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CDM: Changing Lives for the Worse

Payal Parekh — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:03:50 -0800

Hydro makes up nearly a third of CDM Projects

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat organized a "changing lives" photo contest to raise awareness of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Was the photo contest a last ditch effort to spruce up the CDM's image and deflect criticism?

Subprime Deal for Bujagali Dam

Peter Bosshard — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:27:07 -0800

Bujagali Affected Community

The World Bank has presented the Bujagali Dam on the Nile in Uganda as a model of its promotion of hydropower in Africa for almost ten years. The communities affected by the project don’t share the Bank’s optimism. When I visited their resettlement sites six years ago, affected people almost beat me up because they mistook me for the project’s manager, with whom I share my first name.

A new report by the Inspection Panel finds that the World Bank has still not learned from its past mistakes in the Bujagali Project. Because of wishful thinking regarding the dam’s risks and benefits, the Bank’s investigative body finds, the project may well fail to fulfill the “broad objective of sustainable development and poverty reduction embodied in Bank policy”. The report will be discussed by the Bank’s Board of Directors tomorrow.

US Congress's Auditor (Politely) Blasts the CDM

Patrick McCully — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:27:54 -0800

International Rivers' critiques of the Clean Development Mechanism just got some influential support from the Government Accountability Office, the “audit, evaluation and investigative arm of Congress.”

Discussing Global Warming in Blustery Poland

Payal Parekh — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:52:02 -0800

Durga - Hindu female warrior

Today, the UN climate conference began in Poznan, Poland. At the conference, government representatives will be tasked with further developing the roadmap to reach an international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Although Poland is not as warm and exotic as Bali (where the meeting was held last year), International Rivers's women water warriors (Barbara Haya, Payal Parekh and Ann-Kathrin Schneider) are there. Despite the cold weather, we will follow a number of hot topics related to dams, rivers and climate change.

Accreditation of Major CDM Auditor, DNV Suspended

Payal Parekh — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:22:24 -0800

The Executive Board (EB) of the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) must have read our recent report, Bad Deal for the Planet or my recent blog - we called for the EB to strip auditors of their accreditation to work for the CDM if they fail to apply the CDM's rules. On Friday at the Board Meeting, the EB came one step closer to doing that - it suspended the accreditation of DNV, an auditor that validates approximately half of the CDM projects that apply for registration. International Rivers is no stranger to the poor performance of DNV.

Biomimicry Inspires New Hydro Technology

Patrick McCully — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:42:30 -0800

A slew of emerging technologies are redefining the concept of "hydropower." For almost a century, hydro has been synonymous with river-killing dams. But now a range of "hydrokinetic" technologies that convert into electricity the kinetic energy of flowing water - rather than the potential energy in falling water - offer the hope that in future "sustainable hydro" could offer more than big hydro industry greenwashing.

US Congress Waking Up to Offset Scams?

Patrick McCully — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:25:22 -0800

In September I spent a couple of days touring Congressional offices in Washington with Karen Orenstein from Friends of the Earth, US, a key ally on our climate change work. We were talking to senators' and representatives' staff about carbon offsets - in particular, international ones (i.e. CDM credits) - and whether they should be eligible to be used in the cap-and-trade regime which is expected to be passed by Congress over the next year or two.

Hail Mary! Aussie Activists Celebrate Dam Suspension

Patrick McCully — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:55:43 -0800

Mary River Information Center, Kadanga, Queensland (Patrick McCully/International Rivers)

Communities in the Mary Valley in Queensland, Australia, are celebrating the announcement by state Premier, Anna Bligh, that construction on a bitterly opposed dam would be delayed by up to four years. The Traveston Crossing Dam would displace hundreds of families, flood thousands of acres of rich farmland, and endanger iconic species including the Queensland lungfish and the endangered Mary River turtle and cod.

Proponents claim the dam is needed to increase water storage because of the worsening droughts caused by global warming. Opponents point to studies showing numerous cheaper alternatives for saving and storing water, and the high evaporation and greenhouse gas emissions from the big, shallow reservoir.

Financial Crisis Stops Xalala Dam - For Now

Peter Bosshard — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:05:05 -0800

The indigenous Ixcan communities are strongly opposing the proposed Xalala Dam in Guatemala. Partly due to their opposition, private funding for the dam has now dried up. Will the World Bank and the IDB bail the project out, or will they realize that the time for change has also come for them?

Flatulence From a Popular Swimming Hole

Payal Parekh — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:33:59 -0800

I was surprised to find out that lots of methane is bubbling out of my favorite swimming hole. Wohlensee, a small run-of-river hydro reservoir in Switzerland (where I lived for the past three years), emits a whopping 780 metric tonnes of methane a year, according to a recent study from Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. This is equivalent to the amount of methane produced annually by 6,800 cows. The study only measured methane released in bubbles from the reservoir surface: Actual emissions may be several time higher due to the degassing of methane at the dam’s turbines and spillway and in the river immediately downstream.

Are We There Yet? Climate Change's Tipping Point

Katy Yan — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:16:41 -0800

Is the financial crisis the disaster that the climate change movement has been waiting for?

After the release of each IPCC report and the occurrence of every natural disaster that suspiciously smelled of global warming, I would wonder: Will the world finally wake up to its common peril? Will those in government (and those at home) finally realize the sooner or later, climate change will hit us in our comfy western seats (and hit hard)?

So What About Tim Geithner?

Peter Bosshard — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:12:03 -0800

So Barack Obama picked Timothy Geithner as his future Treasury Secretary today. What is the new secretary’s track record, and what does his appointment tell us about the emerging course of the Obama administration?

