Clean Development Mechanism
ECI lead researcher: Dr Emily Boyd | e:emily.boyd@ouce.ox.ac.uk
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was created through the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as one of the mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gasses in the developing world. The CDM is a project-based approach to reducing emissions, where credits are awarded to projects which remove emissions from the atmosphere.
It was anticipated from the beginning that the CDM would create sustainable development benefits for developing nations. Expectations were high of the billions of euros expected to flow from the global North to South through the CDM, generating substantial new development and a new impulse for environmental protection there.
ECI are involved in a number of research projects reviewing the functioning of the CDM market. In October 2007, Dr Emily Boyd lead authored a report on the CDM market and how it could be reformed post 2012 (The end of the first Kyoto period). The Report reviews the success of the current CDM structure in meeting the sustainable development goals as set out by the Kyoto Protocol. Uniquely this work was a collaboration between ECI, The Tyndall Centre and EcoSecurities, a leading project developer in carbon management. The collaboration enabled insights into the complex intricacies of the functioning of the CDM in practice.
The report makes a number of conclusions about the CDM as an effective new mechanism for reducing emissions. It also proposes that projects are biased towards large nations like India, China and Brazil, with little money going into Africa. The report also looks post 2012 and makes suggestions for changes to help ensure more widespread fulfillment of sustainable development criteria.
Earlier in 2007 ECI hosted a workshop related to the commodification of carbon, to review the ethics of creating markets from nature. The full report on this conference can be read online.
Links:
- Boyd, E., et al. (2007) The Clean Development Mechanism: An assessment of current practice and future approaches for policy. Tyndall Centre Working Paper 114, October 2007
- Conference: Commodifying Carbon: The Ethics of Markets in Nature
Related projects at ECI
- Theorising the Carbon Economy: Carbon Markets for Development
- Transforming Governance and Adaptation to Sustainable Futures
- Climate Change, Development, and Resilience
Further related published and in review publications by Dr Emily Boyd in 2007.
- Boyd, E. (in review) Scalar approaches in the new carbon economy: deliberating the social consequences of carbon sequestration programmes. Environment and Planning A.
- Boyd, E., Hultman, N. et al. (in review) Governing CDM for sustainable development: Lessons learned and future prospects. Environmental Science and Policy.
- Boyd, E. (in review) Governing carbon markets for development: lessons from a carbon sequestration project in Bolivian Amazonia Development and Change.
- Boyd, E. Corbera, E., Kjellen, B., Gutierrez M., Estrada M., (in review). UNFCCC negotiations (pre-Kyoto to COP-9): What the process says about the politics of sinks and CDM International Environmental Agreements.
- Boyd, E. (in review) On the road to carbon governance: Exploring scale challenges in the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project in Bolivia. Global Environmental Change.
- Boyd, E., May P., Veiga, F., Chang, M. 2007. Can the CDM bring sustainable development? Insights from carbon forestry projects in Brazil and Bolivia. Environmental Science and Policy 10 (5): 419-433.
- Boyd, E, Gutierrez, M and Chang, M. 2007. Small-scale forest carbon projects: Adapting CDM to low-income communities, Global Environmental Change 17 (2): 250-259.