All that is air turns solid: The creation of a market for sinks under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change

Protocol makes nothing of critical relations –both social and environmental. 328 The resulting increased marginalization occurs at diverse scales: not only are smallholders and low-income communities in developing countries left out, but so are whole regions. The discrimination has become so blatant and embarrassing that at COP 12 in Nairobi, Kenya, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the launching of the “Nairobi Framework,” an initiative by six UN agencies to help developing countries, particularly in Africa, participate in the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism. But the paradox of sinks is not unlike that which affects funding for other development projects: that it is precisely those projects with various social and environmental components and benefits that are harder to finance by the international development institutions set up to do so. Because despite the love of talk on synergies, these projects have in practice to be approved by various departments (or so-called “focal areas”) not made to work together. So the more integrated and rich a project, the more difficult it is to finance; the more human-free and environmentally-restricted, the easier and more lucrative. Ultimately, however, the problem might be one of the actual inefficiency of the market to address climate change. Because the market will always seek the leastcost opportunity, in a context of fungibility and flexibility like the one provided by a basket of gases with different global warming potentials, and a net approach to accounting for emissions, the money –and reductionswill go to the “low-hanging fruits”: that is, the projects that provide the maximum amount of emission reduction credits at the lowest cost. This leaves unaddressed the transformation in the energy matrix that is really needed in a timely manner to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases. The destruction of HFC-23 is a perfect example. With a global 329 warming potential around 11,000 times that of carbon dioxide, and a cost of destruction of less that $ 0.5 cents per ton of CO2e, a large number (if not the largest number) of emission reduction credits from the CDM are from HFC-23 destruction. These projects do reduce emissions of a potent greenhouse gas, but they leave the energy infrastructure untouched. Yet it is precisely the energy infrastructure, with its long-lived investments, that needs to be revolutionized in order to affect the necessary, timely changes in the consumption of fossil fuels. More problematically, crediting the destruction of HFC-23 can provide an incentive to artificially increase the production of HCFC-22, an ozone-depleting gas regulated in industrialized countries under the Montreal Protocol that is also a greenhouse gas not covered by the Kyoto Protocol. But the market alone would first exhaust the cheapest and simplest options, and only then would it be forced to invest in more radical changes. This would take a lot more time than is safe in the case of climate change. Furthermore, given its narrow, fragmented and profit-seeking logic, the market approach leaves other problems in its wake that have to be constantly corrected by state regulations. This is where the idea of capital involution is evidenced. The repetition of a discrete, simplistic pattern in confined space results in increased density and entrapment. Instead of opening up options, it generates new problems. Of course every new constraint opens up possibilities in a dialectical process. But as long as the approach taken is narrow (as the CO2e credit-based market approach under the Kyoto Protocol is), the real cause of the problem will be left unaddressed, while the efforts go to tinkering with the convoluted arrangements. This involution is reflected in nature, in the way that capital produces nature: fragmented, uneven, incoherent. Large-scale monoculture plantations of fast-growing 330 temperate species in tropical ecosystems, managed by one big corporation based elsewhere while local people are displaced, cancels options that make more social and ecological sense. This is not evolution in any sense of the word. Still, I have tried to stress throughout this dissertation that this is not the result of some abstract mode of production, in the same way that there is no such thing as an abstract “free” market. Clearly, these are inextricably bound up with and shaped by legal regimes that derive from specific decisions and processes. Besides, presenting capitalism as an abstract mode of production that reproduces inequality makes the responses to it harder to envision. Here I have tried to detail how capitalism was promoted, codified, legalized and installed by specific regimes and processes, governed by specific ideas and values of efficiency and growth. Sometimes people are tied up with these processes in a way that recalls rituals, where actors are caught up in the form. Still, the outcome is not inexorable. If we can abstract labor, it is not so surprising we can abstract a gas absorbed by trees in the simple process of breathing and then trade it as a commodity. This is of course a fiction, just like the idea of the free individual and the free market are fictions. They way they pile up and reproduce towards ever increasing complexity that is nevertheless not transformative is what I have called involution. In their involution they generate other such fictions and continuous ensnarement. A world divided in such discrete, abstract entities, is doomed to frustration if not failure because things are simply not found in isolation. Trees are part of social and ecological systems, and any attempt at separating them is delusional. The chances are that it will result in an accounting or fictional game where, as in liberal economic theory, reality will be called up only when the theory fails. 331 Appendix Proposals for Appendix E of the Annex on modalities and procedures for CDM A/R on social and environmental impacts of project activities. APPENDIX E Option 1 (proposed by the EU, Norway and Switzerland) 1. For the preparation of the project design document, this appendix outlines issues to be addressed in the analysis of environmental and socio-economic impacts of afforestation and reforestation project activities under the CDM, as required under paragraphs X, Y and Z of appendix B of the present annex. This is to facilitate the preparation by the designated national authority of national guidelines, as appropriate, or to be used as a default list if guidelines are not available or are being developed. 2. For the analysis of environmental impacts, including possible impacts on biodiversity and natural ecosystems, taking into account relevant multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the following topics are to be addressed: (a) Present environmental status of the area, including a description of soils, climate, vegetation, fauna, habitats and rare and/or endangered species as described in national and or global red lists (e. g. IUCN); (b) Infrastructural developments if extensive (e. g. construction of roads, nurseries, etc.) and their possible impacts; (c) Species selection, origin and processing of reproductive material and silvicultural systems envisaged; (d) Soil protection and measures for soil preparation and fertilization; (e) Forest protection (e. g pest management, fire control); (f) Appropriateness and safety of the use of chemicals; (g) Expected effects on the hydrological system (run-off, water table, watershed, reservoir, riparian zone); (h) Expected effects on biodiversity and ecosystem integrity within the project area and adjacent ecosystems; (i) Monitoring and remedial measures for major project impacts. 3. For the analysis of socio-economic impacts the following topics are to be addressed: (a) Present and expectable evolution of rights on tenure and land use; (b) The needs of indigenous and forest-dwelling peoples; 332 (c) Definition of responsibilities including those of primary stakeholders, project developers and host country authorities; (d) Stakeholders’ involvement and integration in decision and management processes, access to information on the project and public participation [in accordance with Article 6 of the Convention]; (e) Benefit-sharing, taking into consideration local communities; (f) Effects on local communities and their employment, market access and food production; (g) Inclusion of social and cultural impacts of the project, including capacity-building, awareness raising and safety of working conditions. Option 2 (proposed by Tuvalu, on behalf of AOSIS) 1. This appendix addresses the potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts that need to be considered in the preparation of the project design document and during the monitoring phase of the afforestation and/or reforestation project activities under the Clean Development Mechanism. 2. Issues to be addressed include: (a) Present description of the environmental conditions of the project area including; vegetation, wildlife, soils, water quality (b) Present description of socio-economic conditions of the project and surrounding area including; i. current land tenure of project area, ii. an account of the human habitation within project area and surrounding the project area, iii. current land use of project area (c) Description of potential environmental impacts resulting from project activity, both within and outside the project boundary, including: