Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

Comments to CDM Executive Board on Stakeholder Consultations

Monday, August 15, 2011
CDM Executive Board Call for Inputs on the Validation Process International Rivers welcomes the opportunity to respond to the CDM Executive Board's important call for public inputs on the validation process. Our response identifies the current issues and suggests how improvements to the implementation of the existing modalities could be made. We make concrete recommendations on how the validation process can be strengthened by providing guidelines and rules to improve stakeholder participation and the transparency and quality of CDM projects. Our response is based on the input of CDM Watch and

Comments to the CDM Executive Board on First-of-its-Kind Analysis and Common Practice

Monday, August 15, 2011
International Rivers welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Executive Board's call for public input on the common practice analysis step of the additionality tool. One of the goals of the CDM is to support the introduction of cleaner and newer technologies that are unable to compete with conventional technologies in developing countries. Therefore the inclusion of the common practice analysis in the additionality tool is essential. Since a clear definition of common practice is not provided and guidelines have not been established for the assessment of common practice, it is quite easy

Citizens Concern for Dams and Development Comments Regarding Khuitam HEP (India)

Friday, July 22, 2011
Submission of the Citizens Concern for Dams and Development to Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Ltd. in Response to Call for Comments to the PDD of 66 MW Khuitam HEP After perusal of the Project Design Document (PDD), Version 01 dated 21/06/2011(available on the UNFCCC website) of Khuitam Run-of-the-River Hydro Electric Project, Executive Summary of the Project and also the proceedings of the Public Hearing conducted on the proposed project at West Kameng District, Arunachal Pradesh, India and considering the views of affected villagers and the insistence for mega dam construction in almos

Crunching the Hydro Numbers: 2011 First Half CDM Update

Status of projects for which International Rivers and partners have submitted Comments
Status of projects for which International Rivers and partners have submitted Comments as of July 1, 2011 For many years, International Rivers and our partners have been submitting comments on the worst hydropower projects in the CDM pipeline, raising issues ranging from environmental problems to human rights abuses to additionality. Our general experience has usually been that rather than seriously assessing public comments, the validators, also known as DOEs, ignore any criticism of the project developers' claims. Recently, however, a number of these projects, for which we had rais

Comments to the Korean Foundation for Quality Regarding the Yunnan Gongguoqiao Hydropower Project (China)

Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Project Overview: Project Title: Yunnan Gongguoqiao Hydropower ProjectStatus: Under constructionLocation: Dalishu Village,Yunlong County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan ProvinceProject Participants: Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower Co., Ltd. (China)Vitol S.A. (Switzerland)Claimed Total Installed Capacity: 900 MW (4*225 MW)Claimed Annual Emission Reductions: 1,974,939 tCO2e/yearPlanned starting date of the first credit period: January 1, 2012 or date of registrationThe Yunnan Gongguoqiao Hydropower Project is the northernmost dam in an eight-dam cascade on the Lancang River, which emerg

Comments to TUV NORD Regarding the Thuong Kon Tum Hydropower Project (Vietnam)

Thursday, June 2, 2011
We request that the Thuong Kon Tum Hydropower Project not be validated and allowed to apply for CDM credits, because it is not an additional project, carries adverse environmental and social impacts, is unlikely to offset carbon emissions and has a record of poor planning, which makes it a risky venture. 1) Weak claims of additionality While the PDD sites the April 2009 signing of a CDM consultancy contract for the Thuong Kon Tum Hydropower Project as evidence that the project considered CDM assistance during the dam's early stages, this additionality argument is weak as it fails to expla

Illegal Construction of CDM Project Barro Blanco Continues

Save the Tabasara River
Save the Tabasara River ASAMCHI Along with CDM Watch, we recently reported about the heavily contested Barro Blanco CDM project in Panama. A month on, protests continue, as outlined in the eye-witness report below. The Barro Blanco project is a 28.84 MW hydroelectric power plant in the district of Tolé, in the province of Chiriquí, Panama. There has been serious concerns regarding the additionality of the project, the lack of adequate public consultation and human rights abuses involving the company GENISA against the Ngobe indigenous peoples. Concerns were officially submitted by nu

New Documentary Links Financial Crisis and the Carbon Market

In a new feature-length documentary, Trading on Thin Air (available on Hulu and Netflix), director Susan Kucera shows that the same actors and strategies that were behind the financial crisis are currently behind today's massively lucrative carbon markets of the world – and the next big bubble. The film shows that the losers in this high stakes game are not only the climate and the environment (the supposed beneficiaries of this market's carbon offset schemes), but also the indigenous and local communities in developing countries that are being displaced by the hydropower dams, palm oil pla

Comments to ERM Cert Regarding the Sujiahekou Hydropower Station (China)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Project Overview:Project Title: Sujiahekou Hydropower StationStatus: Under constructionLocation: Tengchong County, Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, ChinaProject Participants: Yunnan Baoshan Binglangjiang Hydropower Development Co., Ltd (project owner)Carbon Asset Management Sweden Pte Ltd.Claimed Total Installed Capacity: 315 MW (3*105 MW)Claimed Annual Emission Reductions: 880,979 tCO2e/yearPlanned starting date of the first credit period: January 1, 2012Summary of Concerns:Sujiahekou Hydropower Station is a new hydropower station constructed and operated by Yunnan Baoshan Binglangjiang Hydropo

Movement Against Barro Blanco Dam in Panama Heats Up

Back in February, I wrote about how the controversial Barro Blanco project in Panama had applied for carbon credits with the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. Since then, the indigenous movement against the project, led by the M10 (the April 10 Movement for the Defense of the Tabasara River, which gathers all the affected communities along the banks of the Tabasara River) has really heated up. For 15 days, they have shut down part of the Pan-American Highway and camped outside of the dam site, effectively stopping construction. To read more about the protest, go to page 4 of

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)