Tuesday, August 26, 2008
No Surprise Here
From the BBC a while back:
All this "carbon credit" stuff is just nonsense, little more than the selling of indulgences, for a "sin" that we are not even sure is sinful. Whether it be this grand Kyoto based international scheme, or the "carbon offsets" I was offered when I rented a car the other day, we are watching naked capitalism at work in the guise of protecting Mother Earth.
I don't blame anybody for trying to turn a buck, but I do so hate it when they do so under false or misleading pretenses, particularly when those pretenses threaten to undermine pretty much the entire way of life we have come to appreciate. Especially when that way of life is intended to flex with changing circumstances, once they make themselves apparent.
The climate is changing - has throughout history and will continue to. What continually amazes me is the enormous hubris involved in thinking it is our fault or that schemes like this can possibly change it. That is, of course, presuming that people's motives are that pure - there is always the possibility of a wealth-transfer scam, but of course, we have never seen anything like that out of the U.N.
If you are concerned about your "carbon footprint" and it makes you feel better to pay an extra three dollars when you rent a car to assuage your conscience, then by all means spend your money how you see fit. But can we do it without the preaching and the holier-than-thou attitude. Oh and don't be surprised when you find out that all you did was spend more money. Your car is still emitting you know.
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Evidence of serious flaws in the multi-billion dollar global market for carbon credits has been uncovered by a BBC World Service investigation.Amazing isn't it? People actually trying to make a lot of money with little effort. Who would have thought?
The credits are generated by a United Nations-run scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
The mechanism gives firms in developing countries financial incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But in some cases, carbon credits are paid to projects that would have been realised without external funding.
The BBC World Service investigation found examples of projects in India where this appeared to be the case.
Arguably, this defeats the whole point of the CDM scheme, set up under the Kyoto climate change protocol, as these projects are getting money for nothing.
The findings reinforce doubts that the CDM is leading to real emission cuts, which is not good news for the effort to combat climate change.
And in one case a company is earning truly staggering sums of money from the carbon credits it is receiving - perhaps as much as $500m (£250m) over a period of 10 years - for a project it says it would have carried out without the incentive of the CDM.
All this "carbon credit" stuff is just nonsense, little more than the selling of indulgences, for a "sin" that we are not even sure is sinful. Whether it be this grand Kyoto based international scheme, or the "carbon offsets" I was offered when I rented a car the other day, we are watching naked capitalism at work in the guise of protecting Mother Earth.
I don't blame anybody for trying to turn a buck, but I do so hate it when they do so under false or misleading pretenses, particularly when those pretenses threaten to undermine pretty much the entire way of life we have come to appreciate. Especially when that way of life is intended to flex with changing circumstances, once they make themselves apparent.
The climate is changing - has throughout history and will continue to. What continually amazes me is the enormous hubris involved in thinking it is our fault or that schemes like this can possibly change it. That is, of course, presuming that people's motives are that pure - there is always the possibility of a wealth-transfer scam, but of course, we have never seen anything like that out of the U.N.
If you are concerned about your "carbon footprint" and it makes you feel better to pay an extra three dollars when you rent a car to assuage your conscience, then by all means spend your money how you see fit. But can we do it without the preaching and the holier-than-thou attitude. Oh and don't be surprised when you find out that all you did was spend more money. Your car is still emitting you know.
Technorati Tags:global warming, carbon offsets, kyoto, indulgences
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