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Subject: FT "Hydropower threatened by deluge of objections"/LS
The Financial Times
Tuesday November 2 1999
Hydropower threatened by deluge of objections
Dams can provide clean energy, safe drinking water and reliable irrigation.
But, says Vanessa Houlder, people are questioning their environmental cost
To some, they are among the greatest man-made wonders of the world. To
others, they are symbols of megalomania and
corruption.
Few development issues arouse more intense
passions than dams. The debate is polarised between
those who stress their role in generating cheap, clean
electricity, preventing floods and supplying water and those who see them
as social and ecological disasters.
The influence of the anti-dam movement has been increasing. In India,
activists have gone on hunger strike in jail to protest against the
displacement of large numbers of villagers by the series of dams along the
Narmada Valley. The protests have reached an international audience,
thanks largely to the eloquence of Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize-winning
author who has campaigned fervently on behalf of the villagers.
The Ilisu dam in Turkey has also provoked international reaction. As well
as highlighting the impact on the Kurdish people whose villages and towns
will be flooded, campaigners argue it could potentially trigger a war with
Syria and Iraq by damaging drinking water supplies and the livelihoods of
local farmers.
Industrialists and financiers cannot ignore this debate. "The reality in
today's debate on dams is that it is civil society and the private sector
who will, to a large extent, determine whether governments will choose a
dam as their preferred option," says Kader Asmal, a South African
government minister who chairs the World Commission on Dams, an independent
body assessing the future of large dams.
Increasingly, pressure groups have been targeting western contractors and
financiers. The National Wildlife Federation, the US environmental
organisation, is lobbying the banks involved in funding China's Three
Gorges project, the largest dam ever constructed, which is due to displace
more than 1m people and cause widespread ecological damage. The Berne
Declaration,
a Swiss pressure group, has targeted shareholders of ABB, the engineering
group, in an attempt to fuel concern about the riskiness of the company's
commitment to hydropower projects.
In some cases, companies have withdrawn from controversial projects.
Earlier this year, two German utilities withdrew from India's Maheshwar Dam
project in the Narmada Valley, which is destined to displace about 20,000
people.
But in general, companies are reluctant to use their muscle in this way.
Dam construction is big business. Although the rate of dam construction has
fallen back since the 1970s, there are an estimated 1,600 dams currently
being built in 42 countries. These countries - principally India, China,
Turkey, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Spain, Thailand and Romania - are investing
$15bn (£9bn) a year in hydropower alone, according to the commission.
Moreover, the ethical issues raised by dam-building are not clear cut.
Proponents can point to clear benefits. A fifth of the world's electricity
is generated by hydropower; most large dams are built to provide water for
irrigation and drinking to sustain growing populations.
The question of whether the benefits outweigh the costs is obscured by the
vehemence of the arguments and disagreements over even basic facts.
The task of shedding light on this issue has fallen to the commission,
which was set up by the World Bank and the World Conservation Union (IUCN),
the world's largest conservation organisation, in May last year. The
commissioners - who range from Goran Lindahl, chief executive of ABB, to
Medha Patkar, founder of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Struggle to Save the
Narmada River) - were given two years in which to clarify the development
effectiveness of large dams and agree new criteria for their design,
operation and decommissioning.
As well as studying the impact of existing dams, the commission has brought
together people with very differing views on the environmental and social
issues at the heart of the controversy.
For example, WWF, the international conservation organisation, has produced
detailed evidence challenging the notion that hydropower is environmentally
benign. It cited the problems of eutrophication (in which the growth
stimulated by excessive nutrients leads to a deterioration in water
quality), sedimentation, landslides and the production of carbon dioxide
and methane,
both of which are greenhouse gases, due to the decomposition of peat and
forest biomass.
But critics argue with some aspects of this assessment. Even taking account
of greenhouse gas emissions from decaying biomass in reservoirs, hydropower
can have a positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions, according to
Hydro-Québec, the Canadian hydropower company. It calculates that
developing half the world's economically feasible hydro potential could
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13 per cent.
Dam-building institutions can also point to policies that are supposed to
mitigate the environmental impact of large dams.
However, there is often a gap between theory and practice, with few
sanctions applied to projects that fail to fulfil the environmental
conditions that are laid down, according to Peter Bosshard, director of the
Berne Declaration.
He also points to a large difference between theory and practice when it
comes to social issues. He says that, although a comprehensive resettlement
policy has been applied to the Narmada river project, the resettlement land
is completely barren, is located in the submergence zone or is non-existent.
But concerns about the plight of the displaced should not overshadow the
case for pressing ahead with large dams, according to George Verghese of
the Centre for Policy Research in India.
"The displaced must be well taken care of and their trauma addressed with
compassion. But the rights of tens and hundreds of millions of others
cannot be held to ransom either. They too have the right to water, to food,
to employment, to a better future."
Those who argue that dams are necessary to improve water supplies cite the
projected growth in the population in support of their case. A study
recently quoted by the United Nations Population Fund predicted that a
fourth of the world's people are likely to live in countries facing chronic
or recurring shortages of fresh water by the year 2050.
Moreover, increasing populations, rising living standards and global
warming are creating a need for additional sources of energy. Less than 20
per cent of the world's estimated feasible hydropower potential has been
developed, according to the International Commission on Large Dams, the
non-governmental organisation.
At this stage of the debate, there are few clear-cut answers. But,
according to Prof Asmal, the process of airing widely differing views in an
open forum could pave the way for greater consensus.
"Participation, transparency and knowledge of the full costs and benefits
are essential elements of successful decision-making in development," he says.
"Dams per se may not be the problematic issue. Perhaps it is the flawed
process of decision-making that has been at the centre of the conflicts
associated with dams."
But the arguments will rage about the merits of dams for a long time to
come. According to Maurice Strong, a veteran environmentalist and member
of the board of the United Nations Foundation, water and dam-related issues
will be one of the most important future sources of conflict. "Every single
dam will be fraught with controversy," he says. "That is simply a given."
-end-
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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