The new proposals in Ahmedabad and Imphal for combustion based waste to energy plants are uncalled for. The Ahmedabad municipal standing committee is planning to allow a private firm to set up a plant to generate power from solid waste collected in the city. Delhi-based Djai Power Ltd has offered to set up a plant designed to generate 7.5 MW power from the daily garbage collection of minimum 500 tonnes. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) will also be required to pay Rs 30 per tonne to the company for segregation of garbage.

The project will be implemented in two phases. The first phase will cost Rs 10.94 crore and the second phase Rs 34.55 crore. AMC will be supposed to provide and deliver at garbage at the plant site free of cost, the electricity generated will be sold to the AMC at Rs 2.25 per unit plus five per cent annual escalation on a cumulative basis for next 25 years. The plant would be located at AMC’s new dumping site near Gyaspur village on the Narol-Sarkhej bypass.

It is claimed that the plant will be ready in nine months from the date of awarding of work order. Also false claims are being made saying, ‘‘There are three such plants running in India, two in Andhra Pradesh and one in Uttar Pradesh, we are setting up our plant using the technology applied in the Andhra Pradesh plants”.

Lucknow's waste to energy project was dubious and has now been shut down; Indian Express reported it on December 24, 2004 from Lucknow. Why is it that the same newspaper allows its Ahmedabad based reporter on 27 January 2005 to report that it is running?

"Hyderabadi recipe" from Andhra Pradesh is being proposed to generate electricity from the waste unmindful of the health and environmental consequences of the project. Besides environmental unsustainability, such projects are not even technically and financially viable.

The issue of supplying ‘‘quality’’ garbage and ecological footprints will remain an impediment in any waste to energy project in India as had been the case with the failure of Timarpur waste to energy plant, the proposed Gazipur waste to energy plant and the proposed Kanpur waste to energy plant.

What the Indian Express reported on December 24, 2004 about the closure of the Rs 76-crore waste to energy plant in Lucknow for converting municipal solid waste (MSW) into electricity was not at all surprising. The city is back to square one with its problem of solid waste disposal. Two of the city's dumping grounds at Jankipuram and Aishbagh are full, while the one on Hardoi Road is fast running out of capacity.

A Fact Finding survey conducted in Lucknow had revealed that the State's non-conventional energy development agency was compelled by some vested interests to pursue the project.

A similar survey of pelletisation-based waste to energy plant near Hyderabad has highlighted its adverse health and environmental impact on the entire Peerancheri Panchayat and the Yellikata village in Andhra Pradesh.

In Imphal, Manipur there is a proposal for an incinerator plant to dispose the wastes. The undisposable material would be piled as artificial hills. A detailed project report has already been submitted by the State authorities to the Union Ministry indicating a plot at Tingri area for an incinerator plant. The Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation has been approached to approve and fund an incinerator plant in order to free Imphal from rotting garbage.

The estimated to cost is around Rs 24 crores. The State Government has begun the process of acquiring 60 acres of land needed for setting up the plant. The local leaders and Meira Paibis (Women Torchbearers) are scheduled to visit Shillong, Meghalaya for an on the spot study of environment friendly Solid Waste Disposal Plant already set up.

Earlier, the Manipur Government had selected a site at Lamdeng Khunou for setting up a Solid Waste Disposal Plant under the French Government assistance but the proposal failed as France pulled out of the programme and the Lamdeng Khunou land of only 6 acres was insufficient.

It is claimed by vested business interests like Andrew Whitehead, head of British law firm Martineau Johnson based in Birmingham and London who was recently in India that these projects can qualify under the Kyoto Protocol's 'clean development mechanism' (CDM) could attract significant revenue from the sale of emissions reduction credits. He will have Indian agencies believe that the Russian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol could make some economically unsound projects financially viable, especially if, as predicted, prices in the market go up. The Protocol is the major outcome of highly contentious global negotiations underway since 1997 as part of the International Framework Convention for Climate Change (IFCCC).

Kyoto Protocol to enter into Force

The Kyoto Protocol against global warming consists of 28 articles, including definition of terms used in the protocol, policies, measures and commitments that member countries must respect strictly in terms of definition of emissions in order to achieve sustainable development, as well as commitments to measures to limit and/or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal protocol. For the Protocol to enter into force it was required that it be ratified by at least 55 Parties to the Convention, including developed countries accounting for at least 55% of the total 1990 emissions from this industrialized group.

Climate models suggest this natural global warming is being enhanced by human activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, accentuating the natural greenhouse effect globally, is also called the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect or Global Warming.

The Conference of the Parties (COP 10) on Kyoto Protocol in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 6-17 December 2004 was a conference of hope, sparked by the momentum generated by the upcoming entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. On 18th November 2004, Russia, which is responsible for 17 per cent of the world’s emissions, deposited its instrument of ratification with the United Nations. This marked the start of the ninety day count down to the entry in force of the Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gases emissions world wide.

