On the contribution of labelled Certified Emission Reductions to sustainable development: A multi-criteria evaluation of CDM projects

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has a twofold objective, to offset greenhouse gas emissions and to contribute to sustainable development in the host country. The contribution to the latter objective seems marginal in most CDM activities. Also, CDM activities are unevenly spread among developing countries. In response to these concerns, initiatives with the objective of promoting CDM projects with broad local sustainable development dividends have been launched, such as the Gold Standard and the Community Development Carbon Fund. The Gold Standard label rewards best-practice CDM projects while the Community Development Carbon Fund focuses on promoting CDM activities in underprivileged communities. Using a multi-criteria method, the potential contribution to local sustainable development of those CDM projects with particular attributes is compared with ordinary ones. This evaluation suggests that labelled CDM activities tend to slightly outperform comparable projects, although not unequivocally.

[1]  Karen Holm Olsen,et al.  The clean development mechanism’s contribution to sustainable development: a review of the literature , 2007 .

[2]  Unfccc.  Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , 1997 .

[3]  Emily Boyd,et al.  The Clean Development Mechanism: An assessment of current practice and future approaches for policy , 2007 .

[4]  Alan Brent,et al.  CDM Projects under the Kyoto Protocol: A Methodology for Sustainability Assessment – Experiences from South Africa and Uruguay , 2007 .

[5]  Fausto Cavallaro,et al.  An Integrated Multi-Criteria System to Assess Sustainable Energy Options: An Application of the Promethee Method , 2005 .

[6]  Mario Giampietro,et al.  Integrated assessment and energy analysis : Quality assurance in multi-criteria analysis of sustainability , 2006 .

[7]  Adrian W. Müller.  Risk management in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – the potential of sustainability , 2008 .

[8]  Christopher Sutter,et al.  Sustainability check up for CDM projects , 2003 .

[9]  Karen Holm Olsen,et al.  Sustainable development benefits of clean development mechanism projects: A new methodology for sustainability assessment based on text analysis of the project design documents submitted for validation , 2008 .

[10]  Nardo Michela,et al.  Constructing Consistent Composite Indicators: the Issue of Weights , 2005 .

[11]  M. Burian.  The Clean Development Mechanism, sustainable develpment and its assessment , 2006 .

[12]  A. Rose,et al.  Long-Run Implications for Developing Countries of Joint Implementation of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation , 1999 .

[13]  G. Hodes,et al.  Equal exchange: Determining a fair price for carbon , 2007 .

[14]  Alphonse P. Magnus,et al.  How to design and use the clean development mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol? A developing country perspective , 2007 .

[15]  Christopher Sutter,et al.  Does the current Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) deliver its sustainable development claim? An analysis of officially registered CDM projects , 2007 .

[16]  Naim Afgan,et al.  MULTI-CRITERIA ASSESSMENT OF NEW AND RENEWABLE ENERGY POWER PLANTS , 2002 .

[17]  Wolfgang Sterk,et al.  Addressing Opportunities and Challenges of a Sectoral Approach to the Clean Development Mechanism , 2005 .

[18]  Ben Pearson.  Market failure: why the Clean Development Mechanism won't promote clean development , 2007 .

[19]  B. Hansjürgens,et al.  Economics and management of climate change : risks, mitigation and adaptation , 2008 .

[20]  G. Munda.  Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation for a Sustainable Economy , 2007 .

[21]  Adrian Müller,et al.  How to make the clean development mechanism sustainable--The potential of rent extraction , 2007 .

[22]  J. Martínez-Alier,et al.  Weak Comparability of Values as a Foundation for Ecological Economics , 1998 .

[23]  Does climate policy promote development? , 2007 .