Earth Equity News

Carbon Credits: 'the Environmental Version of Sub-Prime Mortgages'. Commentary by Spencer Reiss, Wired, May 20, 2008. "Carbon offsets -- and emissions-trading schemes, their industrial-scale siblings -- are the environmental version of sub-prime mortgages... They both started from some admirable premises... But when those big ideas collide with the real world, the result is hand-waving at best, outright scams at worst... A few fun facts: All the so-called clean development mechanisms authorized by the Kyoto Protocol, designed to keep 175 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere by 2012, will slow the rise of carbon emissions by... 6.5 days. [That's according to a post by Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.]... Depressed yet? Kyoto also forces companies in developed countries to pay China for destroying HFC-23 gas, even though Western manufacturers have been scrubbing [it] for years without compensation. And where's the guarantee that the tree planted in Bolivia to offset $10 worth of air travel, for instance, won't be chopped down long before it absorbs the requisite carbon? Nationally managed emissions-trading schemes could do a better job than Kyoto's we-are-the-world approach by adding legal enforcement and serious oversight. But many economists favor a simpler way [see this recent Washington Post article]: a tax on fossil fuels. A carbon tax would eliminate three classes of parasites that have evolved to fill niches created by the global climate protocol: cynical marketers intent on greenwashing, blinkered bureaucrats shoveling indulgences... and deal-happy Wall Streeters looking for a shiny new billion-dollar trading toy. Back to the drawing board, please."