CDM in China: promoting development?
Clean Development Mechanism should be a great alternative to comply with emissions reduction obligations under the Kyoto protocol for Annex I countries, while promoting sustainable development where most needed.
Fundamental condition for projects to be applied are consequently the impossibility of “self-development” for the host country at the same conditions offered by the project (principle of additionality) and the assurance of improving development conditions, globally and locally where the project is implemented.
Such conditions in my opinion are at least doubtful in the Fujian Niutoushan Hydropower Project, promoted by VITOL S.A, Switzerland, and hosted by China. The project involve the construction of a 100MW Hydropower plant, which involve a dam to gain pressure for the turbines to run efficiently.
More obvious doubt come up considering that China to me looks very promising in its own possibility to design and implement hydropower project, both economically and technologically. Just to give a figure, in the year of project implementation, “China was the largest hydropower producer and is expected to continue to lead global hydro use in the coming years”(World Watch Institute). Actually China is having an impressive boom in capacity added by renewables, with hydropower accounting for an additional 16 GW in 2010, expected to be plus 140 GW by 2015.
Moreover, Hydropower is well known to be among the cheapest forms of producing energy, being already competitive against fossils fuels power plants.
In terms of economic development, the impact of the project in the region is practically null, as it is experiencing alone a great development (+12% in 2010), with plenty of foreign enterprises already investing in the area and with a big share occupied by technology firms. Also the GDP per capita is above the average in China.
When considering social development, it appears difficult to believe that a technology among the cheapest in term of maintenance costs can assure long term employment in the area, not to mention that construction phases usually create more distress than benefits as the big amount of people employed are cast-off after few months.
Additionally (and practically in all CDM projects), the reservation about the use of the revenues by the recipient company (or government) remains unsolved: there are no tracking mechanisms assuring that the money won’t be used in unsustainable projects.
A last consideration about the carbon credits transferred thanks to the tonnes of CO2e avoided: there is no understandable reason to my view to assign credits for a period of 7 years (as stated by the PDD of the project), as the scenario of CO2 emissions from energy sector can totally change during the considered period, given China’s potential.
An interesting summary about CDM risks is provided by the following video:
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13 Feb 2012
por
Francesco Mazzeo
IMSD /
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