The World Commission on Dams (WCD) launched its final report
in London last November. It came out with very strong recommendations
that were immediately supported by many NGO's worldwide. The WCD was
headed by ABB’s ex-CEO Goran Lindahl and represented industries,
NGO's, academia and governments. It created a landmark by urging adoption
of fundamental sustainability criteria for large dams. According to
the Climate Action Networks journal ECO ‘these criteria have
been continuously neglected in the past. So far, large dams have forced
up to eighty million people to vacate their homes and land. Dams contribute
to large-scale biodiversity loss, damage to riverbeds and floodplains’.
This, said Marita Koch-Weser, IUCN's Director General, had led to"irreversible
loss of species and ecosystems."
The recommendations include that no dam should be built without the
agreement of affected people, participatory assessments of the needs
that will be met, and proper evaluations of alternatives to the dams.
Further, priority should be given to energy efficiency of existing
power stations before new dams are built. Participatory reviews should
be undertaken for existing dams and issues such as dam safety and
even decommissioning should be considered. Finally, the recommendations
include making reparations for people who have suffered hardship from
dams and restoration of damaged ecosystems.
"Among the ongoing and planned projects which
are clearly in breach of the WCD guidelines are China’s Three
Gorges dam, the dams on India's Namada river, the Ilisu dam in Turkey,
San Roque in the Philippines, Bujagali in Uganda, Ralco in Chile,
the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, and dams in the Brazilian Amazon
and the Uruguay River Basin in the far South of Brazil," according
to a large coalition of NGO’s responding to the WCD report. In
other words, large hydro violates all the criteria that should be
required for projects supported by the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM).
Along with all of the well-known environmental, social and human
rights impacts of large dams and reservoirs, the WCD report details
the greenhouse gas emission implications. These are far more severe
than previously thought (see Renew 129). Basically, all reservoirs
that have flooded forests are sources of greenhouse gases, often methane
from rotting vegetation. Methane, however, has a global warming potential
more than 20 times that of carbon dioxide by weight. The Balbina Dam
in Brazil is estimated to produce about eight times the GHG emissions
per year as a fossil fuel plant generating an equivalent amount of
electricity. So, the "conventional wisdom" that large-scale
hydro is a clean technology from a climate perspective is clearly
wrong.
However CAN commented that ‘to their credit,
some Parties, such as the EU member states, have proposed that large
hydro projects be excluded from the CDM. In light of the WCD report
and recommendations, other countries, such as the US, are now signaling
their willingness to drop this category of projects from the CDM.
This is a welcome development, which all countries should emulate’
CAN therefore called for a straightforward agreement to be reached
to remove large hydro from the CDM- completely and irrevocably. Sadly
that was not to be. But in practice there may be no need, since, with
the World Bank backing the WCD study, and the assessment criteria
tightening up, investors are likely to see large dams are increasingly
risky options, CDM or no CDM.
Dams and Development A New Framework for Decision-Making’, The
Report of the World Commission on Dams. Source: ECO’s COP-6 coverage.
For more details see WIRE’s report at: http://wire.ises.org/entry.nsf/E?Open&rereport&8E16B4BD615D1559C125699A005B1221
