The goal of the workshop was to expose the flaws of the current CDMs and to give a voice to the civil society, according to the organizers of the event: CDM Watch, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and the Salvadoran Center for Adequate Technology CESTA-Friends of the Earth El Salvador.

These groups consider that CDMs do not contribute with emission reductions and also promote environmental and climate commodification through carbon credits that the Southern countries sell Northern corporations.

“CDMs are a false solution, such as mechanisms to promote technical incineration and energy recovery processes”, and an example of this is the methane emitted by burying waste in landfills, said Eduardo Giesen, GAIA Latin American Coordinator.

Giesen said that the implementation of CDMs generates perverse incentives, such as the artificial distortion of production processes to increase the amount of emissions, increasing this way the carbon credits to sell.

Antonia Vorner, CDM Watch representative, highlighted that the workshop aimed to help understand the CDM in order to struggle, pressure and oppose. According to her, CDMs imply profits at the expense of the environmental, social, political and economic sectors in each country.

“It is important to understand these alternatives, because they are corporate proposals, and today, these corporations want to continue trading carbon through REDD and the CDM”, said Dr. Ricardo Navarro, President of CESTA.

The workshop took place by the end of February in Cojutepeque Municipality, Cuscatlan Department, El Salvador, and around 80 people from all Central America, Colombia and Panama participated.

The participants discussed the repercussions of CDM and Climate Change, and developed demands to submit to their governments and the UN. They also agreed on the importance to consult indigenous peoples and communities to repeal laws that facilitate the development of CDMs.

Production and photo: CESTA