by Zembla (The Netherlands)
presentation | published August 2008 | summary | full document
Exploring both ends of the carbon market through research and interviews in Uganda and The Netherlands, this video (available in Portuguese and English versions) brings new clarity to the debate over climate change solutions.
by Larry Lohmann
article | published June 2008 | summary | PDF
Carbon trading programmes such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Kyoto Protocol have helped mobilize neoclassical economics and development planning in new projects of dispossession, speculation, rent-seeking and the redistribution of wealth from poor to rich and from the future to the present. Part of this process is the creation of ignorance, argues this article forthcoming in the journal Development.
by Larry Lohmann
talk | published April 2008 | full document
A discussion hosted by the Climate Justice Chicago Coalition at De Paul University examines how carbon trading creates transferable rights to dump carbon, slows social and technological change, promotes socially and ecologically destructive practices and is ineffective and unjust. This TV programme was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).
by Larry Lohmann
article | published February 2008 | summary | full document | PDF
Al Gore and many other mainstream environmentalists suggest that calculating and internalizing 'externalities' is the solution to environmental problems. Some critics counter that the spread of market-like calculations into 'nonmarket' spheres is itself a cause of environmental problems. In the course of a study of two real-world examples, carbon accounting and cost-benefit analysis, this article (forthcoming in Accounting, Organizations and Society) proposes a possible way of getting beyond this stalled debate.
by Larry Lohmann
talk | published March 2008 | summary | PDF
Carbon trading proponents often assert that trading is merely a way of finding the most cost-effective means of reaching an emissions goal and a source of funding that leaves everything else exactly as it is. In fact, carbon trading undermines a number of existing and proposed positive measures for tackling climate change
by Larry Lohmann
talk | published February 2008 | full document
by Patrick Bond
article | published December 2007 | summary | PDF
The passing of Durban environmentalist Sajida Khan calls attention to the life-and-death consequences of the climate justice struggle. If South Africans are to be at the cutting edge of progressive climate activism, not partners in the privatization of the atmosphere, three citizens' networks -- environmentalists, community groups, and trade unions -- must join forces to identify the contradictions within both South African and global energy sector policies and practices and help synthesize modes of resistance.
by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada
article | published October 2007 | summary | PDF
Sajida Khan, an environmental activist based in Durban, South Africa, who died in July 2007, dedicated her life to fighting international corporations and local municipalities over the pollution and environmental degradation of her community. An interview with Khan about her views on environmental justice and possible ways forward to create healthier livelihoods is included.
by Larry Lohmann
presentation | published September 2007 | summary | PDF
Featuring photographs by Tamra Gilbertson, Nishant Male and Franceso Zizola, this slide show continues the series portraying the practical, on-the-ground effects of the trade in carbon credits through the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism and the voluntary "offset" market.
by Kevin Smith
article | published September 2007 | summary | PDF
Carbon trading, its backers claim, reduces emissions and brings sustainable development in the global South. But in fact it may do neither, and is harming efforts to create a low-carbon economy. A Chinese version is appended.
by Soumitra Ghosh
article | published May 2007 | summary | PDF
The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism is claimed to "promote sustainable development" in the South at the same time it gives Northern industries licenses to continue polluting. But the skepticism with which countries with colonial pasts have always viewed such "aid" is also warranted here.
by Susan Hawley
paper | published February 2006 | summary | full document | PDF
The OECD Working Group on Bribery's reviews of how countries are implementing the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention are an invaluable source of information about practice in different countries in combating bribery. This paper pulls together all the Group's comments and recommendations about public procurement, and summarises the procedures countries have developed to exclude companies convicted of bribery from public procurement.
by Susan Hawley for ECA-Watch
submission | published March 2006 | summary | full document | PDF
The OECD's Working Group on Bribery regard ECAs as essential to combating bribery and believe that ECA procedures to do so could be significantly improved. The Group's reviews of various OECD countries emphasise the importance of ECAs having proper procedures in place to detect and report bribery suspicions to law enforcement agencies, and to exclude companies convicted of corruption from further export credit support.
by The Corner House, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), WWF-UK
submission | published February 2006 | summary | PDF
Any ECGD support for the Anglo-Dutch petrochemical multinational Shell to develop two oil and gas fields off Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East would breach international guidelines and conflict with the UK's sustainable development commitments and its international environmental obligations.
by Susan Hawley
submission | published December 2005 | summary | full document | PDF
There need to be considerable improvements to the UK's enforcement regime to combat corruption and money laundering. Laws on non tax-deductibility of bribes are not being adequately enforced. The UK government should take further measures to raise awareness of bribery; introduce preventative measures and new corruption legislation; and establish a fair and workable debarment system.
