Have carbon credits benefited small and marginal farmers? (WT)

Revisiting villages where JK Paper mill is supposedly implementing its Afforestation and Reforestation CDM project has reinforced my belief that such projects are utter failures, at least for the people who are supposed to be beneficiaries; and for the cause of ‘climate mitigation’ for which these are designed. In October 2010, when we visited the …

The pitfalls of climate smart mitigation (WT)

Climate Smart Agriculture, a concept promoted as part of a solution to climate change, has been at the heart of international and national debates on agricultural development in recent years. While many stakeholders push to link it to carbon markets, the arguments of inappropriateness of such system are gaining ground.

The Clean Development Mechanism paradox of Adani Power Limited (WT)

Adani Group – the world’s first supercritical technology based thermal power project to have received CDM project certification from UNFCCC – fails to guarantee environmental and social integrity to the Mundra community. Promises of sustainable development and trivial environmental effects remain only on paper.

Clean felling people and laws of the land: The story of “clean development” by Reliance Power’s Sasan Ultra Mega coal power plant (WT)

The Sasan coal power plant in Singrauli, India is approved under the Clean Development Mechanisms because of its ‘more efficient super critical boiler based coal power technology’ that is supposed to improve livelihoods of local communities. A visit to the local communities shows that Sasan is anything but promising to thousands of people now struggling with eviction, intimidation, violence and mistreatment from authorities.

When a CDM project reminds of civil war atmosphere (WT)

AnnaIn 1996 peace was signed in Guatemala after 36 years of civil war (around 200,000 deaths, mostly Mayan people) and a new electricity law was ratified as a strategy of privatization and liberalization to attract foreign investment based on the exploitation of natural resources, laying basis of what is turning out to be nowadays an ecological and economical genocide.

Short analysis of how political parties deal with environmental issues in India (WT)

With the results now revealed on who is India’s new Prime Minister, every one focuses their attention on the economic development Narendra Modi promises. But how about his environmental manifesto? All the parties, BJP included, preached a ‘sustainable development’ that would make environmental protection coexists with industrial and economic development but it does not mean that their propositions will actually be efficient? Moreover, most parties pledged a sustainable environment for every Indian citizens and future generations but in practice nothing is done to make sure laws are properly implemented.