Climate Projects

Biogas Construction

For the first 4 years after the Clean Development Mechanism was set up by the UNFCCC, the only pro-poor CDM Projects in the world were found in Chickballapur district of South India. Impressive resources have been tapped for pro-poor rural CDM Projects.

  • ADATS registered a 5,500 domestic Biogas units CDM Project with the UNFCCC in December 2005. This project is also certified under Gold Standard.

    These units have already been built at a cost of € 1.1 million got through the forward sale of the first 7 years' CER generation to Velcan Energy, France. As on 31st April 2015, our commitment to the Carbon Investor to deliver 136,871 GS CERs got completed.

    Since then, we generated 1,02,741 GS CERs, received and distributed ₹ 6.23 crore to End User women as a reward for environmental services they provided to society at large. ADATS did not hold back a single Rupee of Carbon Revenue and the entire proceeds from these and future sale of GS CERs went, and will continue to go, to End User women in proportion to their usage days.

  • The Bagepalli Coolie Sangha (BCS) registered another 18,000 Biogas units CDM Project with the UNFCCC in August 2009.

    BCS signed an ERPA with FairClimateFund, the Netherlands, to build 12,000 units and transfer 233,827 yet-to-be-generated GS CERs.

    11,633 units have been constructed and 2,39,825 GS CERs generated. Of these, 2,27,953 CERs have been issued and delivered to the Carbon Investor.

  • An A/R CDM to plant trees on 18,000 hectares of rain fed dry lands was registered with the UNFCCC in May 2011.

    1,296 families from 155 villages planted a staggering total of 616,747 saplings on their own, with minimum support from ADATS. Only 56,377 (9%) survived to grow into trees.

    We converted this into a Gold Standard Project for Agroforestry and rechristened it Farm Forestry. After re-registering, the project underwent the first Verification and 32,938 GS VERs were issued. 52,045 tonnes fetched ₹ 3.86 crore that was distributed as carbon revenue to 509 farmers who planted on 1,710 acres in 134 villages.

    A total of 2,36,426 saplings have been planted to date with a survival rate of 55%.

  • An Improved Cookstoves CDM Project to provide 4,000 women with fuel efficient Woodstoves was registered with the UNFCCC in December 2012.

    2,774 women have each bought two Chulika Woodstoves with loans provided by their respective village Coolie Credit Funds. Though a lot of learning was obtained, this project was not monitored as per PDD parameters and we were not able to verify CERs generated.

    The activity has just now been revived under a fresh climate project for 4,043 women to use 6,065 Greenways stoves through a rotating fund.

ADATS has taken the lead to form the Fair Climate Network since we are involved in this field for the past 28 years, and believe it our duty to transfer experiential learning to other grassroots bodies.

For more information on CDM, please visit the Fair Climate Website.