by Susan Hawley
presentation | published November 2005 | summary | full document | PDF
Northern institutions have a significant impact on corruption in developing countries, particularly in the form of bribery by Northern companies and money laundering by Northern banks of the proceeds of corruption. Northern states have been directly and indirectly complicit in these activities, primarily by turning a blind eye and failing to take action. If corruption is be tackled internationally, the Northern state itself needs to be redesigned.
by Nicholas Hildyard, The Corner House, UK; and Eliah Gilfenbaum, Environmental Defense, USA
paper | published September 2005 | summary | full document | PDF
This paper documents new subsidies that ECAs may give for large dams; evaluates the accompanying standards that ECAs may require for dam projects; and identifies future ECA actions if funding for dams is not to have negative environmental and social impacts.
by Kerim Yildiz, Kurdish Human Rights Project, and Nicholas Hildyard, The Corner House
article | published June 2004 | summary | full document
Since October 2000, the UK Export Credits Guarantees Department (ECGD) has been bound by the UK Human Rights Act. But many of the ECGD's procedures potentially conflict with this Act.
by Sumati Nair and Preeti Kirbat with Sarah Sexton
briefing | published June 2004 | summary | full document | PDF
This briefing evaluates the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development. It assesses several processes that affect women's reproductive and sexual rights and health: the decline and collapse in health services; neo-liberal economic policies and religious fundamentalisms; and development policies underpinned by neo-Malthusianism.
by Export Credits Guarantee Department
- | published March 2004 | summary | PDF
In response to a Freedom of Information request from The Corner House, the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) released a letter it had written on 4 March 2004 to the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company confirming that it had approved conditional support for several UK contracts for the Sakhalin II project.
by Dr Susan Hawley
article | published June 2003 | summary | full document | PDF
Institutional practices within the taxpayer-funded UK Export Credits Guarantee Department have exacerbated bribery and corruption by Western companies.
by Michael Bartlet, Religious Society of Friends
article | published May 2002 | summary | full document
The ECGD's support for defence-related exports has lost money every year for the past 12 years. This strongly suggests that arms sales are being deliberately subsidised.
by Rob Cartridge, Campaigns Director, War on Want
article | published May 2002 | summary | full document
Protecting workers' rights is central to alleviating poverty. The UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) should require all applicants to have policies for achieving core labour standards.
by Kate Hampton, Friends of the Earth
seminar | published May 2002 | summary | full document
In 2001, governments agreed that export credit agencies should support the transfer of climate-friendly technologies. Urgent institutional reform is needed if Britain is to fulfil its commitment.
by Dr Susan Hawley, The Corner House
seminar | published May 2002 | summary | full document
The UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) has a long record of backing corrupt projects. New vetting procedures have loopholes, leaving the ECGD open to charges of complicity in corruption.
by Barry Coates and Daniela Reale, World Development Movement
seminar | published May 2002 | summary | full document
The UK government's Export Credits Guarantees Department (ECGD) supports British exporters. Using public money to support private businesses is only justified if it has a demonstrable public purpose.
by Ann Feltham, Campaign Against Arms Trade
seminar | published May 2002 | summary | full document
Arms sales currently take up a disproportionate amount of official export credit support. The Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) and other Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) should end support for military goods.
by Romilly Greenhill and Ann Petifor, Jubilee Research
seminar | published May 2002 | summary | full document
Export Credit Agencies have created unsustainable debt in developing countries. Despite reforms, arms sales and other ECA-backed deals continue build up debt without contributing to development.
by Global Witness
presentation | published May 2002 | summary | full document
Publicly-traded companies involved in resource exploitation should be required to publish a breakdown of all payments which they make for the products of every country in which they operate.
by Sean Scannell, The Ilisu Dam Campaign
report | published May 2002 | summary | full document
Summary of NGO seminar held in UK parliament to discuss Export Credit Agency reform.
by The Corner House
submission | published December 2000 | summary | full document
by Nicholas Hildyard
presentation | published 18-20 October 2000 | summary | full document
by Concerned NGOs
note | published July 2000 | summary | full document
by Nicholas Hildyard
article | published 30 May - 2 June 2000 | summary | full document
“Moral dilemmas” are not unattached to political, bureaucratic, social and economic interests. They are deeply political and are products of everyday conflicts over meaning, resources and ways of living and power. Who raises a particular moral dilemma and why is thus of critical importance.
by Nicholas Hildyard
briefing | published June 1999 | summary | full document
Projects backed by export credit agencies are frequently environmentally destructive, socially oppressive or financially unviable. It is the poorest in these countries who end up paying the bill. With rare exceptions, the major ECAs lack mandatory environmental and development standards, and are secretive and unaccountable.
by Larry Lohmann
briefing | published August 1998 | summary | full document
by Larry Lohmann
article | published March 1998 | summary | full document
All development projects follow a three-act dramatic plotline, as development agencies try to impose plans, meet local opposition, and improvise freely in an attempt to overcome resistance.
by Nicholas Hildyard
seminar | published 1996 | summary | full document