What's CDM about?

What's CDM about?

CDM is not about a financial mechanism. It is about finding real and workable answers to climate change, increasingly threatening our world. But the current cdm design--deliberate and purposeful--has been to make it a bilateral business deal between two self-interested players. This has made cdm what it is today--a cheap and corrupt development mechanism.

Unfortunate. cdm can be a mechanism for real and tangible change--both in the developing South and the industrialised North. Combating the threat of climate change requires cooperation. Developing countries need technological and financial space to make the transition to cleaner energy. But not through short-term, meaningless deals.

Thus, it is clear that cdm will have to be reformed.
Firstly, the rules of the game need to be changed so that there is far more accountability and transparency in the governance of this mechanism. The price has to be openly negotiated; the role of different players has to be clarified, and penalties decided for consultants and designated operational entities that commit fraud.

It is particularly important governments demand clarification of their roles. Otherwise, they will be endorsing dubious deals. They need to take more charge.

Secondly, the South must change energy use and leapfrog over the energy-wasteful and polluting route of the North. But this will require policy and directions. It is ridiculous how current cdm rules tie themselves into knots defining additionality, so that it practically drives governments to do little. cdm, to be a driver of change, has to be built as a supportive mechanism to the policy and legal framework of each country. It cannot work against it. Governments have to demand cdm is subservient to them, not a parallel, mercenary process.

Thirdly, all this requires real discussion on price. Everything done to make cdm complicated and so corrupt has been done to keep the price cheap. Climate change will require structural changes in the North, which it has found impossible to do. Annex 1 countries (industrialised countries with emission reduction commitments) are behind on their targets. Little has been done to bring shifts in the longer-term emission trends.

What is needed, therefore, is to make cdm even more meaningful in this context. The North must do more to make changes in its countries. But it can also do more to make cdm work for both North and South.

Currently, cdm is only for a commitment period which ends in 2012. This does not allow for long-term projects to be conceptualised, and the price to be fixed to make these projects viable. It is therefore imperative that the industrialsed North must decide on the next commitment period so that cdm can be reworked for real changes.

It is also clear the South must not take on any commitments in this Kyoto-2 period. This phase belongs to the big polluters -- the usa and Australia. But what the South can certainly contribute to is in mitigating deadly greenhouse gas emissions. It can do this by ensuring that cdm is used for carefully constructed policy change that has enough regulatory teeth to ensure cdm truly benefits a nation. It can and must do its bit. What it needs is a little bit of help from its friends. 12jav.net12jav.net