Author Archives: Katy Yan


About Katy Yan

I am the China Program Coordinator at International Rivers, an environmental and human rights NGO that seeks to protect rivers and defend the rights of communities that depend on them. I coordinate our activities around capacity-building of Chinese grassroots activists, manage our Intern and Volunteer Program, provide advocacy and analytical support to groups fighting destructive carbon-financed dams, and support our education and outreach efforts. On CleanTechnica, my blog explores dam-building in China and compliance carbon offsets.

Large-Scale Power Projects Undermine the CDM

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The World Bank-funded Bujagali Dam, which drowned a treasured waterfall and forced hundreds from their lands, was registered by the CDM for 858,000 CERs.

  In less than a week, world leaders, government negotiators, industry, and civil society will converge on Doha, Qatar, for COP18. They will discuss how the global community can get itself out of the current climate mess. What’s clear is that, in terms of solutions, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) should not be a prominent one. A new Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) policy brief argues just this. The brief – Transitioning away from large-scale power … Read More

Dam Drawdown an Overlooked “Global Warming Culprit”

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threegorgesmarsh

  While scientists have known for decades that tropical reservoirs are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, new research from Washington State University-Vancouver has revealed that temperate reservoirs can produce a significant surge in emissions during certain times in their operation. These periods are known as drawdown periods, when the water level in a reservoir drops rapidly, thereby exposing a “drawdown zone” of decayed plants that can be a continuous source of methane. Bridget Deemer, the researcher leading … Read More

Tropical Dams Dispel Clean Energy Myth

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dams kill trees

  Tropical reservoirs are a “methane factory, continuously removing carbon from the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and returning it as methane, with a much greater impact on global warming.” Thus argue the scientists Philip Fearnside and Salvador Pueyo, whose latest article just appeared in the journal Nature Climate Change. In their commentary, Fearnside and Pueyo dispel the myth that dams are clean by illustrating the different pathways of methane release from both upstream and downstream of … Read More

The Global CDM Hydro Hall of Shame

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Construction already underway at Kamchay Dam, which is seeking carbon credits.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is meant to catalyze climate-friendly and sustainable projects in low-income countries. Instead, it’s provided massive subsidies to hydropower developers while increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Through deception and abuse of the system, at least two-thirds of all CDM projects are likely not additional, and more are slipping in each year. In an attempt to cure its ills during the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the CDM Executive Board has … Read More