Another reason why CDM and carbon offsets is not the way (or even an efficient way) to deal with climate change.
Flaring gas from oil projects in Nigeria (and elsewhere) is a crazy practice and a human rights abuse, causing acid rain, sickness and heavy local pollution, as well as enormous carbon emissions.
There are proposals that oil companies such as Shell operating in Nigeria would receive CDM licences to reduce gas flaring. That is if an oil project ends its burning off of gas and thus reduces its emissions, it can sell carbon credits to companies in the North who haven’t cut their emissions.
Outcome: Barkindo, Group Managing Director of NNPC (Nigerian National Oil Company), lobbies the Nigerian Parliament not to ban gas flaring by 2010, as they’re currently debating to do. Because if they do that, no oil company will get CDM credits years down the road!
According to next, Barkindo said:
“We have opted for the implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism not only to enhance our mitigating efforts as a developing country but also to do it in a win-win manner,” he said.
He also said that the National Assembly should reconsider its bill that seeks to prohibit gas flaring beyond 2010 as, according to him, “any act or law introduced to stop gas flaring will erode the additionality criterion of getting any project registered with the CDM executive board.”
Mr. Barkindo said no investor would like to stop gas flaring, except through the implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism.