Apparently, it seems that our good hopes to mitigate Global Warming by purchasing carbon offsets are not having the effect that they should have to. Is our money going through a black hole to finance carbon offsets providers operations or is it going to financially support the eco-projects that we expect? Recently, reports show a lack of transparency in the carbon offset retail market and we might find that a good cause has been used for some organisations to cash on the Global Warming crisis. UK figures are available in
CarbonSMS.com and you are free to decide whether online carbon offset providers are cashing on the Global Warming crisis or not. A good guidelines on what to ask carbon offsets providers before buying is also available. The comparative table shows their range of products carbon offset prices, sales volume by organisation, and prices per tonne in the UK. It is surprising that prices in different carbon offset British websites range from £7.40 to £9.00 tonne/CO2. In the US the same tonne of CO2 costs £1.50. This seems a bit scandalous because this could mean that we pay more without making a real benefit on the environment and therefore we might be paying in excess administrative, marketing, shareholders and investors expenses. Is the price this offfset providers charge really the cost of the eco-project? or Is the money being taken by intermediaries? How much money are they taking from our pockets that really has a proven benefit on the environment or poor communities?. It seems that this market needs more disclosure of information so consumers can evaluate the offset quality, where the money goes, how the projects are selected and benefits they provide to the environment and communities. It will be dangerous and sad to see that our hopes to mitigate Global Warming by offseting our emissions are not helping as they should while the time to reverse this crisis goes by. Carbon offsetting should be considered as one option amongst a portfolio of actions that each of us should take to reduce our emissions and not the only one to make us feel good.
Carbon offsets
Here is Plane Stupid's guide to carbon offsetting:
"First, burn down your rainforest...
Many off-set schemes are blatant fraud. There are examples of off-set schemes logging or burning rainforest in order to plant cash crops which are then burnt in their turn as 'renewable energy'. Surprisingly, this doesn't reduce emissions by all that much.
Second, lead-line your coal mine...
Tree-planting schemes are often criticised for not providing any real emissions reduction as the trees will eventually emit any carbon they absorb. This is true, but hey! Invest in a scheme which seals the trees in an air-tight containment area for eternity. Problem solved.
When considering a tree-planting scheme, check that the containment facilities for the mature trees are hermetically sealed and permanently secure. You don't want that carbon to escape now...
Third, lie, lie, lie...
Many of the more serious, 'tree-free' off-set schemes measure their emissions reductions against what would have been emitted had the scheme not been in operation - i.e. a reduction from a level which never happened. The more polluting your prediction, the greater your saving. Hell, why not book that flight to Florida - the more you emit, the more you can save!
We confidently assert that had we not posted this off-set article, global emissions would have been at least a thousand tonnes higher. That last sentence alone has off-set my trip to Australia.
Fourth, blackmail is a dirty fuel...
As we're comparing our actions to a fictional future, and trading on the difference, it's much easier to make the fictional future worse than to make reality better. For example, say I commute to London every day from Kent. By plane. I can claim I was intending to move to Spain, and double my emissions, but if some kind environmentalist would be good enough to buy me a heated swimming pool, I'll stay in Kent, and effectively halve my future CO2 output.
Believe it or not, this sort of shit actually goes on. For what it matters, Plane Stupid's new offices are now in Barbados.
Fifth, a stitch in time...
Off-setting takes no account of the fact that cuts now are better than cuts later. If I emit one tonne today, and my off-set scheme saves one tonne over the next three years, I'm still in the red. I would have to save more than I emit to make up for the time lag.
Off-set schemes don't do this, possibly because they really haven't thought this through!
Sixth, remember the Empire!
We're in the rich West, and what's the point of doing anything in the West when you can get it done by poor brown people for pennies?
Out-sourcing is the future, and as World Bank chief economist Lawrence Summers said, Africa is a 'vastly under-polluted continent'. We might not be able to give them the benefits of industrialised society, but we can certainly give them the costs.
Seventh, think of a number between one and a million...
