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ENSURING INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY IN CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION
of the challenges the government will ramifications of large-scale mitigation have to overcome in order to assess projects or adaptation activities. adequately the environmental A litany of challenges
Twenty-two government institutions are designated as approval agencies for EIA applications, with the Sri Lankan Central Environmental Authority (CEA) overseeing the process.4 These agencies are responsible for determining the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects, soliciting participation from affected parties and deciding whether an EIA or a less comprehensive evaluation is required. Ambiguity regarding the application of environmental assessments was illustrated in 2004, when the Environmental Foundation Ltd (EFL), a leading environmental NGO in Sri Lanka, brought a case against the CEA, challenging the validity of its approval of a mini-hydropower plant.5 The EFL objected that approval had been granted on the basis of an initial environmental examination (IEE) report rather than an EIA report. IEEs are comparatively short and simple studies; unlike EIAs, they require neither public notification of project requests nor a public comment period. The case revealed that the project was ultimately approved on the basis of the proponent’s answers to an ‘environmental questionnaire’ and a letter from the Department of Forest
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Conservation, rather than on an IEE or EIA. Among a number of errors the presiding justices found to have been made by the CEA was its reasoning that an environmental questionnaire could be equated with an IEE or an EIA.6 In Sri Lanka, the development of EIAs as well as their evaluation may also be susceptible to conflicts of interest.7 Project developers employ consultancy firms of their own choosing to conduct the EIA,8 potentially undermining the capacity for these firms to formulate unbiased assessments. State agencies financing projects may also propose that their parent ministry review the EIA, potentially adversely impacting objectivity.9 Public review, a crucial element of the EIA process, has mixed success. All EIAs are announced in national papers, and the public may make observations or submit queries over 30 days. If proposals prove controversial, the approving agency and the CEA hold public hearings. In the best cases, public oversight has led to the protection of lands inappropriately slated for development; in 2007 a massive public campaign led the CEA to reject an EIA that proposed an 800-hectare site of farmland and marshland be acquired for the construction of a new airport.10
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