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Corruption Threatens to Undermine Climate Action – Transparency International
May 17, 2011
The latest Global Corruption Report from Transparency International (TI), launched May 5 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, tackles corruption and climate change. The message is stark: without better governance, transferring funds to developing countries to combat climate change could go awry. This would mean even less progress cutting the emissions of planet-heating gases, a squandering of scarce climate funds, and an intensified risk of dangerous, runaway climate change.
The TI report highlights the dangers as large amounts of money intended to address climate change start to flow through new channels, with sums that could match, and one day surpass, official development assistance. Of particular concern is the trade in credits earned by reducing emissions. These now sell for $15 per ton of averted carbon emissions and the price is expected to rise as emissions limits become binding. But reductions are tough to measure, especially since the world lacks a robust system for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions themselves. Cases of fraud in the carbon market, documented in the TI report and elsewhere, are already undermining trust in carbon markets.
Forests are a key concern. Preventing deforestation is often touted as an inexpensive way to avert emissions, after all, preserving forests only requires refraining from cutting them. Yet in some countries management of the forest sector is notoriously corrupt and many of the countries that would participate in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) suffer from poor governance. The report (see Part Six) highlights the reduction of corruption as a key factor in the success of the UN-program for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, a.k.a. UN REDD. Up to US$ 33 billion a year could flow to countries receiving REDD support once it is fully operational. Addressing corruption and robust monitoring will be crucial to ensure that forests and local communities benefit from REDD.
Already early prototype REDD projects in Guyana and Indonesia have provoked controversy, facing challenges and delays relating to effective governance (see here and here). Among the recommendations for improving REDD governance: “Experts monitoring and verifying projects must be independent and not paid from the budget of the project they are overseeing.” This would seem obvious, of course. Unfortunately, this simple idea is often neglected when it comes to practice.
Of course, what’s really needed is an “eye-in-the-sky” that can tell the world in near real time whether or not a specific area is being deforested. Luckily, an amazing new CGD tool, called Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) fits the bill. Designed by my colleague David Wheeler and others, FORMA uses freely available satellite data to generate rapidly updated online maps of tropical forest clearing in Asia, with other parts of the world available soon. The tool provides valuable information for local and national forest conservation programs, as well as international efforts, such as REDD, that aim to curb greenhouse gas emissions by paying to keep forests intact. I’m hoping that TI and others involved in combatting corruption in the use of climate funds will check it out!
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2 Responses to “Corruption Threatens to Undermine Climate Action – Transparency International”
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May 18th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Carbon credit is beloved by the Forestry Ministers of Countries like PNG…
I do not know wherefrom comes this weird idea of paying for NOT doing something.
It seems more rational to me to pay somebody to DO something, i.e. reduce pollution or carbon emissions.
As a barrel of oil or a ton of coal contain a given amount of potential CO2, tax at the source, according to its CO2 content, and give back the money to oil or coal users which reduce emissions (but AFTER they have done it). It would work also for second tier users (you and me using a car and electricity home) as behaving car producers would strive to reduce fuel consumption to get those subsidies and see their costs reduced and then prices..
May 23rd, 2011 at 10:04 am
CHANNEL FUNDS THROUGH CIVIL SOCIETY
Transparency International has done its part by making an early warning. The funds stand to be abused especially when directed through forestry ministries whose mandate among others include protecting of the natural forests and establishing new ones. To the common person, the benefit of planting trees or not deforestating are barely known. The carbon emission levels arising out of charcol burning, land clearing for agriculture in many developing countries are far greater than the emissions from the vehicles and factories. Intervention measures wil thus be ‘profitable’ targeting at the lower level including remiting funds to community level civil society organisations involved in efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Funds remittance to government ministries would only occur in recognition of the efforts made by those ministries in reducing carbon emissions. Great consideration would be placed on the governments’ economic policies like tax-free gas for cooking that ultimately makes an 18kg gas cylinder less expense to a sack of charcol. The implication will be that charcol will have no market and therefore charcol burning not ‘beneficial’ thus saving tree cutting.