Climate Change and Water Security: Impacts,Future Scenarios,Adaptations and Mitigations

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a framework created by the Kyoto Protocol, was an attempt to link the carbon market and sustainable development objectives in developing countries. Consequently, sequestered carbon is now a globally traded commodity with a huge potential to provide economic returns to land manager. Unlike traditional development models based on deferred and diffused benefit streams, the new carbon-market model offers an opportunity to directly link land management and natural resource conservation with specific and immediate market incentives. Analysis shows that carbon markets can serve a catalytic function in stimulating increased tree planting and improved forest management, thus helping to realize the multiple benefits of forestry and agro-forestry systems. In recent years opportunities for participation in carbon credit trading markets have been growing. The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) now boasts more than six million trades per month. A recent summary of the “State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2006” prepared for the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, reports a rapid increase in corporate participation in the carbon market.