By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Inter Press ServiceAugust 20, 2002
Thai environmentalists are deeply suspicious of a World Bank offer to give 8 million U.S. dollars to a private company that is planning a biomass project, calling it a way for developed countries to dodge binding commitments to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.
The activists were reacting to revelations on Sunday of the offer from a special World Bank fund, backed by money from six developed nations, to a Thai company that is planning a biomass project to generate renewable energy.
Through the World Bank Prototype Fund's financial support of this biomass project, developed nations behind the fund would be able to earn carbon credits that would allow them to show good performance in meeting their targets in addressing climate change.
But Thai activists say it would be risky to enter into this carbon credit offer - the first that the country has received so far. Thailand has yet to ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol that sets targets for cutting greenhouse gases, and to create a mechanism for dealing with such offers.
"This is an attempt by countries that pollute the world through their heavy industries to sidestep reducing their emissions at home," says Srisuwan Kuankachorn, general secretary of NGOCOD, a coalition of 300 Thai non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on environment issues.
"Those who pollute must pay first. They (developed nations) must reduce their carbon emissions first," adds Kannikar Kijiteatchakul, of the Project for Ecological Recovery, a Bangkok-based Thai NGO.
They say that by using the carbon credit scheme under the Kyoto protocol to fund environment-friendly projects in the developing world, industrialised countries are taking short cuts to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is because they can earn carbon credits by transferring technology to assist developing countries in producing cleaner and efficient forms of energy, instead of actually cutting back on greenhouse gases at home.
The World Bank offer comes just before the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa later this month, where an assessment of environmental measures since the 1992 Earth Summit, including the Climate Change Convention, will be made.
The Kyoto protocol is part this convention, which was opened for signature at the first Earth Summit and stems from the consensus that environment and development go hand in hand.
The Thai company singled out for the Bank's offer of carbon credit is Mitr Phol Corp Ltd., a sugar producing company, according to a report in the 'Bangkok Post,' an English-language daily.
Mitr Phol's environment-friendly project is expected to generate 25 megawatts of power from biomass, the world's oldest known source of renewable energy. Company officials say construction will proceed with or without the World Bank funds, and the plant should start producing power in 2004.
"The Bank is offering 3 (U.S.) dollars for every tonne of greenhouse gas Mitr Phol saves by getting EGAT (the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand) to buy energy from its biomass project," the 'Post' reports. "Up to 270,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted from Mitr Phol's generator yearly," the paper says.
Company officials were quoted by the 'Post' as urging the Thai government to ratify the Kyoto protocol, saying "the company could make some return from the environmentally friendly, but expensive, project".
The offer from the World Bank Prototype Fund is in keeping with a provision -- the clean development mechanism (CDM) - of the Kyoto protocol. Under this treaty, which has been ratified by over 70 nations, industrialised nations are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent between 2008-2012.
However, a body of scientists - the International Panel on Climate Change - has argued that the world needs to reduce emissions 60 to 80 percent below 1990 levels to achieve safe and stable greenhouse emission levels.
Countries such as the United States and Canada are essential for this carbon credit initiative to succeed, according to reports by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). These two countries, despite having only five percent of the world's population, release more than 25 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that causes the gradual warming of the Earth's atmosphere. Canada, in fact, is one among the six countries standing to gain carbon credits from the Bank's offer to the Thai company. The others are Japan, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Finland.
But Thai activists want the government to stall this effort until the country has a debate on how much it stands to gain from CDM projects, and until CDM policies and guidelines are clearly spelled out at the national level. "Thailand stands to lose if we permit CDMs without guidelines," says Srisuwan, the environmentalist. "It will result in countries and industries that pollute coming to the developing world and making CDM deals with private companies, governments and communities that will be detrimental in the future," he says.
Such a view has not been lost on some government policy makers either. "We should not accept CDM projects now. We need rules and regulations before accepting CDM," says Decharut Sukkumnoed of the Thai government's Health System Research Institute (HSRI).
Of particular concern to Decharut is that Thailand will need to face the consequences in the future of not having its own carbon credits, when asked to compensate for the greenhouse gases it emits. "Only some CDM projects are good for Thailand - those that we can develop with our own resources," he adds. "CDM guidelines will be useful here."
"There are a number of NGOs opposed to the current way CDMs are supposed to operate. We need to listen to them," says Wanee Samphantharak, deputy secretary-general of the Office of Environmental Policy and Planning. CDMs, she adds, must be "acceptable by the Thai people and benefit the country". "After the Johannesburg summit, we will seek the views of critics," she says, referring to the WSSD from Aug. 26 to Sep. 4.
Thailand is expected to announce its ratification of the Kyoto protocol at the U.N. summit. But Srisuwan wonders if the protocol will be able to achieve its initially stated objectives in light of how the "international carbon trade" is taking shape. "The market approach is threatening to become a dominant feature of the protocol, thus undermining its good intentions," he says.
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