...and call it zero. What does 'carbon neutral' mean? Not only are we producing far more carbon than we can afford, the atmosphere already has 36% more CO2 than it would naturally. 'Zero' is actually a distant memory. 'Neutrality' is sitting back and watching the catastrophe. The solution to climate change is not to keep CO2 levels where they are - we need to reduce, and quickly.
Eighth, multiply it by your age and divide by your IQ...
Check out the different carbon calculators on the off-set sites - put in the same flights and you'll get radically different results. Some claim a flight to Paris can be off-set for a fiver, some for only 38p. But they wouldn't lie to you, would they? I mean, it's not as if they're trying to sell you something...
Ninth, give the money to climate criminals...
If you're off-setting a flight then, even if the airline aren't getting a cut, you're still subsidising climate destruction. So long as you're off-setting, the urgently needed reductions in flights will be easier for them to avoid. Once they've doubled our runways and trebled our flights, the realisation that action on the never-never isn't going to cut it will be too late.
On current forecasts, aviation is set to use up the UK's entire carbon budget by 2030. There are only so many lightbulbs to replace.
This is not a reason not to off-set when you fly, this is a reason not to fly.
Off-setting doesn't make flying 'OK' any more than giving to Amnesty gets you a licence to torture. We've got this the wrong way round - supporting emission reduction schemes is good - balancing that with your own emissions undoes that good. The ship is sinking. Pissing overboard is one way of avoiding adding to the problem, but it's not going to save anyone.
Get down to the engine room and start bailing."
DEFRA's FAQ on carbon offsetting
I think you are getting into a very sensitive area. I am also not sure who if anybody has evaluated the different schemes. Offsetting is a very important first mental step for both individuals and organisations. But if the public at large think that offsetting is just a con, people might not even take the first step. Companies that want to survive in this area are going to have to be squeeky clean and transparent because as they get more business, they will get greater scrutiny.
DEFRA's Climate change: Carbon offsetting - FAQs contains a lot of detailed advice on offsetting.
p.s. Just looked planestupid's comments posted by Almuth and have to say that I don't think they don't add any clarity to this issue. Some offsetting schemes siponing off methane from rubbish dumps have an immediate and substantial impact and many countries are not able or prepared to pay for that technology.
Offsetting is a C02n
I think it is dangerous to think that offsetting is mitigating global warming. Although it could be considered as an option for climate campaigners who have done everything they can to reduce their carbon footprint it is not a safe bet for the reasons already outlined. You are giving your money in good faith to a company who may in good faith try and soak up your emissions. Or they may not. Who knows? We do know that tree planting only sequesters the carbon as long as the tree is alive. How long does a growing tree take to sequester the carbon that is immediately released into our environment? Not immediately. Removing an old growth forest to plant a monoculture, which may or may not be managed from fire, disease or logging is not good for biodiversity, water supplies, soil acidity, pesticide contamination or the climate and can evict indigenous peoples, (in the Amazon, the tribes call them Devils Orchards). If the western consumer’s monoculture is not planted on a forest in the South, then it must be somewhere else. How much say do the locals get?
I know there are forests being planted in Scotland, but this is not how the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism, part of the Kyoto Protocol works. They are a big player in this tree planting scam. This enables countries to claim carbon credits for planting new trees. The only problem is that first you have to clear some land, which release huge amounts of CO2. Offsetting is big business. Offsetting is another form of colonialism. Would we object if a foreign government or industry or a corporation representing frequent flyers or the nouveau riche of China, planted a forest in the Lake District?
Forests have got a bad press. For this very reason, the UN’s CDM has increasingly moved into biofuels… Which once again will be grown in the majority world tropics to ‘help’ those poor people. Only it is bad for water supplies, biodiversity, human rights, soil quality, the worlds supply of food and releases massive amounts of CO2, which… causes global warming.
So lastly we have the offsetting money going to worthy causes in, well yes the South again. The money pays for renewable schemes to help the poor people. That literally is all well and good provided these communities were not going to do it anyway. Having said that, does a renewable project or fitting energy saving lighbulbs, sequester our emissions immediatly? Or is it over the life of the equipment? If it is not immediate, then the offset is false, as it has not done its job.
