Corporate Strategies and the Clean Development Mechanism: Developing Country Financing for Developed Country Commitments?

This book assesses the organizational structure of projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. It explains why, instead of the expected bilateral structure where a company from an industrialized country invests in a project in a developing country and receives the emission reduction credits in return, a unilateral structure prevails whereby a company from a developing country finances the emission reduction project itself and sells the emission reduction credits. The book arrives at three fundamental, interconnected, conclusions: CDM is logically a unilaterally driven investment activity; CDM investment is an irrelevant compliance instrument for companies from industrialised countries and the structure of the compromise is flawed and unequal.