African Poverty and the CDM

By Isabella Gyau Orhin

The Deputy Minister for Lands, Forestry and Mines, Andrews Adjei-Yeboah has said Climate change increases the vulnerability of poor people by adversely affecting their health and livelihoods and undermining growth opportunities, which are crucial for poverty reduction.
“For example in recent years in Ghana, there has been a noticeable increase in the frequency of drought conditions affecting the level of the Akosombo Dam which is the main source of electrical energy for the country and its industries,” he said.

Speaking at a meeting in Accra last Monday on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a project aimed at reafforestation to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally, Mr. Adjei Yeboah said based on available scientific information and the unusual weather patterns being experienced globally, there is no doubt that the planet earth is undergoing some change.

“Many African countries including Ghana are unable to cope with the current climate variability,” he said.
Currently in Ghana, there is a load shedding exercise with electricity being cut for 12 hours every three days.
According to the Minister in spite of all these there is still a section of the climate science community yet to be convinced that the climate of our planet is changing.
In my view, it will be reckless not to take steps now in line with the cautionary principle, he said.

Supporting the Minister, the Assistant Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Mr. Olochie A. Edachie called on African governments to mitigate the impact of climate change by strengthening sustainable forest management.

Mr. Edachie said the project would help control the extreme weather conditions currently threatening the existence of the planet earth.
The Tsunamis and the hurricanes as well as heat waves occurring in recent times have all been placed at the doorstep of climate change.
“There is no doubt that mitigating the negative effects of climate will contribute greatly to the improvement in the living conditions of an important part of our population,” he said adding, “By making full use of the CDM, African countries will be benefiting from emerging markets related carbon trading.”
Mr. Edachie also said although Africa, like other continents is endowed with a wide range of climatic conditions and vegetations, a large portion of its population is living at the margin of fragile agro-ecosystems.
This situation he said is exacerbated by erratic weather conditions and extreme poverty that lead to unsustainable utilization of forest resources which in turn lead to land degradation, desertification and loss of biodiversity.
Others are famine, misery with incalculable long-term consequences on the environment.

“We are already experiencing some of these effects through rising temperatures, floods, intermittent droughts and crop failure,” he said.

Environmental experts say the CDM has been designed with the purpose of assisting developing countries to achieve sustainable development as they assist developed countries to cut down their emissions or comply with their quantified emission targets through flexible mechanisms.

It allows a company in the industrialised world to partner with a company in a developing country to put in place projects that have the tendency of controlling global warming or green house gas emissions. While the companies get money out of their investments, their countries also get credits for greenhouse gas emissions, which they can use to fulfill their emission reduction targets in the Kyoto Protocol.

This latest development is in contradiction with earlier stand by developing countries and Civil Society groups from Africa and other parts of the world.

At the Hague Global Warming Conference dubbed (COP 6) in 2000, some African Ministers particularly from the Sahelian countries such as Mali, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda and Burundi favoured inclusion of ‘sinks’ comprising forests, wetlands etc. into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Others were strictly against it saying it would lead to cheap credits in Africa and allow the US to emit more greenhouse gases without making any effort to cut down emissions at home. “It is better not to have a deal than to have a bad deal,” said an environmental lawyer at the summit.

Ghana’s deputy minister for Environment at the time Lee Ocran said majority of African countries are insisting that developed countries cut down on their emissions. “ We should not confuse the issues here. Trees have been identified as temporary stores for carbon dioxide, forest fires and deforestation are on the increase these days and as such the trees may not be there all the time”, he said. However officials of Sahelian countries were convinced on their positions and would not be convinced.

They claimed refusing the American option may mean an end or decline to funding of agriculture and aforestation projects in their countries which they need so badly to prevent drought. They also said aforestation projects in their countries funded by the US might bring in financial income and food security. “The American offer means billions of dollars for tree planting exercises”, said a delegate from Zambia who represented an environmental institution. It is still not clear whether developed countries will cut down on their emissions as they get credits from developing countries.

In 1990, the United Nations formed an inter governmental Negotiating Committee for the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after climate change and adverse weather effects were attributed to the activities of man. At the Rio summit in Brazil in 1992, the UNFCCC was signed into an agreement. Later at a meeting dubbed Conference of the Parties (COP 1) in 1995, the weaknesses in the UNFCCC as a document were recognised, it was not binding on any country.

Therefore a Protocol was enacted as an additional legal binding document with consequences. At COP 3 in Kyoto in 1997, the Protocol which is now popularly known as the KYOTO PROTOCOL was adopted by consensus. It was the protocol that gave developed countries emission reduction targets. Scientists say the level of the heat trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 30 percent higher than in the pre-industrial era and has reached its highest level in 420,000 years. They project that if governments do too little to cut emissions, atmospheric levels of global warming gases could rise to twice or thrice the pre-industrial levels. Emissions of carbon dioxide increased 12-fold during the last century as society consumed and wasted increasing amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. Africans and third world countries will also be adversely affected if nothing is done about the situation. Robert Watson, Chairman of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2000 scientists from various countries in the world has said direct health effects of global warming would include increase in heat-related diseases resulting from anticipated increase in heat waves, increase in seasons for vector organisms such as mosquitoes, water snails and tsetse flies. This situation according to Watson will increase the incidence of yellow fever, malaria and a host of tropical diseases. “Projected changes in climate could lead to an increase in the number of people at risk from Malaria. Tens of millions of people could be affected annually, primarily in tropical and sub tropical and less well protected temperate zones”, Watson said at the 2000 conference.