Adapting carbon markets to smallscale projects for lowincome communities

1
Adapting carbon markets to small-scale
projects for low-income communities

• Emily Boyd Tyndall-UEA - UK
• Maria Gutierrez City University - New York
• Manyu Chang UFPR

2
Introduction

• Context
• Characterise rural low-income communities
• Project review
• Adapting to local realities
• Conclusions

3
Context

• Recent decision by Parties to include small-scale
  sinks projects in the CDM
• Also countries challenged with reconciling the
  needs to reduce poverty and to protect natural
  resources, while at the same time meeting an
  increased market demand for forest products
• Can these needs be addressed by small-scale AR
  projects under the CDM?

4
Characterization of rural low-income communities
in developing countries

• 1.2 billion poorest people in the world (lt1/day)
• 75 live in rural areas
• Historical process of commercial agriculture and
  development
• Pushed to agricultural frontier /marginal
  conditions
• hyper-exploitation of assets
• diversified portfolio of income-generating
  activities
• Livelihood strategies rely on continued access to
  resources as well human and social assets

5
Review of pilot projects

• six on-going pilot forest carbon projects and 1
  payment of ES the Peugeot/ONF Project, Plantar
  Project, Bananal Island Carbon Sequestration
  Project and Climate Action Project in Brazil, the
  Noel Kempff Project in Bolivia, and the Fondo
  Bioclimatico in Mexico. Payment of
  Environmental Services Program in Costa Rica.
• Research context and methods/appraisal of
  social component local participation
  distribution of benefits institutional capacity
  and access issues
• Appraisals by May et al.(2004) Boyd (2003)
  Gutierrez, M. (forthcoming) Chang, M (2003)
  Nelson and de Jong (2003)

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Findings of the review

• projects often fall short of their social
  objectives in terms of contributions to
  livelihoods, and decision making is often
  centralized (May et al., 2004)
• all projects require some degree of trade-off
  between social, carbon and conservation
  objectives (May et al., 2004)
• carbon markets must address themes of power in
  evolving market relationships, influence of
  carbon markets on other land use benefits, and
  best design for administration and accountability
  (Nelson, 2003 Boyd, 2003)

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Adapting carbon to local realities

• Design issues clarifying project objectives
• Improving barriers to shared decision making
  knowledge exchange
• Addressing local institutions/networks
• Developing synergies with compatible development
  strategies
• Ensuring institutional capacity, extension,
  monitoring and verification

8
Conclusions

• Pilot projects have been problematic for
  challenge of integration of objectives
• However, sinks projects could provide a much
  needed contribution to livelihood strategies
• If they are adjusted to local realities
• Recognize higher transaction costs and government
  has role to compensate
• Wider climate community to ensure that sinks
  projects are developed for the long term
• To ensure understanding these links and
  complementing needs in practice is the challenge
• Look at other experiences e.g. history of
  certification of forest products
• To conclude, perspective of developing country -
  serve to the objective of sustainable development
  provided synergies with development activities.

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The End