UN CDM Executive Board Holds Project Auditors Accountable

Payal Parekh — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:43:00 -0800

Kudos to the Executive Board (EB) of the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Board for announcing that it will publish the names of the auditing companies that signed off on projects that violate eligibility rules. In our recent report, Bad Deal for the Planet, International Rivers called for the EB to strip auditors of their accreditation to work for the CDM if they fail to apply the CDM’s rules. “Naming and shaming” does not go as far as we would like, but will enable the public to know who the repeat offenders are and to put pressure on the EB to give them the boot.

RWE and BMW: Continue your dirty business, we have the CDM!

Ann Kathrin Schneider — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:19:26 -0800

Are we living in two different universes? I am talking about the German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, and myself. Just yesterday, he congratulated himself for the fact that Germany had already registered 112 Clean Development Mechanism projects and was therefore number four of the world's CDM registering countries.

Rip-Offsets: Thanks Joe!

Patrick McCully — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:50:39 -0800

Thanks to Joseph Romm, the unbelievably prolific blogger at the excellent Climate Progress, for the term "Rip Off-sets." We've ripped it off to use as the title for our latest factsheet on the Clean Development Mechanism. We'll be distributing the factsheet to the CDM Executive Board and various other government officials, policy wonks, activists and carbon traders at the upcoming UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland.

Odds improve (for now) on Las Vegas' water supply

Patrick McCully — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:16:49 -0800

Hoover Dam intake, July 2008 (flickr.com/ellindsey000)

Back in March I wrote about a study showing a 50% chance that climate change would leave "Lake" Mead dry by 2021. Lake Mead is the huge (or at least formerly huge) reservoir behind Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. The reservoir supplies almost all the water for Las Vegas and much of that used by milllions of people in southern California and Arizona.

Turns out that maybe things aren't quite that bad, yet. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a study to be released next year will show odds of less than 5% that the lake will dry up by 2021, and of 40% it will go dry in any given year after 2050.

The Problem With Larry Summers

Peter Bosshard — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:05:07 -0800

Barack Obama is considering appointing Larry Summers as his Treasury Secretary. Summers, a former World Bank chief economist and Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, shot to fame with his suggestions that Africa is under-polluted, and that women are genetically less qualified to become scientists. A debate is raging in the blogosphere whether these cynical memos disqualify Summers from becoming Treasury Secretary. The real question is what policies Summers has promoted in his long career.

WCI Offsets Offer a Way Out for Polluters

Katy Yan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:44:41 -0800

Leonardo DiCaprio. The Rolling Stones.

Now add seven western state governors and four Canadian premiers. These are the most recent riders of the carbon offsets bandwagon. Carbon offsets play a central role in the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), a carbon Cap-and-Trade scheme first introduced in July, that includes seven U.S. states (Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) and four Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec).

Official Launch: In Hot Water

Patrick McCully — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:32:06 -0800

Welcome to International Rivers' climate blog! Our climate team (Barbara Haya, Patrick McCully, Payal Parekh, Ann-Kathrin Schneider and Katy Yan) will be covering a variety of hot dam and climate related issues.

We'll cast a critical eye at carbon offsets, and in particular the efforts by the hydro lobby to make money out of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. And we'll look at what better ways may exist to transfer climate friendly financing and technology.

New Independent Review Documents Failure of Narmada Dam

Peter Bosshard — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:27:19 -0800

Protest against submergence in the Narmada Valley

For decades, the Sardar Sarovar Dam on India’s Narmada River has been a powerful symbol of what is going wrong with large dam projects. A new independent review by a prestigious research institute shows that the project’s benefits have not been realized, while the social, environmental and financial costs are even more serious than expected. The dam authorities and the World Bank have a responsibility to clean up the mess which they have created.

All the Way to the Ocean

Nicole Brewer — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:10:40 -0700

Ocean pollution often starts in our communities, when trash and pollutants enter storm drains and rivers. Joel Harper, the author of a beautiful new children’s book, “All the Way to the Ocean” contacted International Rivers recently to see if we could help him distribute the Chinese version of the book. We helped him get in touch with Marine Dream and Roots and Shoots in China, and we liked his book so much we decided to plug the book right here!

Hu Jia Represents China’s Best Hope

Peter Bosshard — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:16:15 -0700

The European Parliament last week awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe’s most prestigious human rights award, to the Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia. The new generation of civil society activists whom Hu Jia represents is China’s best hope for addressing the country’s enormous social and environmental problems. The award’s condemnation by the Chinese government is a sign of weakness and fear.

The Dam Crusader Is Still With Us

Peter Bosshard — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:59:40 -0700

A previous post on this blog claimed that John Briscoe had retired from the World Bank. This is not correct. John will retire soon, but is still the Bank's Country Director for Brazil. Read John Briscoe's comment on our blog post and a brief rejoinder. (The picture on the left is from a presentation by John Briscoe on the World Bank and infrastructure.)

Dam Crusader’s Swan Song

Peter Bosshard — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:26:30 -0700

Anonymous Crusader

A high-level independent evaluation found two years ago that the World Bank’s research agenda was often politicized, and that “technically flawed and in some cases strong policy positions have been supported by such (non) evidence”. A new book, Indirect Economic Impacts of Dams, is the latest example of such politicized research. The book, astonishingly, only considers the benefits and ignores the costs of dams. It is the parting shot of the Bank’s main large dam crusader, John Briscoe.

World Bank: Lending Up For Coal and Large Hydro, Down For Renewables

Peter Bosshard — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:53:47 -0700

According to a report soon to be released by Oil Change International, the World Bank Group increased its lending for coal by an astonishing 256% in 2008. Lending for large hydropower projects increased from $751 million to $1,007 million. Support for renewable energy stagnated at a low level.