Costing the earth: as the deadline for gathering pledges for the Yasuni proposal to leave oil in the ground in return for financial compensation fast approaches, pressure is mounting to tap into the global carbon market. But at what cost, asks Adam Ma'anit?

New Internationalist, July, 2008 by Adam Maanit

The real danger is that once a dollar value has been assigned to something as arguably incalculable as a tree, a forest or, yes, even a human life, it allows the bean counters to start comparing costs and benefits. Economists can start to ask, when the price of oil hits $200 a barrel: 'Does the benefit of extracting a billion barrels of oil outweigh the cost of destroying the Yasuni National Park and the communities of people that live there?' Such cost-benefit analysis is the calculus of globalization--a branch of mathematics accessible only to the mighty wizards at the World Bank, the UN and various governmental, non-governmental and corporate institutions. Tom Goldtooth, of the Indigenous Environment Network, argues that it is this market-oriented paradigm that has brought about the climate cirsis and, as a result, should not be where we find the solutions. 'They [government leaders] come from an industrialized mindset that looks at technical or market-based solutions. We're saying that we have to look at the values that have gotten us into this situation. Industrialization separates community from nature.' (10)

The struggle continues ...

This is 'the international environmental policy context in which the Yasuni proposal inevitably finds itself. The real challenge is to see just how much it can stay the course and not fall prey to the greenhouse gangsters lurking behind every corner. Activists on the ground argue that the struggle to protect the integrity of the Yasuni proposal is ultimately one of sovereignty.

Ecuadorian activist and founder of the Southern-based Oilwatch Network, Esperanza Martinez, argues that the carbon market's intrusion into the political space opened up by the Yasuni proposal represents an enormous threat. 'This framework emboldens those actors who believe that it is possible to accommodate the proposal within the sale of environmental services ... Sovereignty as a concept and practice, both in terms of the ecosystems and cultures of indigenous people, cannot be turned into a commodity to be sold on the market of political policies or quick-fix carbon-shifting "solutions".'(11)

There are many things that give cause for optimism. The Yasuni proposal--while yet to be formally postulated--puts flesh on the bones of some of the core demands climate activists have long been calling for. It is an implicit recognition of the concept of ecological debt that the over-polluting North owes the South. It asserts indigenous peoples' land rights. It provides genuine financial incentives for protecting one of the world's most significant biodiversity hotspots. It's a genuine civil society policy proposal with an engaged support base, thanks to the excellent work of grassroots groups in Ecuador including solid organizations like Accion Ecologica and Oilwatch, as well as numerous indigenous rights groups and local communities. It doesn't attempt to value the carbon of either the forest or the oil beneath. It bases the proposal on the very real and incontestable value of the extracted oil as saleable commodity (at a $135-a-barrel peak at the time of writing). And it endeavours to keep an estimated one billion barrels of oil in the ground, where it belongs if we are to make any progress on cutting the fuel supply to dangerous climate change.