With the controversies surrounding the Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability (now Climate Change and Development Authority [CCDA]) and subsequent sidelining of the director Dr. Theo Yasause, new information is beginning to unfold as the Masalai Blog reports in July 2009.
The blog post with the title “Carbon Trading Under More Scrutiny” attracted a massive 178 comments from PNG, Australia and the world over.
According to documents, the government has been pre-selling carbon credits for almost four years prior to 2009 without any proper legal policy documentation and framework in place.
Among the documents obtained was a certificate with serial numbers A1 to A33 and bearing the signature of former Minister for Trade and Industry, Paul Tiensten who signed on behalf of then Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare on the 26th of July, 2005 with Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd.
The certificate holds the common seal of Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd. It is understood the certificate in “A” Series specifies a monetary value of $20m with its maturity date set on the 1st January, 2008 but it is unclear whether actual monies have exchanged.
Former Prime Minister and the then Opposition Leader Sir Mekere Morauta at the time in learning about this this commented “our carbon is being sold yet we don’t have legislations and policy in place.” “It is unbecoming of leaders travelling around the world selling behind our backs. This is a huge corruption.”
According to the Office of the Prime Minister there are also reports of carbon ‘conmen’ selling customary landowners permits to ‘bag’ carbon from the atmosphere to the Government carbon trading office.
It appears that publicity about these actions has been promoted by Governors in several provinces.
The reason for the Governors’ discontent is that there was no indication that revenue would accrue to them.
According to law, some export-orientated activities direct revenue to provincial administrations. The irregularities, snake-oil salesmen and administrative problems do not bode well for carbon trading in PNG.
According to one report, Macquarie Bank has already pulled out of any potential carbon trading in the country, citing a lack of market integrity as the main reason.
Development agencies have something to answer for here. The World Bank actively promoted the idea that carbon credits could be earned and traded in a global emissions trading scheme if deforestation was halted.
One World Bank report suggested that revenue from credits could greatly exceed revenue from forestry.
The Bank offered to provide seed finance for a fund to support development and trading of credits. A number of national aid agencies chipped in.
But it is abundantly clear that this clever financial engineering is too clever. The EU has said that it does not favour the sale of such large numbers of credits from developing countries into the EU trading scheme.
Greenpeace and WWF oppose creation of cheap credits like this, and it is now clear there will not be global agreement on an emissions trading scheme in the near future. – Via Garamut News.
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