China / Press Releases

Presentation by Peter Bosshard, Policy Director, International Rivers
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
5:30-6:00pm reception; 6:00pm program

The Commonwealth Club
595 Market Street, 2nd Floor San Francisco, CA

Contacts: Bali: Barbara Haya. California: Patrick McCully.

(Bali) The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is set to provide massive subsidies to hydropower developers while increasing greenhouse gas emissions, according to an investigation by International Rivers. As of November 1, 2007, 654 hydro projects had received or applied to receive carbon credits from the CDM. If approved, these credits would provide hydro developers with a windfall of around a billion dollars each year. Hydro is now the most common technology in the CDM, representing a quarter of all projects in the project pipeline.

International Rivers' report, "Failed Mechanism: How the CDM is subsidizing hydro developers and harming the Kyoto Protocol," is being released today at the UN climate negotiations in Bali. "The CDM is blindly subsidizing the destruction of rivers, while the dams it supports are helping destroy the environmental integrity of the CDM," says report author Barbara Haya, a consultant for International Rivers.

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As the African Development Bank convenes in Shanghai for its annual meeting, African and international civil society groups call for greater public accountability in China’s relations with Africa China’s expanding role in Africa may represent a great opportunity for development, but only if China is careful not to repeat the errors that Western powers made in the past.

A controversial dam project on a sacred lake in eastern Tibet has been scrapped by the Chinese authorities following concerns expressed by local Tibetans and Chinese environmentalists.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 24, 2006 Yu Xiaogang, the Founder and Director of Chinese NGO Green Watershed, will be awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize tonight for his pioneering work in protecting rivers and watersheds in China.

Open Letter Sent to Government Urging Public Disclosure of EIA

On August 31, a broad coalition of Chinese groups sent an open letter to the government urging public disclosure of environmental studies for the Nu River Hydropower Development Plan before the government decides to approve a series of at least four dams for the now free–flowing river.

A new Asian Development Bank report has recommended the construction of a regional power grid in mainland Southeast Asia fueled exclusively by hydropower.