EPCC NEWS

Feb 2, 2009



CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM IS COLONIALISM

By Jerry Esguerra



There is a flurry of activities in the Philippine countryside spurred by the recent escalation of UN campaign on climate change. Forums, symposiums and trade shows, addressing the issues and technology are taking the character of a new cottage industry in the making. But what is remarkably noticeable is the proliferation of foreign companies peddling a plethora of items related to the UN initiative, from contraptions to capture fugitive emission to financing mechanisms and templates on organizational structures to facilitate a better chance of certification from pertinent UN bodies.



But what is worrisome is the involvement of some of the biggest polluters like the American energy company Chevron and members of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines. These companies dipping into the market of mitigating the mistakes they made themselves is preposterous.

There is certain feebleness in the part of many environmental groups in the Philippines to accept this dichotomy, which is understandably so. Be that as it may, that the international environmental organizations like Green Peace and the Sierra Club have an aura of pragmatism hovering over them, the principled opposition of most local groups is wedded to anti imperialist politics.

The Filipino people's skepticism to any campaign on climate change is based on their experience with failed government programs in the past. Furthermore, existing local laws design to curtail green house gas (GHG) emissions are viewed with suspicion by most because their implementation is relegated to the three most corrupt institutions in the Philippines: the Land Transportation Office, the Philippine National Police and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

On the other hand, it is not a surprise at all that local big business polluters show great enthusiasm in embracing the United Nation Framework Conference on Climate Change's (UNFCCC) Copenhagen road map, since they see themselves as the biggest beneficiaries of its programs specifically carbon trading.

The local oligarchy can't contain its glee hedging on the experience of the giant Tata Motors conglomerate in India and Indonesia. The Tata trans-national project is vastly becoming a blueprint in the implementation of UNFCCC's Clean Development Mechanism, which progressive analysts view as a multi-billion dollar shell game - and with the involvement of World Bank-IFC, a surefire imperialist scam.

The interest of WB and the like in the whole climate change issue deeply tarnish the seemingly good repute that the UNFCCC is trying to advance. Of course we all know that within the neo-liberal framework, WB's interest is historically always self-serving.

At the end of the day the purported goal of UNFCCC's Joint Implementation Mechanism or Adaptation model, of facilitating transfer of technology to a host country and encouraging green development - is subverted by WB by blatantly facilitating the transfer of wealth from the client state to the pockets of the capitalist west and encouraging high level corruption in countries like the Philippines and India.

Just recently Gloria Macapagal Arroyo anointed herself as Philippine environmental 'czar'.

Think..............

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