Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiThe Injustice of Carbon Offsets
Offset Schemes Require the Poorest to be Twice Burdened
The science of climate change is now clear, but the politics is very muddy. Historically, the major polluters were the rich, industrialised countries, so it made sense that they should pay the highest price. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in December 1997, set binding targets for these countries to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 per cent on average against 1990 levels by 2012. But by 2007, America's greenhouse-gas levels were 16 per cent higher than 1990 levels. The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which was passed in June, commits the US to reduce emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, yet this is just 4 per cent below 1990 levels.
The Kyoto
Protocol also allows industrialised countries to trade their allocation
of carbon emissions, and to invest in carbon mitigation projects
in
developing countries in exchange for Certified Emission Reduction
Units, which they can use to meet reduction targets. But emissions
trading, or offsetting, is not in fact a mechanism to reduce emissions.
As the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank, has pointed
out, the emissions offset in the American act would allow "business as
usual" growth in US emissions until 2030, "leading one to wonder:
where's the 'cap' in 'cap and trade'?".
Such schemes are more about privatising the atmosphere than about preventing climate change; the emissions rights established by the Kyoto Protocol are several times higher than the levels needed to prevent a 2°C rise in global temperatures. Allocations for the UK, for example, added up to 736 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over three years, meaning no reduction commitments. And emissions rights generate super profits for polluters.
The Emissions Trading Scheme granted allowances of 10 per cent more than 2005 emission levels. This translated to 150 million tonnes of surplus carbon credits, which at 2005 prices translates into profits of more than $1bn.
Carbon trading uses the resources of poorer people and poorer regions as "offsets" for richer countries: it is between 50 and 200 times cheaper to plant trees in poor countries to absorb CO2 than it is to reduce emissions at source. In other words, the burden of "clean-up" falls on the poor. From a market perspective, this might appear efficient, but in terms of energy justice, it is perverse to burden the poor twice - first with the impact of CO2 pollution in the form of climate disasters and then with offsetting the pollution of the rich.
In a globalised economy, addressing pollution by setting emissions levels for each country is inappropriate for two reasons. First, not all the citizens of a country contribute to pollution. As a result of China becoming the world's factory, its CO2 emissions outstrip those of the US, putting it in first place worldwide. In 2006, China produced 6.1 billion tonnes of CO2; the US produced 5.75 billion tonnes. But in the US, emissions were 19 tonnes of CO2 per capita, compared with 4.6 tonnes in China. And much of China's CO2 could be counted as US emissions, because China is producing goods for US companies that America will consume. Wal-Mart, for example, procures most of what it sells from China.
Similarly, while only 2.13 per cent of the world's emissions emanate from the UK's domestic economy, CO2 is created on the UK's behalf in China, India, Africa and elsewhere. The global carbon footprint of UK companies is not known, but estimates suggest that emissions associated with worldwide consumption of the top 100 UK products accounts for between 12 and 15 per cent of the world total.
Thanks to industrialisation, the rural poor in China and India are losing out on their land and livelihood. To count them as polluters is doubly criminal. When global firms outsource to China or India, they need to be responsible for the pollution they carry overseas.
Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns. Governments and the UN should impose a carbon tax on corporations, both for production - wherever their facilities are located - and for transport, which the Kyoto Protocol does not account for directly. Incentives for renewable energy are also essential. We face a stark choice: we can destroy the conditions for human life on the planet by clinging to "free-market" fundamentalism, or we can secure our future by bringing commerce within the laws of ecological sustainability and social justice.
22 Comments so far
Show AllA new class of profiteer has emerged, either in it for pure profit (and a whole ‘industry’ is emerging) or for political benefit.
You can call the system whatever you want, but a huge, very diversified group tries to make a profit from ‘producers’. At last, the banksters, bullshititians and cronies have found another very comfy commodity to exploit and freeload from and keep the rest of the population in everlasting struggling occupation: CARBON DEBT.
Remember that the core of our morose system is DEBT itself (see the first half of Zeitgeist Addendum http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 ). Carbon Credits are DEBT FOR THE MASSES.
The scams get more and more elaborate, the truth gets more and more fragmented and skewed.
Carbon Trading will be a feast for systemic parasites like banksters, polititians, corporates and polluters. It’s the Scam Of The Century.
Our economic system is based on infinite growth yet reliant on a planet with finite resources.
Or decision-making is based on finite wisdom yet exploited by infinite profiteering.
Great article but no mention that the Obama Administration is pushing offsets instead of a carbon tax. The grim reality is that we were promised much and instead got a version of Bush Light. We have long since passed the point of no return and Obama is nailing the coffin shut toward our mutual demise. The world we are leaving to the children is dark.
Well well well and the patron saint of GW, Al Gore, is a principal in a carbon offset trading company (along with Henry Paulsen - ex treasury sec).
Shame shame Al Baby you nasty capitalist!
Ms.Shiva Dear one,I am one of your fans in the US along with Ms.Roy and others who fight for the people oppressed by Governments and their corporate masters.Yes they will privatise the air we breath and the water we drink and try to patent all the food we eat and even our own genes.And then when it is all owned ,it will be taxed ,the blessings of the creative power will be taxed and speculated on and capitalized until we see the futility of capitalist exploitation."Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"Chris Christopherson Sat Nam
There is no doubt that we have been the worst polluter for 200 years.
