Title of paper

4. References

Bumpus, A. 2012. Fruitful design: the CDM; at http://cdm.unfccc.int/about/dev_ben/CDM-Benefits-2012.pdf; last accessed 10 Dec 2013.

5. Further reading recommendations

Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC). 2002. A Guide to the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. Bonn.
Raubenheimer, S. 2011. Facing Climate Change: Building South Africa’s strategy. Cape Town.
Winter, G. 2009. The Climate is No Commodity: Taking Stock of the Emissions Trading System. In Journal of Environmental Law, 22: 1 – 25.


The Clean Development Mechanism in Namibia - Past Efforts and Present Barriers

By Felix Krause

1. Introduction

In future, Namibia will face two central challenges. The first one is Namibia’s underdeveloped energy sector. Currently, the country is not able to satisfy its energy demand on its own. The second challenge will be the consequences of climate change. In 2013, Namibia went through a severe drought. In some regions, there has been no rainfall in two consecutive years causing food insecurity and economical damage (Drought in Africa – Snapshot of the Future, Think Africa Press, 2013). Some authors called this drought a snapshot of the future. Through climate change, the average as well as the maximum temperatures will further increase. “Shorter periods of more intensive rainfall […], more floods and droughts” are predicted to follow from such developments (Mapaure, 2013: 249). Climate change has a vast potential to negatively affect not only bio-systems and wildlife. In other parts of the world, it already led to extensive catastrophes affecting food and water supply, social stability and security.

Not only Namibia, but also the international community is widely concerned about such developments and discusses ways to counter human-caused irritations of the climate system, global warming as well as its consequences. One outcome of such discussions is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Its aim is both, to support sustainable development in developing countries and to mitigate climate change.

CDM seems to come at the right time for Namibia. Since its aim is both, to tackle climate change and to support developing countries in its efforts to reform their energy sectors in a sustainable way, CDM addresses two central future challenges of Namibia mentioned above. Looking at the different types of CDM project activities, ‘renewable energy’ is one of the most represented project types worldwide. Since Namibia has great potential in the field of renewable energy, CDM seems to be tailored for the country’s needs. In reality, however, African countries did not profit as much as one may have expected from the CDM scheme yet. While around 83% of CDM projects are taking place in Asia and the pacific region, less than 3% arose on the African continent (Fenhann, 2013: Analysis, Table 5).

Why does it seem to be so difficult for African countries to start and run CDM project activities successfully? The Namibian case study illustrates some of the fundamental restrains and barriers faced by Namibia in its effort to run CDM activities. These barriers mostly stem from the fact, that CDM integrates development support into a market mechanism. Since emissions do not care where they are reduced, projects in countries where emissions can be reduced more cost effectively have an advantage. Countries with a relatively high amount of industry will attract foreign investments since they represent a high reduction potential. In less-industrialized countries, the lacking reduction potential represents a disadvantage resulting in an absence of CDM support for sustainable development of the energy sector (Jaeger, 2010: 111; see also Sterk/Arens, 2008: 66).

2. The Clean Development Mechanism

2.1 Geographical distribution

Since its implementation, 7,217 CDM projects have been registered producing carbon credits of an amount of approximately 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ (Fenhann, 2013: Analysis, Table 1). However, looking at the geographical distribution of CDM project activities, one sees that countries profiting from CDM are not those most affected by climate change. Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that no other continent will be more affected by climate change than Africa. According to its geographical position “the continent will be particularly vulnerable due to the considerably limited adaptive capacity, exacerbated by widespread poverty and the existing low levels of development” (IPCC, 2009: 1). Despite its vulnerability, Africa profited barely from CDM projects yet. With 261 mostly small-scale projects in 34 countries, too few potential of sustainable and ecological development are realized. In comparison, China accounts for a total of 3,972 projects (Fenhann, 2013: Analysis, Table 4). A list of 110 countries running CDM projects in 2012 shows that 83.3% of these projects are taking place in Asia and the Pacific region, another 13.4% in Latin America. The remaining 5.3% are distributed between Africa (2.8 %), the Middle-East (1.4%), Europe and Central Asia (1.1%) (Fenhann, 2013: Analysis, Table 5). Looking at specific countries, this geographic disproportionality becomes even clearer. China accounts for 61.6% of all CDM projects worldwide. India comes second with 13% followed by South Korea (8%) (Fenhann, 2013: Analysis, Table 13).

Figure 1: Geographical distribution of CDM project activities (Source: Fenhann, 2013: Analysis, Table 5).

This geographical disparity contradicts the aim of a geographically equal distribution of CDM projects, which was formulated during COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001 (UNFCCC, 2002: 20). Not only as a climate mechanism, but also as a development mechanism, CDM was supposed to support developing countries. The revenue of carbon trade, the projects themselves as well as the transfer of technologies and know-how were supposed to create an environmentally friendly way of industrialization and the development of a sustainable energy sector (Paulsson, 2009: 79f).