Chapter 12
Unpacking the Black Box of Technology
Distribution, Development Potential
and Carbon Markets Benefits
Jasmine Hyman
Abstract In 2005, the international carbon market was launched under the Kyoto
Protocol, creating an innovative financing design for low-emissions development
initiatives. Just over 10 years after its inception, the carbon market can now provide
insight on the opportunities and limitations of “blended finance” approaches,
whereby private-public partnerships are employed to pursue global development
goals such as poverty alleviation and development. Utilizing process-tracing and
value chain methods, this chapter adds granularity to debates on whether and how
carbon markets can support local economic development, as measured through the
creation of local enterprises and the support of local livelihoods. It offers a
“Livelihood Index” to assess the employment impact of the carbon intervention
in order to address the core question: how is the carbon credit pie divvied up? Three
carbon projects in Cambodia, aimed at household level interventions (water filters,
biodigesters for cooking and fertilizer production, and fuel-efficient cookstoves) are
evaluated through the livelihood index and results indicate that distribution strategies matter for local economic gains. Distribution strategies to deliver low-carbon
technologies within the carbon market are currently a “black box”, understudied
and undocumented in the project pipeline; this paper argues that opening the black
box may be useful for policymakers, standard setting organizations and academics
interested in promoting pro-poor impacts through carbon market interventions.
Keywords Carbon markets • Waterfilters • Cookstoves • Biodigesters • Climate
finance • Climate change • Market mechanisms
J. Hyman (*)
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
e-mail: jasmine.hyman@yale.edu
© The Author(s) 2017
J.I. Uitto et al. (eds.), Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable
Development, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43702-6_12
213
Unpacking the Black Box of Technology
Distribution, Development Potential
and Carbon Markets Benefits
Jasmine Hyman
Abstract In 2005, the international carbon market was launched under the Kyoto
Protocol, creating an innovative financing design for low-emissions development
initiatives. Just over 10 years after its inception, the carbon market can now provide
insight on the opportunities and limitations of “blended finance” approaches,
whereby private-public partnerships are employed to pursue global development
goals such as poverty alleviation and development. Utilizing process-tracing and
value chain methods, this chapter adds granularity to debates on whether and how
carbon markets can support local economic development, as measured through the
creation of local enterprises and the support of local livelihoods. It offers a
“Livelihood Index” to assess the employment impact of the carbon intervention
in order to address the core question: how is the carbon credit pie divvied up? Three
carbon projects in Cambodia, aimed at household level interventions (water filters,
biodigesters for cooking and fertilizer production, and fuel-efficient cookstoves) are
evaluated through the livelihood index and results indicate that distribution strategies matter for local economic gains. Distribution strategies to deliver low-carbon
technologies within the carbon market are currently a “black box”, understudied
and undocumented in the project pipeline; this paper argues that opening the black
box may be useful for policymakers, standard setting organizations and academics
interested in promoting pro-poor impacts through carbon market interventions.
Keywords Carbon markets • Waterfilters • Cookstoves • Biodigesters • Climate
finance • Climate change • Market mechanisms
J. Hyman (*)
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
e-mail: jasmine.hyman@yale.edu
© The Author(s) 2017
J.I. Uitto et al. (eds.), Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable
Development, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43702-6_12
213