My problem with the above is why can’t the people offsetting simply give their money to say Practical Action and not fly? Then it is nothing to do with feeling good, but actually doing good. And why is it in the South? I suspect because as I have just said, it makes us feel good. In other words we can carry on flying and feel good about it, safe in the knowledge we are helping, say an African, who might already be affected by our climate change.
Climate Care’s Mike Mason has a different take: "We aren't funding projects in countries that have targets to reach under the Kyoto Protocol," he says, "because if we were doing something in the UK, the way the system works currently, we'd simply be helping the Government to reach its target. We wouldn't be doing anything extra."
I’m not sure CO2 recognises national borders. If we really want to do something extra, perhaps we should keep our promise to donate 0.7% of GNP made some three decades ago or stick to the Millennium Development Goals or pay reparations to the South as compensation for our part in the historical 80% of emissions the West has produced, and whilst we are at it contract, so that we can converge with them.
A friend said that offsetting is better than doing nothing. Not really. Doing nothing is better than offsetting. Nothing is truly carbon neutral. I think I read that there is an intention to make the 2012 Olympics carbon neutral. Not having it would be slightly better than all that concrete and transport, etc, etc, etc.
Well meaning people who are worried about the climate are giving their money to in some cases not very well meaning people. However the really big problem lies not with climate change campaigners but with those who believe that by offsetting they do not need to change their behaviour. If 6.3 billion people did this there would be no land uncovered by eucalyptus and there would be more windmills than you could shake a stick at.
So BP and British Airways will take care of our/their global warming and we can all go on as if it wasn’t happening. We could increase our mileage or weekends in Prague. It enforces the dangerous myth that we do not have to change our behaviour. A wealthy friend is reading The Inconvenient Truth –he said that he will not change his behaviour, but buy a forest in Scotland…
When BP are advertising the fact that you can offset an entire years driving, for less than it takes to fill up our tanks, that doesn't link driving with global warming, it reinforces a myth that we don't have to reduce. It is deceitful. We should be worried by BPs brutal hypocrisy. Next Exxon will be doing it. They've already started a PR campaign about their 'green' credentials, whilst at the same time funding the denail indutry and pro- fossil fuel lobby, that is set to rubbish the new IPCC report when it comes out this year.
Soon we will be able to walk into a Coop travel agent and book a round the world flight at the same time as offsetting it. This week's Independent advertised a holiday to see the Arctic (and we all know what is happening there, without Cameron on a dog sled showing us)… for a night!,,, and offsetting your emissions is included in the ticket. The Rough Guide and Lonely Planet quotes carbon offsets for each destination. This should be surreal. It is very real. The Guardian Travel section offsets the miles of its reporters. I could go on, but I would be labouring a point.
I will just finish by musing why no one talks about offsetting their heating? Perhaps British gas already does, then there’d be no need to insulate our homes.
Ian.
Offsetting and Blair
Ian, I completely agree with virtually everything you are saying. But if someone flies long haul in 2005 then offsets in 2006, then that reads your post above in 2007, realises that offsetting is not a scalable solution and does not fly anywhere in 2008 then that's fine. Some people are going to be slower that others; Tony Blair, for example, only just heard about climate change yesterday but quickly decided to start offsetting his personal emissions by 5pm.
The other reason for why I am going soft on offsetting is the CRAGs. My local CRAG is going to charge people 5p per Kg CO2 this year and it is not obvious what we should spend the money on. Our target is 4050Kg CO2 and people that live in large old solid wall houses and use a car to go to work are just not going to hit that target or anywhere near in one year.
Tony leads by example.
John, thanks for tossing me that one about my old mucka Bliar. I’d like to say I rest my case, but it’s too good an opportunity to reiterate the inherant problems behind offsetting and being in denial about climate change. I don’t like to get into his head, but it must be delusional thinking on his part. Anyway it gives me an excuse to have ago at my favourite war mongerer:
In 2005 the government was emitting about as much CO2 as Liverpool. The Cabinet Office was the worst offender - Its carbon emissions had increased by 17% in the past five years. Only one department has processes in place to assess the risks that climate change and variable weather will bring to planned developments. Ministerial and civil service air travel was equivalent to 100,000 flights from London to the big apple. When Margaret Beckett was environmental secretary, she had taken 134 flights on ministerial business between 2002 and March 2005, clocking up 102,673 miles and 191.08 tons in CO2 emissions. Is that why ministerial flights were offset, after the critism?
