Page - (000232) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

change.It followsthat“projectsuccess”isamultifacetedtermthatcanbemeasured in terms of avoided greenhouse gas emissions, expanded economic opportunities within thehost country, improved local healthoutcomesor even in termsof social idealssuchas increasedgenderequityorenhancedparticipationindecisionmaking processes. The promise of “win-win” outcomes associatedwith environment and development projects is readily critiqued (Visseren-Hamakers et al. 2012;May- rhofer andGupta2016).Toadd further to the conceptual tangle, the successof the project is contingent upon the household’swillingness to utilize the technology, a behavioral feature that involves considerations such as cultural appropriateness (Troncoso et al. 2007; Shankar et al. 2014), intra-household dynamics (Shankar et al. 2014), and aftercare (Levine et al. 2013). Globally,Wanget al. (2015) tracked 277 cookstoves, 134biodigesters projects and11waterfilterprojects thatwereeitherpreparing for registration, registered,or issuing credits with both CDM and other voluntary standards as of June 2014 (Wang et al. 2015).Of this total, 112 projects had issued credits at least once and 222 projects were registered, with the remaining 88 projects in various stages of preparation (idem). Given that thesecarbonprojectshavemultiplegoals, it is likely that evaluations for their “success” can differ greatly, depending on the goal of interest. The likelihood of unintended negative consequences resulting from a development intervention have been well documented in the general development literature (Ferguson1994;Scott 1998) and in specific assessments of carbon credit projects. However, existing studies tend to focus on the theoretical merits and pitfalls of market-based approaches either by providing a global assessment of the market (Abadie et al. 2012; Kossoy and Guigon 2012; Climate Policy Initiative 2014; Climate Funds Update 2016) or by utilizing illustrative case studies to bolster a position on the carbonmarket’smerits in general (Haya 2007; Bumpus andCole 2010) or that achieving climate anddevelopment co-benefits is context dependent (Simonetal. 2012).Rather thancondemnorcondonecarbonmarketsasaconcept, there is a need to uncover causal mechanisms that can explain variations in development outcomes between carbonproject types anddesigns. 12.2.1 ConceptualizingLocalEconomicDevelopment Impacts forCarbonFinanceProjects There are numerous attempts in the academic and gray literature as to how one might approach evaluating the sustainable development impact of a household intervention.Household interventionswhich are subsidized by carbonfinance are often called “charismatic carbon” “premium” or “pro-poor” projects (The Gold Standard 2010; Cohen 2011; Verles and Santini 2012) given that they directly address the development needs of the rural and urban poor and are therefore assumed to have higher sustainable development impact than projects which 216 J.Hyman