According to the treaty nations are supposed to limit greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere for the first period from 2008 to 2012. Although the Protocol doesn't formally go into effect until 2008, February 16, 2005 marks the start of a pre-Kyoto pilot program with at least 136 countries as signatories to begin reducing emissions of six key greenhouse gases.

The Protocol is a legally binding commitment according to which industrialized countries will reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 % as compared to 1990 levels by the period 2008 to 2012. The Protocol promises to produce a historical reversal of the upward trend in emissions that started in these countries about 150 years ago.

The Protocol’s entry into force means that from 16 February 2005:
1) Thirty industrialized countries will be legally bound to meet quantitative targets for reducing or limiting their greenhouse gas emissions.
2) The international carbon trading market will become a legal and practical reality. The Protocol’s "emissions trading" regime enables industrialized countries to buy and sell emissions credits amongst themselves; this market-based approach will improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of emissions cuts.
3) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) will move from an early implementation phase to full operations. The CDM will encourage investments in developing-country projects that limit emissions while promoting sustainable development.
4) The Protocol’s Adaptation Fund, established in 2001, will start preparing itself for assisting developing countries to cope with the negative effects of climate change.

Only four industrialized countries have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol: they are Australia, Liechtenstein, Monaco and the United States. Australia and the United States have stated that they do not plan to do so; together they account for over one third of the greenhouse gases emitted by the industrialized world. These polluting countries are waging "eco-terrorism" which endangers the survival of low-lying island countries like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and a handful of others as they are threatened by the rise in the sea level caused by global warming that could see them entirely submerged. Their future looks bleak in the face of climate change, climate variability and sea level rise. Developing countries, including Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, are also Parties to the Protocol but do not have emission reduction targets.

While the fact that climate change figures in the agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos and World Social Forum in Porto Alegre underlining the importance of the issue, the predicted rise in world temperatures of about two degrees because of steadily increasing carbon dioxide levels is expected to trigger dramatic environmental changes. Now the world's biggest climate modelling exercise, lead by Oxford University, has forecast that figure could be closer to 11 degrees. A climate modeller from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Doctor Tony Hirst, says the study using 95,000 computers around the world, is a credible one. CSIRO says, "...the Kyoto Protocol target will not lead to stabilisation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The target represents only the first step towards meeting the objectives of the Framework Convention on Climate Change."

Misuse of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

What is being ignored while promoting waste to energy projects based on burn technologies that it violates Kyoto Protocol. Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol provides for a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which enables developing countries to participate in joint greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation projects. This is done by engaging in project activities that result in certified emissions reductions (CER). The protocol allows developed countries and economies in transition (Annex I countries) may use the CER accruing from such projects undertaken in developing countries, to account for their own mandated reductions in GHG emissions. Projects starting in the year 2000 are eligible to earn Certified Emission Reductions (CER) if they lead to "real, measurable, and long-term" green house gas reductions, which are additional to any that would occur in the absence of the CDM project.

CDM is aimed at enabling developed countries meet their reduction commitments in a flexible and cost-effective manner. While investors in the Annex I countries profit from CDM projects by obtaining reductions at costs lower than in their own countries, the touted gains to the developing country host parties are in the form of finance, technology, and sustainable development benefits.

Waste combustion is a toxic activity and a contributor to global warming but CDM may end up becoming a vehicle to promote it in developing countries as a sustainable activity. Vested business interests are promoting waste incineration under various names such gasification and pyrolysis as renewable energy. Energy drawn from projects that use resource incineration processes is a non-renewable energy and it cannot be used for certified emissions reductions. The fact that waste incineration leads to global warming is acknowledged in the Kyoto Protocol itself where it is listed as one of the sources of green house gases. It is true that the Kyoto Protocol mentions waste management, but what is really happening is that investors and promoters of incineration technologies into India are taking advantage of Article 10(c) of Kyoto, which seeks to facilitate transfer of or access to environmentally sound technologies pertinent to climate change.

If this direction of using CDM gains momentum, it will be a setback to the anti-incineration campaign worldwide. The United States has already introduced waste incineration as renewable energy in its Energy Bill amidst fierce opposition. In India, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) are promoting incineration of organic resource with the support of subsidies instead of promoting sustainable integrated plant nutrients management. Processes such a incineration, gasification, pyrolysis are being supported on the pretext that they are a source of renewable energy, even though these technologies are totally inappropriate for Indian wastes.

The CDM Executive Board, deliberating over the criteria for small-scale project activities with a maximum output capacity equivalent of upto 15 megawatts has defined renewable energy as "a project activity that uses partly or in its entirety sources of energy that do not use up the earth's finite mineral resources and that is replaced rapidly by the natural processes".

What is emerging is that organic waste as a fuel for electricity generation through combustion processes is being termed a renewable process. This is a gross attempt to twist scientific facts to suit vested interests. It makes a farce of CDM, which encourages renewable energy technologies (RETs) to reduce carbon emissions and not otherwise.

Climate change treaty is indeed a great deal about hard-headed corporate finance, and not just either academic concern over externalities or golden-hearted environmentalism.