From Rhetoric to Reality: Promoting Sustainable Development through the CDM.

• Author: Gidey, Desta Gebremichael

1. Introduction

   The raise of global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its concomitant adverse effect on climate change has become a global concern. The opening words of the preamble of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have recognized this phenomenon as a common concern of humankind. In order to tackle this concern, the UNFCCC set as its ultimate objectives to stabilize greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner. (1) GHG emission and sustainable economic development are thus the two leading objectives of the UNFCCC. To achieve these objectives, the UNFCCC and its subsidiary legislation--the Kyoto Protocol (the Protocol) committed member states to mitigate climate change by limiting their respective anthropogenic GHG emissions, protecting and enhancing GHG sinks and reservoirs as well as by promoting sustainable development in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. In addition to their common duty to promote sustainable development, industrial countries (Annex I Parties) commit themselves under the UNFCCC to stabilize their GHG emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. (2) However, these commitments were voluntary and did little to establish firm emission reduction targets on Annex I Parties. (3) The Protocol filled this gap by committing Annex I Parties to mandatory reductions of GHG emissions by at least 5 percent in aggregate from the 1990 levels in the commitment period running from 2008 - 2012. (4)

   On the other hand, developing countries (non-Annex I Parties) are required under both the UNFCCC and the Protocol to promote sustainable development without assuming any legally binding emission reduction targets. (5) Ethiopia, which belongs to the category of developing countries, is a signatory of these international agreements. As stipulated under the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE Constitution), all international agreements ratified by Ethiopia are considered as an integral part of the law of the land. (6) Moreover, the FDRE Constitution has included the Ethiopian peoples' "right to improved living standards and to sustainable development" within the category of fundamental rights and freedoms. (7) In the provision dealing with "Environmental Objectives" the FDRE Constitution obligates the government, inter alia, to ensure that all Ethiopians live in a clean and healthy environment and to protect the environment. (8) Hence, the improvement of the living standards of the people within the framework of sustainable development has a firm constitutional basis in Ethiopia.

   Similarly, both the UNFCCC and the Protocol linked developing countries' contribution towards climate change mitigation to their common obligation to promote sustainable development. Developing countries are not required to stabilize GHG emissions at a certain level. Rather, the UNFCCC acknowledges the incremental effect of achieving sustainable social and economic development on the energy consumptions of developing countries. (9) Sustainable development is viewed under the UNFCCC as a valuable end in its own right and as a crucially important instrument to the global success in combating climate change. (10)

   According to Hodas, the UNFCCC can be "better understood as a sustainable development treaty than as merely an environmental treaty." (11) The objectives and principles of the UNFCCC set in Articles 2, 3 and 4(7) link Annex I Parties' compliance with their emission-reduction commitments to promoting sustainable economic development in and transfer of technology to developing countries. (12) The "twin objectives" of the CDM -- reducing GHG emissions and promoting sustainable development are in accord with the objectives and principles set under the UNFCCC.

   The UNFCCC further recognizes cost-effectiveness as a guiding principle stating that: "policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost." (13) In line with this principle, both the UNFCCC and the Protocol have not obligated developed countries to meet all their GHG emissions reduction targets through domestic actions. The underlying economic rationale is that requiring countries to meet their commitments domestically would make per unit GHG emission reduction more costly and would ultimately reduce the overall GHG emissions achievable. (14) As Mitchell notes, the environmental benefits of reducing or sequestering a ton of carbon dioxide are independent of where this occurs, but the corresponding costs of this reduction or sequestration vary significantly across countries. (15) With this rationale, the Protocol designed three market-based flexibility mechanisms (16) known as Joint Implementation (JI), CDM and Emission Trading (ET) with their corresponding emission units known as Emission Reduction Unit (ERU), Certified Emission Reduction (CER) and Assigned Amount Unit (AAU) respectively. (17) Through these different flexibility mechanisms, the Protocol has introduced the concept of carbon trade in the international market, which provides entitlement over GHG emissions reduction.

   These flexibility mechanisms are designed to provide alternatives for developed countries to meet their emission reduction targets cost-efficiently. (18) The choice whether they should opt for one or more of these flexibility mechanisms or adopt domestic measures to meet their respective emissions reduction targets depends on the per unit cost of emission reductions of such choices. (19) Whichever option they opt for, developed countries are required to meet their emission reduction targets during the commitment period. The Protocol defined compliance in terms of the results states must achieve efficiently rather than the traditional 'command and control' approach, which defined compliance in terms of actions they must take. (20) Accordingly, the Protocol does not prescribe how emission reductions should be met, apart from proposing the three flexibility mechanisms as supplement to domestic action. (21)

   The CDM, which is the focus of this study, is a project based engagement between Annex I and non-Annex I Parties that intends to enable the former to earn CERs resulting from projects promoting sustainable development in the territory of the latter. (22) It is the only flexibility mechanism that involves developing countries as a project partner. It was innovated by the Protocol with the "twin objectives" to assist developed countries in achieving compliance with their quantified GHG emission limitation and reduction targets, and to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable development. (23) These objectives are inseparable and equally important for the CDM. (24) These are the cumulative measures that determine the successes and failures of the CDM. (25) Hence, sustainable development was not an "optional side benefit" to achieving emission reduction goals of the Protocol nor was it an empty promise made to appease developing countries. (26)

   In practice, however, the contribution of CDM projects to sustainable development has become doubtful. The aim of this article is thus to examine the current state of the CDM from the perspectives of sustainable development taking Africa in general and Ethiopia as a particular focus of the analyses. The structure of the discussion proceeds as follow: section two provides a literature review on the concept of sustainable development. The third section evaluates the status of the CDM from the perspective of sustainable development with focus on Ethiopia. The fourth section proceeds to examine the major causal factors resulting in the CDM's failure in promoting sustainable development. The final section ends up with concluding remarks.

2. The Concept of Sustainable Development

   Sustainable development is one of the most widely accepted concepts in recent development discourse. It has become a "foundational reference" of almost all academic works in the field of the environment and natural resources. (27) Since its formal adoption in the in 1992 Rio Declaration, the concept of sustainable development has become a central issue of the activities on the international, regional and national levels. (28) However, despite its wide acceptance in national and international policies as well as academic literature, no single precise definition has been given to it. (29) According to Elliott, more than 70 definitions of sustainable development were found in circulation by the early 1990s. (30) The diversity in the meaning of sustainable development is attributed to the existence of different beliefs about the natural world held in different societies, cultures and historical settings and at the individual level. (31) Different disciplines have influenced and contributed to the sustainability debate, 'each making different assumptions about the relation between environment and the human subject.' (32)

   The absence of a precise definition induced some writers to characterize sustainable development as "political fudge" (33), "fashionable 'buzz word'... in a vacuum", (34) and 'a "mantra"... "principle for all seasons". (35) However, as Baker propounds the search for a unitary and precise meaning of sustainable development is the result of a mistaken view of the nature and function of political concepts such as sustainable development. (36) The precise definition of sustainable development remains an ideal, elusive (and perhaps unreachable) goal. (37) Sustainable development "is not about society reaching an end state, nor is it about establishing static structures or about identifying fixed qualities of social, economic or political life." (38) It is an incremental...