Clean Development Mechanism

1
Clean Development Mechanism

• Strengthening Corporate Criminals
• Climate Mafia in India
• Souparna Lahiri
• National Forum of Forest People Forest Workers

2
CDM Projects

• total projects today1207
• Registered projects 471
• Expected CERs - 239488K by 2012
• Total CERs of all projects by 2012 - 453741K
• Total CERs by 2020 - 1152770K

3
Nature of Projects

• Clean coal and super critical thermal Ultra Mega
  Power projects
• Waste and corex energy generation steel projects
• Dirty sponge iron projects
• Wind energy projects
• Small and large hydro projects
• Waste to energy incinerator projects
• Hydro fluorocarbon reduction projects
• Paper and pulp

4
Corporates involvedthe bigger ones

• Jindal group
• Tatas
• Reliance the Ambani brothers
• Suzlon
• ITC
• Birlas
• Bajaj
• JCT
• ESSAR
• Major fluorocarbon companies

5
The windfall

• Till early 2008, the Jindal group made more than
  US 200 million (and perhaps more) from selling
  supposedly reduced emissions (1.3-million CERs)
  at their steel plant in Karnataka
• The Tata Motors sold 163,784 CERs from clean wind
  projects at 15.7 euros/CER in 2007. Their sponge
  iron projects in Orissa are set to yield 31,762
  CERs every year
• Reliance CDM Kittywith 7 projects registered
  with 88,448 CERs per year (till 2007 December),
  four more CDM projects under validation with
  149,533 CERs per year, and seven more potential
  CDM projects with about 400,000 CERs per year

6
free gifts to corporates

• Biggest profits have been made by the SRF
  (Rajasthan) and the GFCL (Gujarat Flurochemicals
  Ltd), both by selling carbon credits from their
  HFC (hydroflurocarbons) reduction projects
• In 2006/07 alone, the GFCL groups earning from
  carbon money was twice its total corporate assets
• Allain Duhangan HEP, (192 MW) funded by the World
  Bank is slated for a massive US 75 million in
  carbon credits

7
The notorious Jindals

• Deals in energy, steel, sponge iron
• Their biggest earning from Jindal Steel Works in
  Bellary, Karnataka
• According to company sources, this boosted other
  incomes, and helped them to record their best
  ever quarter in terms of profit
• considering the present issued-CER figures, the
  total earning from their profitable clean
  projects can be anything between 2 to 3 billion
  US dollars!
• According to another estimate , at the current
  market price of 15.5 euros per CER in early 2007,
  the company stood to gain 109-million euros over
  a 10-year period from the sale of CERs
• JSW Steel is expected to save on an average
  0.77 million CERs per annum that can be sold in
  the open market, which means that the company
  would hold on to its CERs in wait of even bigger
  profit

8
field reality

• Jindals Bellary plant at Torangulu, one of the
  biggest CDM projects
• A glittering empire complete with its own
  airport, tree-line avenues, and a huge sprawling
  campus guarded by a private security force.
• Built on displacement without compensation
• Fraudulent land transfers and promises of job
• Grabbing more village land every year
• Ruining villagers crops and water source by
  dumping toxic pollutants

9
Torangulu villagers say

• Day in and day out, the smoke from the plant
  blackens their homes and whatever little crop is
  grown.
• The effluents from the plant drains into the
  water the villagers use, polluting it beyond
  redemption 'It is dust, dust, and dust
• The plant is like a foreign land that
  permanently shuts us out, and we get nothing but
  misery out of it'

10
Tata winde energy plants

• Suzlon is the developer
• The lands were acquired forcibly or fraudulently,
  even forest lands without any prior NOC from the
  forest department
• protests were short-lived. The company is too
  powerful for the likes of the tribal villagers of
  Satara or the semi-nomadic tribes from the
  Tungabhadra reservoir area to put up any
  organized and prolonged resistance
• These are monsters that make so much noise that
  we cannot sleep at nightthe children are going
  deaf, and even the wild animals that lived in the
  hill forests are straying down to the village and
  raiding crops! One gypsy woman said
• They cannot go to the hills any longer to collect
  fuel wood or to graze cattle.
• The company says it is their forest now, and
  anybody found entering it will be fined or
  arrested
• The villagers own land ahs now been turned in to
  a fortress with private security guards

