Earth Equity News

U.N. Clean Development Mechanism Provides Carbon Credits and Many Problems. By Joe McDonald and Charles J. Hanley, AP, January 25, 2009. "The hydroelectric dam, a low wall of concrete slicing across an old farming valley, is supposed to help a power company in distant Germany contribute to saving the climate -- while putting lucrative -- carbon credits- into the pockets of Chinese developers. But in the end the new Xiaoxi dam may do nothing to lower global-warming emissions as advertised. And many of the 7,500 people displaced by the project still seethe over losing their homes and farmland... The dam will shortchange German consumers, Chinese villagers and the climate itself, if critics are right. And Xiaoxi is not alone. Similar stories are repeated across China and elsewhere around the world, as hundreds of hydro projects line up for carbon credits, at a potential cost of billions to Europeans, Japanese and soon perhaps Americans, in a trading system a new U.S. government review concludes has 'uncertain effects' on greenhouse-gas emissions. One American expert is more blunt. 'The CDM (the 4-year-old, U.N.-managed Clean Development Mechanism) is an excessive subsidy that represents a massive waste of developed world resources,' says Stanford University's Michael Wara."