Rules proposed to protect communities from carbon-cutting projects happen to be eroded at UN climate talks, raising fears human rights abuses under the previous system is going to be repeated.
From 2023, projects for example hydropower dams and sustainable forestry and agriculture can sell credits for carbon emissions reductions on a new global market.
Indigenous and native community groups the rules, which are being negotiated in the Cop25 meeting in Madrid this week, must include safeguards that ensure projects don't harm those who live nearby.
But new draft rules released on Saturday removed the requirement for parties to “respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights”, replacing this language with a much weaker placeholder text. Additionally they didn't include further processes that are considered norms in international development finance.
“This further dilutes the potential rules and could jeopardise the integrity from the Paris Agreement,” says Erika Lennon, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), who has closely followed the safeguards issue for years.
To show what's at stake, many indicate carbon market system being superseded: the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), established in 1997. From 2023, the CDM is going to be replaced by the Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM) being established under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Both the CDM and SDM are market mechanisms which permit countries or companies to “reduce” their very own emissions by purchasing offsets from projects built elsewhere.
The CDM didn't have language on safeguarding local communities and no complaint mechanism. It has been criticised for approving offset projects which didn't consult local neighborhoods and caused them harm.
One such project may be the Alto Maipo hydropower scheme currently under construction near Santiago, Chile. This “run from the river” megaproject functions by diverting river water through 70km of tunnels. It's funded by several multilateral banks but additionally registered to sell carbon credits through the CDM, and touted by the Chilean government – that is presiding within the Cop25 talks – like a supply of clean energy.
The scheme has already resulted in numerous human rights violations, impacting the local water, land used for grazing and local environment, according to CIEL. It's also exacerbating the impacts of global warming in the area by disturbing the nearby glaciers and accelerating desertification, it says.
It have managed to make social tensions within local communities, said NGO Carbon Market Watch, by benefiting certain parts from the local population but not others, and it has destroyed local industries for example livestock, beekeeping and tourism.
