Complete Disaster in the Making The world’s only global carbon
market is in need of a radical overhaul WHAT would you say about
a market that has helped reduce carbon emissions by a billion
tonnes in seven years, attracted $215 billion of green
investments to developing countries (more than any private
environmental fund) and cut the cost of climate-change
mitigation by $3.6 billion? The answer, to judge by a United
Nations panel looking into the workings of the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) is: you’d say it is a shambles. The CDM was set
up under the Kyoto protocol to get developing countries to do
their bit to reduce carbon emissions. The mechanism allows
projects that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in poor countries
to earn a carbon credit (a “certified emission reduction”, or
CER) for each tonne of carbon dioxide avoided. The credits can
be sold to firms in rich countries which are obliged under Kyoto
to cut their emissions. The idea was to encourage carbon saving
where it was cheapest (ie, in develo