,the EU decides to allow countries touse credits from carbon projects outside theEU to meet EU emissions targets. 862005: The EU Emissions Trading Schemecomes on line with broad backing fromNGOs. The Kyoto Protocol comes intoforce after being ratified by Russia in 2004,again with broad NGO support. It becomesobvious that many industrialised signatorieswill not meet their 2008-2012 emissionstargets. New procedures are adoptedfor speeding the flow of CDM credits intothe system. Kyoto signatories ‘agree to discuss’emissions targets for the second complianceperiod beyond 2012. Countrieswithout targets such as the US and Chinaagree to a ‘non-binding dialogue’ on theirfuture role in curbing emissions. The USproposes an Asia-Pacific Partnership forClean Development and Climate to seektechnological fixes for global warming.2006: The EU carbon market crashes, duepartly to governments having given theircorporations too many property rights inthe earth’s carbon dumps for the commodityto be sufficiently scarce (see Chapter 3).Projects expected to deliver some 420 milliontonnes of carbon dioxide credits by2012 are registered with the CDM by midyear,injecting still more assets into globalcarbon trading systems.
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PRESS RELEASEContact:Linda Chiavaro
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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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