Bliar is consistent though. Never let it be said that an ever changing climate gets in the way of his unforgivable cynical view of politics. In 2005 he told a commons select committee: "I mean hands up around this table how many politicians facing a potential election lets say at some point in the time in the not too distant future that would vote to end cheap air travel - right, none." (his use of the English language, not mine).
Strangely he then said last year: "I think that if we don't get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the Kyoto protocol will have expired - that's 2012 - we are in serious trouble." Which is also the year the Mayan Calendar says life on earth will cease or something like that and coincidentally this is the year the government intend to be carbon neutral. Will this be by actual reductions or offsetting? The Guardian also said that the D-day for going carbon neutral was also 2015, which is confusing. Anyway when good ‘ole Tone was referring to 2012 he also said: "It is unrealistic to think that you will get some restriction on air travel at an international level. The best way to go is to recognise that it is a reality, and see how you can develop the technology that is able to reduce the harmful emissions."
And then we had on the 9th Jan: The prime minister's spokesman said that Mr Blair offset all his official travel, though No 10 refused to say whether he did this on personal flights. He added: "All government activity will be carbon neutral by 2015 and the prime minister has taken the lead in this." And: "But I am not going to be in the situation of saying I'm not going to take holidays abroad or use air travel. It's just not practical." And: "I think that what we need to do is to look at how you make air travel more energy efficient, how you develop the new fuels that will allow us to burn less energy and emit less. How - for example - in the new frames for the aircraft, they are far more energy efficient.". Or perhaps like Branson he thinks that increasing emissions by using biofuels will be the magic fix. Then we had that lovely cop-out of those contrarian Daily Mail readers: ."Britain is 2% of the world's emissions. We shut down all of Britain's emissions tomorrow - the growth in China will make up the difference within two years.
Which led to this logical libertarian, fiddle whilst the planet is burning protestation: "So we've got to be realistic about how much obligation we've got to put on ourselves. The danger, for example, if you say to people 'Right, in Britain ... you're not going to have any more cheap air travel,' everybody else is going to be having it. So you've got to do this together in a way that doesn't end up actually putting people off the green agenda by saying you must not have a good time any more and can't consume. All the evidence is that if you use the science and technology constructively, your economy can grow, people can have a good time, but do so more responsibly." THE WICKEDEST LIE OF ALL.
A day later the Guardian reported: Tony Blair tried last night to restore his green credentials by announcing that he would offset carbon emissions from his and his family's holiday travel. Mike Mason, the founder of Climate Care, said: "We only have one to two tonnes per person of C02 emissions per year and yet you use up two tonnes in a return flight to New York for one person. If everyone offset their emissions, that would buy us time to put in place all the things we need to do. This is not a green thing, it is physics."
So that’s physics is it? Here’s some maths for Tone. Britain has increased emissions by 9 per cent since 1999. All the savings made by the Tories dash to gas amount to nothing if transport is included to and from the UK in emissions targets. Which of course they aren’t, which allows Bliar to behave in this way and expand runways as a matter of government policy. The whole thing tires me out.
Ian.
Yes, Blair is consistent
... he is, as ever, a showman, actor and debating enthusiast, not a policy analyst.
He admires David Miliband, who is like a butterfly emerging from a previous incarnation of co-ordinating the writing of much of New Labour's policy, possibly including the science and technology line Miliband has laudably seen beyond.
offsetting and trees on BBC1 tonight
See yesteday's article by Dominic Murphy for the debate on offsetting, especially as to tree-planting. Some good links. See also the 'Inside Out' programme on this subject, tonight: BBC1, 7.30pm, Friday 12 Jan 2007.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329682317-121568,00.html
Tree planting only beneficial close to equator - The Guardian
NOTE: Does anyone know of a source for the claim below that coal-fired power stations in Kazakhstan generate 3x as much CO2 as their UK equivalents? This seems like the stuff of urban myth (like Al Gore's frog). I've read that the Kazakh economy is 3x as carbon-intensive as the UK's, but that not the same thing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2053529,00.html
How trees might not be green in carbon offsetting debate
· Planting may worsen warming, say scientists
· Environmental gestures 'useless' outside tropics
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Tuesday April 10, 2007
The Guardian
It may have become the penance of choice for the environmentally conscious individual, but planting trees to offset carbon emissions could contribute to global warming if they are planted outside the tropics, scientists believe.
