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Wine, fruit, and emission reductions: the CDM as development strategy in Chile

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Abstract

Through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, a developed country actor with a binding emission reduction target can use emission reductions from a project implemented in a developing country to meet this target. At the same time, CDM projects are meant to contribute to sustainable development in the host country, as defined by this country. The CDM is often taken to illustrate a broader contemporary turn in environmental policymaking toward market liberalism, flexibility, and pluralism, where the governance of the CDM involves ‘agency beyond the state’ at different political levels and across various jurisdictions. While such an image of the CDM certainly identifies important aspects, it also downplays the ways in which states govern the CDM, not at the international level but at the domestic level through the host country prerogative to define its sustainable development priorities. Early on in the scholarly debate on the CDM, fears were raised about a ‘race to the bottom’ with regard to sustainable development requirements on CDM projects. Our research on Chile confirms that hypothesis, with the important addition, that the ‘race’ is not simply a structural feature of the CDM, but a deliberate strategy. We argue that Chile has actively chosen to put only marginal emphasis on securing the CDM’s contribution to sustainable development, and instead uses the CDM primarily as a tool to attract foreign investments, treating carbon credits as just another export product.

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Notes

  1. See more at www.cdmgoldstandard.org.

  2. See www.corfo.cl.

Abbreviations

AIJ:

Activities Implemented Jointly

CDM:

Clean Development Mechanism

CER:

Certified Emissions Reductions

CONAMA:

Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente

CORFO:

Corporación de Fometo de la Producción

DEA:

Declaration of environmental impact

DNA:

Designated national authority

EIA:

Environmental impact assessment

HFC:

Hydroflurocarbon

PFC:

Perfluorocarbons

UNFCCC:

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Peter Newell, Constanze Haug, Andrew Baldwin, Michele Betsill, and Philipp Pattberg, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Research funding from the Swedish Energy Agency is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Lund University, Box 52, 221 00, Lund, Sweden

    Teresia Rindefjäll, Emma Lund & Johannes Stripple

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  1. Teresia Rindefjäll
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  2. Emma Lund
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  3. Johannes Stripple
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Correspondence to Emma Lund.

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Rindefjäll, T., Lund, E. & Stripple, J. Wine, fruit, and emission reductions: the CDM as development strategy in Chile. Int Environ Agreements 11, 7–22 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-011-9151-0

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