Effectiveness of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Projects: A case Study of Adavikanda Mini Hydropower Project in Ratnapura District

Abstract

Climate change which is mainly caused by a variety of GHGs-especially Carbon Dioxide, has become one of the major threat to the globe at present. Kyoto Protocol was established in 1997, examines solution for that huge crisis. Sri Lanka had ratified the protocol on September, 2002. The Protocol has three types of flexible mechanisms to reduce the level of GHG explosion, as 'Kyoto Mechanism'/ 'Joint Implementation' (JI), 'Clean Development Mechanism' (CDM) and 'Emission Trading' (ET). The JI and ET are limited to developed countries. The CDM is implementing as a collaborative action between developed and developing countries. It gains benefits for developed countries to achieve their emission reduction target in a cost effective way and helps to developing countries to achieve their sustainable development. Although, Sri Lanka’s potential for emission reduction is around 6.2 million C02 tones annually which is equivalent to 124.65 million US $, Sri Lanka has sold only 0.196,684 million tones C02 so far, which is about three percent of the potential. There is a problem with achieving estimated CDM potential and benefits in Sri Lankan context. At present seven CDM projects have been implemented in Sri Lanka. This study focused on the Adavikanda mini hydro power project in Ratnapura district to attain the ultimate objective of assessing the effectiveness of CDM approach via finding the achievements of the objectives of the project to assesse the social, economical and environmental aspects, search about the aspects of success and failures and suggest remedial measures and to evaluate the project considering financial, economical, social and environment criteria. Based on the results of the analysis, it can be concluded that Adavikanda CDM project have achieved economical, ecological and environment criteria up to a desired level although there are some people who are not fully aware about the CDM approach. Therefore, it can be suggested that the awareness programme about the CDM concept will be beneficial for new projects which are going to implement in future in order to get the assistance of different stakeholders, especially the villagers of such project