11
A clean reputation

• The village of Sanajahanpur has lost almost all
  its agricultural land and pasture
• the headman of the village says that the company
  has 'duped and fleeced' him
• The company made so many promises jobs to every
  villager, good roads, money for the village
  temple, new school buildings, health facility,
  and so on.
• Nothing materialized.
• The company simply took our land, and posted
  security guards everywhere so that we cannot use
  it anymore.'
• the land deal was not even legal because they
  still retain the legal ownership of the land
• This is the'celebrated' Tata windmill project,
  which has earned such a 'clean' reputation that
  it not only sold carbon credits worth billions of
  rupees through the Kyoto market mechanism, but
  was also subject of non-Kyoto voluntary 'offset'
  certificates

12
Sponge iron CDMs the dirtiest

• There are a total of 66 sponge iron CDM projects
• Mostly in Orissa, Chhattisgarh andWest Bengal
• Run by the Jindals, Bhushan Steel, the Birlas and
  a host of other companies
• the skyline full of chimneys belching foul,
  noxious smoke, the rivers red with toxic
  effluents, the hills deforested -
• Operating often without any knowledge of the
  pollution control authorities, without any proper
  clearances!
• Agricultural fields, drinking water source,
  village ponds all polluted from toxic effluents
• Have hired guards and goons, terrorise protesting
  villagers
• The workers in the projects are mostly temporary
  wage workers earning merely US 50 to 100.

13
The fraud of hydro CDMs

• There are 98 hydro CDMs and the number is ever
  increasing
• From small and micro hydels the applications have
  now included large hydros
• Himachal Pradesh, a Himalayan state has the
  largest 28 projects
• Their additionality is suspect since the Govt. of
  Indias Ministry of New and Non-renewable Energy
  provides 40 per cent subsidy already to small and
  micro hydel projects
• The CDMs are merely topping their profits
• The companies are largely new, often offshoots of
  infrastructure companies

14
The Allain Duhangan fraud

• 1993 The project developer signed the memorandum
  of Understanding with the Himachal Pradesh govt.
• 1996 The Environment Impact Assessment conducted
• March 1996 The Central Electricity Authority
  (CEA) gives in principle Techno Economic
  clearance (TEC).
• This means that the project is economically
  viable.
• Aug 2002 The CEA gives final TEC, following an
  application by the project authority in May 2001
• And after that the developer applies for CDM!
• Gets it registered

15
Now comes the Ultra Mega Projects

• Two current Ultra Mega Power Projects run by coal
  in pipeline
• Reliance Sasan Project and the Tata Mundhra
  Project are both 4000 MW capacity each
• Which means more coal mining, more displacement,
  more pollution
• But, the clean coal and super critical
  technologies that they will use is now acceptable
  under UNFCCC regime

16
What Indias National Action Plan says.

• The NAPCC notes that 32 of the projects
  registered with UNFCCCs CDM Executive Board come
  from India and 28.3 of the Certified Emission
  Reductions (CERs) issued came from India.
• The expected investment from the 753 projects
  approved would be Rs 1069 billion.
• The NAPCC also notes that CDM has not led to
  technology transfer from the developed countries
• It also notes that high transactions costs
  prevent the small scale sector from participating
  in CDM.
• Despite this, the NAPCC is happy that there is
  encouraging response from the Indian
  entrepreneurs to the CDM across different sectors
  and is hopeful that the market in the VERs
  (Verified Emission Reductions) also will grow in
  future.

17
Finally

• Whose investments are helping these climate mafia
  and rogue corporates
• India has around 40 per cent bilaterals in CDM
• Financed by United Kingdom, Switzerland, the
  Netherlands and Japan.
• Other countries involved are Sweden, Germany,
  Spain, Italy, Austria, France, Canada,
  Denmark,Finland