The Carbon Rush

Posted on June 24, 2012 by jeremy

A disturbing new film premiered recently at the Green Nation Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro in the run up to the Rio+20 Summit.

Entitled The Carbon Rush, the film reveals the unsavoury side of the Clean Development Mechanism  (CDM), which allows countries that are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol to implement emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn carbon credits that can be counted towards meeting their national emission reduction targets.

According to the CDM website, there are currently 4259 registered projects, and there are a number of video clips that extol the virtues of such projects (see below). I shall reserve judgement until I get to see The Carbon Rush in full, but it seems to indicate that the CDM is susceptible to ‘market failure’ (to put it mildly).

 

Filed under: Climate, Development, Ecological degradation, Human rights, International political economy, Sustainable development | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The opportunity cost of the Iraq War

Posted on May 17, 2006 by jeremy


Image source: www.worldpress.org

Quite aside from the appalling human cost of the war in Iraq, according to a recent article, It’s only $300 billion, in the Washington Post, the economic cost will soon exceed the predicted cost of the Kyoto Protocol to the US economy. The irony is that this is what Dubya said at the G8 Meeting in March 2001: “I made it clear to our friends and allies that the methodology of the current protocol is one that, if implemented, would severely affect economic growth in America.”

So it’s not just blood for oil … it’s climate too.

Filed under: Climate | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

The Minister for Greenwash

Posted on April 9, 2005 by jeremy

McFarlane.bmp
The Rt Hon Ian McFarlane, MP
Image source: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/ outlook2002/image.htm

I had to smile the other day when I read that the Australian Energy Minister, Ian McFarlane, was reported to have told a conference organised by the coal industry in Sydney that they should clean up their publicity act, saying the future fuels issue had been taken over by a so-called green media machine. Meanwhile, his buddy, Ian Campbell, the (so-called) Minister for the Environment is trying convince Australian business that it isn’t losing out from the non-ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. As The Australian reported at the weekend, Australian businesses are having to resort to joint ventures with companies from New Zealand (a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol) in order to participate in the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism project. (See below if the hyperlink is broken.)

(more…)

Filed under: Australian politics, Climate | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

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