Dear Mr Schneider and Mr Buendia,
As a Member of the European Parliament committed to the respect of Human Rights, we are writing to you to express our serious concern about the Santa Rita Hydroelectric Plant in the Dolores River in Guatemala, which was registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in June 2014 (project number 9713).
In a meeting in March 2015 with a representative of the local indigenous communities we learnt that many of the communities that will be impacted by the project were never consulted in accordance with the CDM local stakeholder consultation requirements. As a result, the project has been, and still is, in the center of a violent conflict between the communities and the power company implementing this project.
Leveraging climate finance for implementing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) has been one of the biggest challenges for NAMA developers in the past years. A new financial package up to €85 million by the NAMA Facility invites NAMA support project outlines by 15 July 2015 and beefs up existing NAMA finance to about €150 million.
During the Geneva session of climate negotiations held in February 2015, 18 countries made a joint pledge to extend the integration of human rights in the climate change regime by including human rights expertise in their climate delegations. This initiative offers an opportunity to support the inclusion of references to human rights in the Paris 2015 climate agreement.
On February 9th, 2015, the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) temporarily interrupted the construction of the hydroelectric dam project in Barro Blanco. The communities accepted the Government proposal to open a tripartite dialogue (Government, company and affected communities), then chose the committees to represent them. Five meetings have since taken place to discuss cultural and religious topics, as well as the current state of conservation of the petroglyphs (threatened by the flood generated by the dam) and others archaeological discoveries brought to light in the dam area.
Sharing experiences with existing climate mitigation mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and highlighting the severe impacts on basic human rights these UN mechanisms can have, activists from Africa, Asia and Central America met with financial institutions and policy makers involved in financing these projects. The accountability of climate finance was thereby discussed from a European perspective.
The NAMA project in Georgia is a good example of strengthening civil society involvement and embracing a gender sensitive approach to tackle the challenges of rural energy poverty, unsustainable logging and CO2 emissions.
The numerous complaints against this project of one of the biggest private corporate groups of India – Reliance ADAG, include serious human rights violations, forcible displacements, highly inadequate compensations, intimidation by the police to affected communities, disappearance of demonstrating people, shifting injured workers out of the project site, violating contractual obligations to provide jobs and facilities to the displaced, unethical and inhuman labour practices, heavy pollution generated by the project activity, to only name the most severe impacts.
At COP 16, held in Cancún in 2010, it was emphasised that ’Parties should, in all climate change related actions, fully respect human rights‘. However, so far no further guidance has been specified. Our research published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs shows that the lack of safeguards in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) can lead to registration of projects that have severe impacts on human rights and suggests possible ways forward.
At the 9th Board meeting of the GCF (Green Climate Fund) in South Korea, the Board completed the final step in opening the door to the Fund. First seven implementing entities were accredited – a process led by political rush to approve first funding proposals by October and marked by criticism from civil society on the lack of transparency in the process.
