No matter how small the amount of carbon saved, it could make a big
difference in keeping the atmospheric carbon concentration from reaching
the tipping point, you can answer.
Fair enough. Avoiding that point is indeed crucial to avert dangerous climate change.
But should you not have an incentive for making such a huge contribution? More so, when developing hydropower is increasingly becoming a costly affair?
No, says the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol to which Nepal is a signatory.
It says a country cannot earn carbon credit if it is building a clean energy project which it would have built anyway. Carbon credits are based on the principle of offsetting emissions by the means of replacing dirty energy by
clean ones.
And so, as Nepal’s baseline is hydropower, the CDM argues, it would be building hydel plants anyways—even without the carbon credits.
If only such assumptions had come true, the country would not have been reeling under a crippling 14 hours of daily load-shedding.
It is one thing to have surveys and studies that say the country’s rivers and rivulets have the potential of generating tens of thousands of megawatts of hydropower. Making it happen is a different thing altogether.
Major emitters in China and India have minted millions of green bucks from the carbon credits by replacing their thermal power plants with clean energy generating ones like hydro or wind power. It could all happen because their baseline is dirty thermal energy, and the CDM entitles them to carbon credit if they switch to clean energy.
So be it, and get Nepal on the same “dirty” track then.
That way the country will not only quickly add electricity to its power-strapped national grid but will also open gates to earn new carbon credit.
Go on installing diesel and coal-fired thermal power plants for now, and later on claim the carbon credit by replacing them with hydroelectricity generation.
It was not you who wanted to go by the book. The internationally approved CDM wants you to do so.
The energy-deficient Bangladesh is doing it and an even worse-hit Pakistan could soon follow suit.
The idea comes with a bonus. It could prompt international green campaigners to exert pressure on influential internal and external powers to get Nepal’s hydropower balls rolling.
By Navin Singh Khadka
BBC Environmental Journalist based in London.
Fair enough. Avoiding that point is indeed crucial to avert dangerous climate change.
But should you not have an incentive for making such a huge contribution? More so, when developing hydropower is increasingly becoming a costly affair?
No, says the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol to which Nepal is a signatory.
It says a country cannot earn carbon credit if it is building a clean energy project which it would have built anyway. Carbon credits are based on the principle of offsetting emissions by the means of replacing dirty energy by
clean ones.
And so, as Nepal’s baseline is hydropower, the CDM argues, it would be building hydel plants anyways—even without the carbon credits.
If only such assumptions had come true, the country would not have been reeling under a crippling 14 hours of daily load-shedding.
It is one thing to have surveys and studies that say the country’s rivers and rivulets have the potential of generating tens of thousands of megawatts of hydropower. Making it happen is a different thing altogether.
Major emitters in China and India have minted millions of green bucks from the carbon credits by replacing their thermal power plants with clean energy generating ones like hydro or wind power. It could all happen because their baseline is dirty thermal energy, and the CDM entitles them to carbon credit if they switch to clean energy.
So be it, and get Nepal on the same “dirty” track then.
That way the country will not only quickly add electricity to its power-strapped national grid but will also open gates to earn new carbon credit.
Go on installing diesel and coal-fired thermal power plants for now, and later on claim the carbon credit by replacing them with hydroelectricity generation.
It was not you who wanted to go by the book. The internationally approved CDM wants you to do so.
The energy-deficient Bangladesh is doing it and an even worse-hit Pakistan could soon follow suit.
The idea comes with a bonus. It could prompt international green campaigners to exert pressure on influential internal and external powers to get Nepal’s hydropower balls rolling.
By Navin Singh Khadka
BBC Environmental Journalist based in London.
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