It is consequence time now since we all have to deal with the problems of a changing, destabilizing climate.
It is silly to debate who is more deserving of burning coal and oil.
Every country is playing is part in destroying the planet.
If the US went to zero emissions, and China and India kept on their current course, the planet would still be destroyed.
We all have to change what we're doing.
Very, very destructive philosophy from this author.
Does the arctic care who polluted worst and first?
When the Earth can no longer produce food, will it matter that China has smaller per capita emissions?
China is wealthy now. Accept the fact.
Thank you Vandana Shiva for pointing out this gross injustice. Even the most liberal/progressive individuals in my country never directly confront the actual cost or impact our lifestyle has on the rest of the world.
And isn't it always the poor that end up carrying the burden so that the "upper crust" can live in comfort? And if the poor is not Caucasian, the burden is even heavier.
The corporations are indeed responsible for the pollution.
However India and China end up with the manufacturing jobs by design.
The loose regulations are contrived to attract business.
Do you really think they or anyone should be able to pollute without consequence?
If cap and trade makes it a little less profitable to send billions of tons of carbon into the air, that is a good thing.
Don't get me wrong, though. I don't think cap and trade will work at all. The system is very industry friendly.
--"Do you really think they or anyone should be able to pollute without consequence?"
What are the consequences of our contribution to polluting the environment these last 100 years. Our entire progress and development in the 20th century was based on a completely disproportionate use of resources which was the primary cause of climate change. Its like climbing to the top and pulling the ladder up after you.
Vandana Shiva is right. She is a woman of great vision, a vision informed by her intimate knowledge of what the Global South is like. read any one of her books. you could start with Earth Democracy
It is true that cap and trade is no way to save a planet. However this article is way off base in implying that China's emissions are really our emissions since they are manufacturing our products.
First of all, has the author noticed that China has become quite wealthy over the past decade? The US is the borrower, China is the lender. It is true that Chinese factories are making goods for the US, but don't overlook the fact that the Chinese economy is benefitting tremendously from this arrangement.
As long as China has lax environmental regulations and cheap labor, the US will continue to buy buy buy. It is obvious that goods are way too cheap when a plastic toy is thrown in with every "Kid's Meal" purchase.
The author totally loses me on the part where it is a burden for China and India to have to plant trees.
Please reconsider what you are writing here. Just because the US is a big bad polluter it doesn't mean that all other countries are without blame.
I think she is quite right to insist that when u.s. corporations outsource to China, those corporations are still responsible for the resulting pollution.
Using land in the Global South to plant trees for multinational carbon offsets is obscene. Those countries need every bit of land they have to feed their people, not to feed u.s. industries. This is especially true for China and India.
try reading just one of Dr Shiva's books js- you've got a lot to learn, and she is a great teacher
You are right Vandana, if anyone was interested in reducing CO2 emissions, there would be more money for research on fusion and the ban on fast breeders would be removed. It's not about reducing pollution or CO2, it's about corporate taxing of the people some more, because all costs eventually are payed by them. Funny, a straight tax on CO2 produced, would work way better than the corrupt offset scheme being proposed.
In a true free market, all costs are properly accounted for, and paid for by the appropriate parties. This means all carbon permits need to paid for in full, the price determined by the total cost to the others affected. However, offsets should be allowed to be produced and paid for, as it encourages negative CO2 production.
A likely result, if rigorously enforced, is that economies would become more local.
"But emissions trading, or offsetting, is not in fact a mechanism to reduce emissions."
Would you please be quiet? I am a USan, and I have "rights". Most closely held is my "right" to "live large" in delusion. When my elite masters deal out fancy new concepts such as "emissions trading and offsetting", designed to distract me, confuse me, overwhelm me, classically condition me to avoid my civic duty, but continue to "live large" and enjoy my material opiates, it is my "right" to indulge them. I am highly motivated to do so, obviously, because I'm addicted. You understand the power of psych-ops over people, ehh?
There is big money to be made in carbon trading.
Ms. Shiva is right, it is just another example of disaster capitalism, the exploitation of a crisis to privatize another formerly common resource (the earths air) and put it's ownership in the hands of an elite few. Capitalism is very creative that way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtORVi7GybY
A link to videos and interviews of the people who live in the forests and lands targeted by REDD
http://www.redd-monitor.org/tag/risk/
We cannot "bring commerce" within the laws of the environment. Capitalism is a system where the capitalists get richer at the expense of the working class, and the environment. Of course regulation seems like a more realistic possibility if we just look at global warming. If we look at the threat to the environment that increased consumption and economic growth poses, and we see that capitalism simply requires that growth, we are left with one choice. We must abandon capitalism and replace it with socialism.
Correct. as soon as possible. capitalism must, by its own standards, (ever increasing production and consumption) ultimately destroy the planet.
It seems to me that the politics are very clear: imperialism through carbon offsets. She is right though, we must opt out of the so-called "free market" model.
"Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns"
Thats it in a nutshell if you guys are right.