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C O V E RDurban’s climate zombie trippedby dying carbon marketsBasing the Green Climate Fund on market mechanisms, specifically carbonmarkets, is a recipe for disaster, says Patrick Bond.LOOKING back now that the dust hassettled, South Africa’s COP 17 presidencyappears disastrous. This wasconfirmed not only by Durban’s delayed,diplomatically decrepit denouement,but by plummeting carbonmarkets in the days immediately followingthe conference’s ignoble endon 11 December.Of course it is tempting to ignorethe stench of failure and declare Durban‘an outstanding success’, as didSouth African Environment MinisterEdna Molewa. ‘We have significantlystrengthened the international adaptationagenda,’ she explained aboutthe near-empty Green Climate Fund.‘The design of the fund includes innovativemechanisms for bringingprivate sector and market mechanismsinto play to increase the potential flowof funding into climate change responses.’Because the $100 billion promisedby Hillary Clinton in Copenhagentwo years ago is apparently fictional(aside from minor commitmentsby South Korea, Germany andDenmark), Molewa’s two crucial albeitunintended words are ‘play’ and‘potential.’ In our new book, Durban’sClimate Gamble: Trading Carbon,Betting the Earth, critical researchersshow why emissions markets are ascomatose as the Kyoto Protocol. Onlya casino drunkard would put money– much less the planet – on the oddsof a deathbed resurrection.Bolivia’s former UN ambassadorPablo Solon scolded the hosts forturning Kyoto into a ‘zombie, a soullessundead.’ The 1997 treaty’s soulwas a commitment that emissions cutswould be binding, but several of therichest polluting countries – the US,Canada, Japan, Russia, Australia andNew Zealand – won’t sign on to thesecond commitment period. To sabotageKyoto, Washington continues itsvoluntary ‘pledge and review’ policypantomime. Kyoto’s original braincontained a species survival mechanism:a pledge to keep the earth’s temperatureat a livable level. Now, theDurban Platform contains less thanhalf of the necessary cuts to keep thetemperature increase below 2°C, saysSolon.CDM scamAs the soul-deprived, braindead,heartless climate-policy zombiestumbled off the Durban Platform inthe direction of Qatar for COP 18 nextyear, it immediately tripped on thecrumpled carbon markets. The emissionstrade is failing not only in Europebut also in our own Durbanbackyard. An Africa Report investigationunveiled South Africa’s highest-profilepilot Clean DevelopmentMechanism (CDM) project as a scam.At Bisasar Road landfill in theClare Estate neighbourhood, theR100+ million methane-to-electricityCDM project was despised becauseit kept the continent’s largest officialdump open far beyond the point itshould have been closed. Instead ofbeing burned and flared on-site, methanegas from Bisasar’s rotting rubbishshould have been piped out for industrialuse, far away from residentialareas, according to the late communityactivist Sajida Khan. Before dyingof cancer caused by the dump in2007, she tirelessly campaigned toclose Bisasar dump and thus end oneof Africa’s most notorious cases ofenvironmental racism.Khan failed, because in 2001 theWorld Bank promised funding formethane extraction that would keepthe dump operational. The crucial factor,according to Durban officials, isthat ‘landfill gas offers a viable renewableenergy source only when linkedto carbon finance or the CDM.’Based on the assumption thatwithout outside funds, the projectcould not be justified, in 2006 theUnited Nations listed Bisasar Road asan active supplier of CDM creditsthrough at least 2014. It turns out thiswas a fib. On an official tour ofBisasar on 30 November, journalistsfrom Africa Report and San Francisco-basedPacifica News interviewedDurban Solid Waste managerJohn Parkin, who admitted, ‘Westarted the project prior to the CDM.We were already down the road. It justmade it come faster because the fundingwas there.’Why is this scandalous? AfricaReport interprets: ‘It is questionableas to whether the project should havebeen approved as a CDM initiative atall, as approval requires the existenceof “additionality”. According to theUN, “Additionality is the cornerstoneof any credible CDM project, basicallyanswering the question whethera project is additional, or would it proceedanyway, without the CDM.” Thatis, without qualification as anadditionality, the [project] shouldn’tbe approved [under the CDM].’Parkin confirmed to the journalists,‘We already started the projectand we were going ahead no matterwhat. So whether CDM became a realityor not, the project was going togo ahead.’Crashing carbon marketsSuch a whimsical approach toclimate finance is why hopes byMolewa for filling the Green ClimateFund with carbon trade revenues willbe dashed. CDM trading volumes aredown 80% from their 2007 peak, andTHIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 255/25651