Kyoto treaty ineffective for poor countries, say experts

LONDON: Initiatives aimed at cutting emissions while encouraging economic development are failing the world's poorest countries, leading scientists from Oxford University have warned.

They say that payments from rich countries to fund development schemes in poor nations are unequally distributed because investors choose stronger, more stable states like China, India and Brazil instead of much poorer nations such as Chad, Nigeria and Sudan.

In their new paper published in the first issue of the journal Climate and Development, Dr Chuks Okereke and Dr Heike Schroeder analyze the links between carbon cuts, economic development and justice for developing countries.

The paper 'How can justice, development and climate change mitigation be reconciled for developing countries in a post-Kyoto settlement?' assesses the existing initiatives for greenhouse gas reductions, such as the 'Clean Development Mechanism' (CDM).

The CDM is part of the Kyoto climate change treaty and allows industrialized nations with emissions reduction commitments to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to their own countries.

These certified emission reduction (CER) credits, are traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to a meet a part of their emission reduction targets.