he 1997 Kyoto Protocol was celebrated by the nations of the world as the first legally-binding treaty to set limits to greenhouse gas emissions. The climate debate entered quieter waters after Kyoto, and the negotiations have since circled around the three market-based 'solutions' enshrined in the Protocol- emissions trading, joint implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Emissions trading allows the 39 governments committed to collective reductions under the Protocol to trade the right to pollute among themselves. Under this scheme, due to start in 2008, a country might choose to buy emission credits from another country that managed to reduce its emissions below its Kyoto targets. Joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) grant Northern governments and corporations emission credits through special projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the host country. These projects can be carried out among industrialised countries and corporations (JI) or between one industrialised government or company and one Southern country (CDM). Although the rules and procedures have not yet been agreed upon, hundreds of projects are already planned and many are even being implemented. Typical JI and CDM projects could be respectively the Dutch government financing a factory producing energy-efficient light bulbs in Russia, or BP Amoco installing solar panels in Zimbabwe. The logic behind the market-based mechanisms is that it is less expensive for Northern countries to invest in reduction projects abroad than it is for them to reduce emissions domestically.

A disturbing reality lurks behind these benign-sounding mechanisms- they enable industrialised countries and their corporations to buy the right to pollute and to escape even the meagre commitments laid down in the Kyoto Protocol. It has been argued that similar trading schemes, such as the US programme to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions to combat acid rain, have worked successfully. However, this argument does not take into account the negative health and economic impacts suffered by poor and disadvantaged communities in the US through these schemes- a phenomenon referred to as 'environmental racism'. [3]. The hypothesis that such schemes will be efficient on the international level is also flawed. One must not forget the absolute impossibility of monitoring emissions from millions of sources spread all over the world, not to mention the lack of a binding regulatory system to enforce emissions limits. [4]

Not only will the market-based mechanisms fail to achieve the agreed reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, they could catalyse serious environmental and social catastrophe on a scale unimaginable. These mechanisms effectively turn greenhouse gases into commodities, locking-in existing North-South inequities in the use of the atmosphere and natural resources and opening-up many new and harmful profit-making opportunities for transnational corporations- essentially creating a new market out of thin air.

Through these schemes, TNCs and their Northern governments will be entitled to buy countless cheap emission credits from the South, through projects of an often exploitative nature, thereby imposing on the South what the India-based Centre for Science and Environment refers to as 'carbon colonialism'. [5] Furthermore, all of the `low-hanging fruit´, or cheap credits, will have been harvested by the North when it comes time for Southern countries to reduce their own emissions, saddling them with only the most expensive options for any future reduction commitments they might make.

Since the introduction of these market-based solutions in 1997, subsequent international climate negotiations have been deadlocked around technical discussions about their scope and implementation, essentially paralysing the process. The political pressure to open the floodgates for these commercial escape mechanisms continues to intensify, further weakening an already anaemic Protocol and scuttling any hopes of securing the political agreement necessary to avert the climate crisis.

A recent study released by the German Federal Environment Agency clearly stated that current Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets are hopelessly insufficient for the goals of climate stabilisation and prevention of serious damage. [6] The report estimates that if industrialised countries do not go beyond the 5.2 % reduction by 2008-2012 as outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, average global temperatures will increase by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100. This would not only cause a dramatic 41 centimetre rise in sea levels, but would also threaten agricultural production and up to 40% of natural vegetation around the globe. The report prescribes an emissions cut by industrialised countries to far less than half of 1990 levels by 2030 in order to avoid this nightmare scenario. [7]

But there is no need to look far into the future to see the horrendous impacts of climate change. The number of catastrophes caused by rainstorms, tropical cyclones, droughts, and other climate disruptions is increasing year by year, resulting in terrible damage and human suffering. Examples from the recent years include enormous mudslides in Venezuela, a devastating cyclone in the Indian state of Orissa, and massive floods in Mozambique. [8] A team of scientists from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam recently confirmed that climate change is clearly having an impact on the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. [9] The authors conclude that, "at least part of the damage caused by weather extremes is due to human-induced climate change."

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