First World countries
buy “right to pollute?”

In 1997, 137 states signed the Kyoto Protocol, setting limits to carbon emissions in a bid to address the issue of climate change. Part of that international agreement is a mechanism that has proven controversial, and some say, misleading and environmentally destructive.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows for trading of credits for carbon emissions between developed and developing countries. In effect, it allows companies from developing countries that are in danger of exceeding their limits for carbon emissions, to purchase the right to emit more from developing countries.

A book recently published by the group Focus on the Global South asks if this unusual practice really helps in the global fight against climate change, or if it merely allows the haves to purchase the right to destroy the environment from the have-nots.