The Issue of Clean Development Mechanism in Developed and Developing Countries

Abstract

Protecting the global climate is an important issue in today's world. Heavy industrialization, on one hand, is considered as something absolutely essential to keep up the pace of economic development, and on the other, the aforesaid development is not at all a sustainable development as far as the environmental issues are concerned. It is true that the majority of the pollutants are contributed by the highly industrialized nations of the world, the lead position being enjoyed by the United States. However, situations are slowly changing, where some of the developing countries are performing pretty well in the development scale, thereby emitting a large amount of pollutants in the form of Green House Gasses (GHGs). Efforts are being taken up for mitigating the harmful impact upon the environment at the national as well as at the international level. The Kyoto Protocol was introduced in 1997 as a means of assisting the countries in protecting the global climate. Clean Development Mechanism was one of the principles discussed in the Kyoto Protocol. The paper that follows tries to throw some light on the status of the CDM that presently exists in today's developing and developed countries. The scope of CDM and its flaws are also brought in the discussion. The inequality in project allocation among the developing countries is stressed. The present situation of the CDM in China and India are discussed, as they are the two most popular destinations for the CDM projects. Within the limited scope of the paper, attempts have also been made at analyzing the future scopes of the CDM in today's world.