Abstract

The paper investigates whether the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol has played a significant role in its contribution to improving people’s lives and achieving sustainable development. This research consists of an assessment of Project Design Documents (PDDs) and monitoring reports of the 20 registered CDM projects in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina up to 2010, in terms of their potential impact on the envisaged sustainable human development goals for local communities. The results support previous findings showing that the CDM under its current state and design is failing to deliver the promised co-benefits. However, a huge potential is found to foster the “win-win” outcomes if appropriate modalities and procedures are developed for the design and assessment of these co-benefits. This paper also presents a new framework for the design and monitoring of such co-benefits for a better assessment in future CDM, as well in the already existing projects. Since no CDM project has ever been rejected due to a lack of contribution to sustainable development, the main policy implication of this research is the necessity of establishing a new international verification protocol to ensure that potential co-benefits of CDM projects are identified and actually realized.