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The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has already failed Africa, some observers believe, so why bother post-2012 when the existing CDM framework established under the Kyoto Protocol expires?
But as the international community prepares to negotiate a new climate pact, we should care about extending the CDM, and care a great deal.
After all, the CDM was created with the dual goals of promoting sustainable development in developing countries and reducing costs of compliance in regards to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in rich countries. In the early years of the CDM, the market rewarded the lowest hanging fruitreductions in industrial facilities in countries where there were already well-established investment environments and where government institutions were relatively well developed. Its no surprise then that most of the early projects were in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, Malaysia and China.
Today the CDM has broadened to reach over 50 countries worldwide, including African nations like Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia. But we need to improve and extend the CDM to reach even more developing nations.
In 2007, while serving in my previous role as Global Head of Origination for EcoSecurities, I started focusing on business development in Africa. My first trip to scope out potential projects was to Tunisia, Ghana and Nigeria. Later we also evaluated opportunities in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, and from our South African office we tried to work with projects in countries as diverse as Rwanda, Mozambique, Mauritius, Madagascar, Namibia and Angola.
Despite our efforts, our African portfolio remains much smaller than one would expect given the resources devoted to it. Africa, we found, is a rather complicated place to work. First of all, it is extremely diverse and geographically huge. But, more importantly, the continents institutions are still in their infancy. Most African nations have only been independent for 50 years or less. As such, many governments have not evolved strong policymaking processes or had time to build the roads and rail networks needed to support economic development.
Slowly but surely, however, Africa is picking up. Unfortunately, the current debate on a post-Kyoto climate regime seems to be overlooking carbon financing as a tool for sustainable development, especially for Africa. The current debate tends to focus on competitivenessi.e. obtaining level playing fields for industries. But this approach insinuates that only major emerging economies matter in the fight against climate change, so only those that already possess developed industry and the money to set baselines and manage major schemes can aspire to benefit from carbon financing internationally.
People in developed countries often associate Africa with high-profile
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on Aug 18th, 2009
@ 2:15 am:
[...] Climate talks should not focus on China and India at Africa