WO STANDFORD University academics have found in their study that a significant number of projects in the developing countries are earning huge amounts of cash on the back of hollow promises of cutting back on their carbon emissions. The study described it as 'routine abuses' of the UN carbon offset programme. According to the paper prepared by the academics, the projects, which earn the money by selling carbon credits to companies in the developed nations (mainly Europe and north America) actually don't necessarily require that money in order to grow. They also point out the discrepancies in the method of certifying projects as 'eligible' to sell carbon credits. This is seen as a big blow to the global carbon credit business, which by some estimates could grow into a three trillion dollar market by 2020.

Although the main idea behind the programme seems salutary, since it has been able to avoid confrontations between the developed and developing nations, over who would bear the economic costs of reducing the carbon emissions, but it has become a tool for the growth hungry companies of the developing nations to show that they are trying to reduce their carbon emissions. Companies, especially in India and China, have managed to work their way around the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows these companies to acquire fundings for their projects from the more polluting companies in the developed world by projecting these as clean energy projects. These include many coal-based power generation companies, gas liquefaction plants and the supposed 'clean coal' plants. Most of these companies start pilot projects based on new technologies, which promise to reduce carbon emissions.

The problem with the CDM is that, while looking to help the big emitters clean up for their extra emissions and promoting renewable energy initiatives, it indirectly supports these companies to remain trapped in the 'dirty energy' cycle. If these pilot projects, which still involve the use of coal and natural gas, are being continuously financed by the polluting industries of the West, then how could we expect that one day in the near future they would abandon their projects for the 'real clean energy'. By financing such initiatives we are only encouraging these companies to stay in the 'fossil fuel mode', which is actually the very cause of the rising greenhouse gas emissions. Such lapses in the CDM are actually turning the pollutants into sources of easy money for these companies. The UN, however, defends itself, claiming that care has been taken in protecting the CDM from any abuses.