Local stakeholder consultations in the CDM Gold Standard

Abstract

The clean development mechanism (CDM) is one of the Kyoto flexible mechanisms. It was designed with the dual purpose of assisting developed countries in complying with their Kyoto targets in a cost-effective way, and assisting developing countries in achieving sustainable development. Due to a lack of standardized regulations for how sustainable development contributions should be achieved and measured, the mechanism is generally thought to be underperforming with regard to this aspect of its purpose. The CDM Gold Standard is a voluntary “best practice” certification scheme for carbon reduction projects. It was established specifically to fill the regulatory gap in the CDM, and to ensure that certified projects fully complies with both aspects of the mechanism’s purpose, it relies on a set of additional rules and requirements as well as an extensive participatory stakeholder consultation process. This thesis has examined the effect of the Gold Standard local stakeholder consultation process on the sustainable development impacts of 22 Gold Standard CDM projects. Based on an analysis of the questions and comments received during this process as well as the way this input have been taken into account by project developers, the thesis concludes that the Gold Standard local stakeholder consultation process can increase the sustainable development benefits of Gold Standard CDM projects, but for the majority of projects does not.