Aid, the Clean Development Mechanism and Some Open Questions
An Article for Development Today

India is a world leader in hosting "carbon-saving" Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, which sell licenses to pollute to Northern industry under the Kyoto Protocol. The country has hundreds of such projects, generating millions of carbon credits and hundreds of millions of dollars in national income.

Indian industry loves the schemes, as this article originally published in Development Today notes. But do they either mitigate climate change or provide sustainable development? Polluting industries that install "efficiency" equipment continue to destroy local livelihoods and violate local rights from Gujarat to Chhatisgarh. In Maharashtra, corporate-owned wind turbines destroy village pastures and agricultural lands. In Uttaranchal, "small" CDM hydropower projects vie with big dams in displacing people from their fields and homes. Do CDM and other carbon projects really mean anything more than the usual blatant corporate profiteering, aided by governments and donor agencies?

Related articles of interest:

• Carbon Trading How It Works and Why It Fails
• A Death in Durban Capitalist Patriarchy, Global Warming Gimmickry and our Responsibility for Rubbish
• The CO2 Alibi (video)
• Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold? REDD with Carbon Trading
• Mausam The Inaugural Issue of an Indian Climate Change Magazine
• Carbon Trading A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power
• Pictures from the Carbon "Offset" Market
• Pictures from the Carbon "Offset" Market: Part 2