Katy Yan's blog

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is meant to catalyze climate-friendly and sustainable projects in low-income countries. Instead, it's provided massive subsidies to hydropower developers while increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Through deception and abuse of the system, at least two-thirds of all CDM projects are likely not additional, and more are slipping in each year. 

In an attempt to cure its ills during the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the CDM Executive Board has initiated a year-long policy dialogue. Having failed to reach any decisions about reform at Durban, the CDM policy panel members will examine unresolved issues ranging from stronger rules for public participation to an appeals procedure. Of particular concern to the global movement for rivers is ensuring that the CDM imposes greater limitations on large hydropower projects, which are more likely to create enormous environmental and social problems for local communities than smaller community-driven decentralized projects.

EU demonstration (knowledge.allianz.com)

Durban is over, the delegates have all either gone home or are enjoying the sunny South African weather, and serious actions to curb rising emissions have again been shunted down the road. (You can read more about the results at Durban on our colleague Payal Parekh's blog.) However, progress is being made on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – albeit slowly – to address some of its most serious flaws, including how to deal with non-additional, "hot air" projects in the world's largest emissions trading scheme, the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

Increase of credits from large hydro expected by 2020

A new study released in time for the climate negotiations in Durban confirms that over 20% of all carbon credits under the UN's offsetting scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), could come from business-as-usual large hydropower projects. This is not surprising considering that hydropower is heavily supported and subsidized in many countries, especially in China and India, who host a combined 78% of all the registered hydropower projects in the CDM. Large hydro projects are projected to generate 2 billion carbon credits by 2020, which could be a lot of hot air.

Nam Leuk Reservoir, an ADB-funded project (China International Water & Electricity Corp)

The international team of researchers spent two years measuring the greenhouse gas emissions from two sub-tropical reservoirs in Laos, the Nam Ngum and the Nam Leuk reservoirs (the latter of which diverts water from the Nam Leuk River to the Nam Ngum Reservoir). What they found was that at Nam Leuk, "GHG emissions are still significant 10 years after impoundment" and that the emissions values were comparable to other tropical reservoirs. The annual carbon export (including both diffusion into the atmosphere from the reservoir and from downstream) amounted to about 2.2 ±1.0 gigagrams of carbon per year. While much less than a coal-fired power plant, this is still roughly equal to the emissions from the electricity use of over a thousand US homes, which is far from insignificant.

Gaming the environment (Friends of the Earth)

As Wall Street and the EU continue to reel under the crisis brought on by the financial deregulation of global markets, a recent report on the EU's carbon market shows just how far these (mal)practices have spread. 

"Letting the market play: corporate lobbying and the financial regulation of EU carbon trading," co-produced by Carbon Trade Watch and Corporate Europe Observatory, reveals how under-regulation in a market mechanism meant to reduce global carbon emissions led to fraud and over-speculation. The EU is currently changing its rules in response, but corporate lobbies continue to try to influence this process. Ultimately, the author Oscar Reyes concludes that such reforms are bound to fall short, since they attempt to "regulate the unregulatable."

A recent WikiLeaks cable from the US Consulate in Mumbai provides irrefutable evidence that carbon credits generated by Indian projects and sold to European countries under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are a lot of hot air. 

It reports on a seminar in 2008 with the US Consulate General Office, analysts from the Government Accountability Office (which later released a critical report on offsets), and the executives of top Indian companies. The cable notes that these companies "conceded that no Indian project could meet the 'additionality in investment criteria' to be eligible for carbon credits."

Desiree Tullos explaining the IDAM at the Woodrow Wilson Center

Catching the tail end of the DC heat wave at the end of July, I attended two events hosted by the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Both events included a presentation and demonstration of the IDAM, or the Integrative Dam Assessment Modeling tool, and its application in southwest China.

(untitled) from the series, Shifting Territories. 91x52" oil, 2011 (Jennifer Downey)

Earlier this summer, I had the good fortune to meet local artist Jennifer Downey during her open studio in Oakland, CA. She had just completed her first painting in a series tentatively titled "Shifting Territories," which examines humanity's relationship with the land through the lens of dams and river diversions. Below is my interview with her:

What drew you to do this series?

JD: Since I was very young, I've had a deep fascination and love for nature. It's always been a source of grounding in my life. Over time, I've become more and more curious about humankind's relationship with the land-how we as a species interact with the rest of the natural world. I recently began investigating the ways we humans physically alter the land, and was amazed to learn how much humans have, since ancient times, altered rivers and waterways. I approached the creation of this series with the question, "What happens to a river's ecosystem and its species when you dam the river?" I wanted to depict the changes from the perspective of the non-human animals that are affected when humans change the course, flow, and physical and spiritual characteristics of a river.

Lake Turkana World Heritage Site (Alison M. Jones for www.nowater-nolife.org)

像美国科罗拉多大峡谷、印度泰姬陵和中国长城这样的地方具有非常突出的文化或自然价值，以至于各国政府都承诺为后世保护和维护这些古 迹。联合国世界遗产委员会 （以下简称"委员会"）近日号召埃塞俄比亚政府和中国融资机构暂停吉贝三级水坝 项目以履行他们保护当地文化.

Kaziranga National Park in India (Far Horizon India Tours)

During this year's UNESCO World Heritage meeting, the World Heritage Committee issued some of the strongest language yet to countries with dam building activity in their World Heritage properties. While it awaits to be seen how this language is translated into action, it could be a positive step forward for many of the activists, experts, and dam-affected peoples who have been working tirelessly for months, and at times years, to protect their natural and cultural heritage. Thanks to their perseverance, the Committee this year has called on three countries to halt dam construction within their properties, and issued warnings to four others.