China and the Clean Development Mechanism: prompting massive forced relocations, and conversion of land from food to power?

In China, the Associated Press is reporting on the the CDM, the U.N.-managed Clean Development Mechanism established in 2005 as a Kyoto Treaty mechanism, as what one observer termed “an excessive subsidy that represents a massive waste of developed world resources.”

The article details forced relocations in China to clear land for CDM projects, the use of CDM credits to finance projects that would have been build without CDM in any case. China currently, alone, has 763 hydroelectric projects in the CDM approval pipeline and will acquire CDM credits worth $4 billion; 25 new hydro projects are being launched every month, but, according to Chinese residents, are being established using land seized from farmers who are paid a fraction of state-mandated consumption, while converting land from food production to power production.

The CDM was established under the Kyoto Treaty to allow developed nation polluters to buy “carbon credits” that would allow them to keep high greenhouse gas emitting facilities in operation; in turn, the credits would be generated by renewable energy projects in the developing world.

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