They argue that most forests do not have any overall effect on global temperature but, by the end of the century, forests in the mid and high latitudes could make their parts of the world more than 3C warmer than would have occurred if the trees did not exist.
Govindasamy Bala, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the US, has shown that only tropical rainforests are beneficial in helping slow global warming. The problem is that while the carbon dioxide forests use for photosynthesis indirectly helps cool the Earth by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, forests also trap heat from the sunlight they absorb.
Dr Bala and his colleague, Ken Caldeira of the department of global ecology at the Carneige Institute in Standford, used a computer model to show that, outside a thin band around the equator, forests end up trapping more heat than they help to get rid of through a cut in carbon dioxide. Planting trees above 50 degrees latitude - the equivalent of Scandinavia or Siberia in the northern hemisphere - can also cover up tundra normally blanketed in heat-reflecting snow.
The scientists said that the results, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists, are explained by the way in which the sun's rays are absorbed or reflected by different parts of the world. Forest canopies, being relatively dark, absorb most of the sun's heating rays that fall on them, warming the surface of the Earth all around. In contrast, grassland or snowfields reflect a lot more of the sun's rays back into space, keeping temperatures in open areas lower.
Dr Bala said that trees at lower latitudes have a dual role. "It is a win-win situation in the tropics because trees in the tropics, in addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, promote convective clouds that help to cool the planet. In other locations, the warming from the albedo effect [the amount of sunlight reflected back into space] either cancels or exceeds the net cooling from the other two effects."
The results follow increasing criticism from climate scientists of the benefits of forestry schemes to offset carbon emissions. Kevin Anderson, a scientist with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, warned recently that offsetting was a dangerous delaying technique that helped people "sleep well at night when we shouldn't sleep well at night".
Environmental groups have also been debating the issue. When Dr Bala's preliminary findings were discussed at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San Francisco, a spokesman for Greenpeace USA said that the charity had always encouraged limiting the number of trees which countries and firms use to mitigate climate change. "What we see here is another reason to limit this," he said.
He added that forestry projects were difficult to manage. "There are a lot of reasons why buying credits can be very fleeting, from a consumer point of view. You don't know what's going to happen to your forest in 10 years. All that effort you made to store that carbon can disappear in a heartbeat."
Dr Caldeira warned that chopping down trees outside the tropics was not a good idea. "Preservation of ecosystems is a primary goal of preventing global warming, and the destruction of ecosystems to prevent global warming would be a counterproductive and perverse strategy."
Dr Bala added: "Apart from their role in altering the planet's climate, forests are valuable in many other aspects. Forests provide natural habitat to plants and animals, preserve the biodiversity, produce economically valuable timber and firewood, protect watersheds and indirectly prevent ocean acidification."
Planting trees to neutralise carbon emissions has become a big business: £60m worth of trees have been bought this year, up from £20m in 2005. By 2010 the market is expected to reach £300m.
Alternatives
Ways to cut carbon include:
· Replacing CO2-producing energy with human energy technologies ... a project in India has replaced diesel pumps with people-operated pumps for irrigation.
· Introducing energy-saving light bulbs, which use 80% less electricity on average, reducing energy consumption and therefore the amount of pollution by power stations. Inefficient coal power stations in Kazakhstan create three times as much CO2 when producing electricity as UK counterparts. Because electricity is so cheap, many schools and homes use cheaper, but inefficient, traditional bulbs instead.
· Efficient stove projects. In Mexico more efficient stoves have been introduced because they are cheaper and burn less fuel. They also make the kitchen safer as they produce less smoke, and cut CO2 by 1.5 tonnes a year, a home.
· Renewable energy projects,such as wind farms in India.
Isabelle Chevallot