The Toronto Star recently reported that the future of aid is looking green. Not green as in the green backs, but green as in support for development initiatives that promote environmentally sustainable practices.
Pressure on rich countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions could mean government-branded sacks of food aid could take a back seat to things like more efficient wood-burning cooking stoves for rural Mexicans.
Of course that’s not really true. Green aid will more likely take the form of carbon offsets. Developed nations will be able to ‘write off’ the high levels of CO2 they produce by providing aid for green development initiatives overseas. Many western governments (though not Canada) view this as a win-win situation: They can meet both their international aid and environmental commitments in one fell swoop, without making any actual cuts to their carbon emission. According to Anthony Cary, Britain’s high commissioner to Canada:
“That’s a sensible way to go because economics suggest that you should drive investment to where you can get the biggest gains in terms of the atmosphere, and that’s often going to be in developing countries.”
Developing countries are exempt from setting concrete target emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The argument follows that developed nations are carbon emitters, where as developing nations aren’t, and forcing target emissions could potentially curb their development goals. “Green aid” provides the solution, tying rich and poor nations to a global framework for reducing CO2 emissions.
Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM’s) are the manifestation of green aid at work. CDM’s allow developed nations to invest in projects in developing nations that reduce emissions without making costly cuts to their own CO2 output. They are traded online, at the CDM Bazaar. Under this framework, I continue to live in a smoggy mess, while the aforementioned Mexican enjoys a high efficiency wood stove he didn’t ask for and maybe doesn’t want. And anyway, as the BBC reports, between 20% and 60% of CDM projects do not save any additional CO2.
Perhaps Mr. Cary is right about “driving investment to where you can get the biggest gains,” but I wonder if there’s more at stake than economic gains. The earth doesn’t hedge it’s bets the same way the market does, and at the end of the day one ton of carbon is still one ton of carbon. Whether it come from the United States or Uruguay makes little difference.
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I don’t understand the relevance of foreign diplomats talking about Canada’s plans for the environment and economy. They should stick to their garden parties and speculating on people’s social lives over shrimp cocktails and leave Canada’s problems to Canadians to solve.
Agreed. The comment seems particularly rich given that it’s coming from a British diplomat, a country who’s heavy use of CDM’s trumps any actual emission reduction. The stmosphere is like your kitchen sink. When it’s full, it’s full. It doesn’t matter if the water is coming from your tap or from your neighbors tap, your house is still flooding.