Carbon Trading

Offset standard is off target

April 2008
TNI
Kevin Smith
A new government ‘kitemark’ suggests that most carbon offset schemes are flawed, but fails to address the more fundamental problem of paying others to clean up after us, argues Kevin Smith

Offset companies across the UK were petulantly stamping their carbon footprints recently following environment minister Hilary Benn’s announcement of a new ‘kitemark’ scheme for the sector. Voluntary offsets promise consumers the chance to pay extra to assuage their guilt when they fly or engage in other carbon-intensive activities.

Offsetting democracy

April 2008
TNI
Kevin Smith
Carbon trading and offsetting distracts attention from the wider, systemic changes that need to be taken to achieve a low-carbon economy.

Carbon trading and offsetting distracts attention from the wider, systemic changes that need to be taken to achieve a low-carbon economy.

Will capitalism survive climate change?

April 2008
Walden Bello
Global warming is the privatisation of global commons by capital which now involves the expropriation of ecological spaces of the South. Progressive climate strategy must reduce growth and energy use while raising the quality of life of the broad masses of the people.

There is now a solid consensus in the scientific community that if the change in global mean temperature in the twenty-first century exceeds 2.4 degrees Celsius, changes in the planet's climate will be large-scale, irreversible, and disastrous.

Tijd voor een nieuwe 'New Deal'

February 2008
Susan George

De eerste uitvoerige toespraak komt van Susan George. Zij is vooral bekend geworden als medeoprichtster van Attac, de beweging voor eerlijker globalisering. Ook is zij fellow van het Amsterdamse Trans National Institute (TNI). Van oorsprong Amerikaanse is ze in Frankrijk al jaren bezig met het formuleren van economische kritiek en alternatieven. In haar Engelstalige toespraak van drie kwartier roert ze een aantal belangrijke thema's aan.

Carbon Trading (Video lecture)

February 2008
Larry Lohmann

Locus focus and the Carbon Trade Watch (audio)

February 2008
TNI
Tamra Gilbertson and Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith and Tamra Gilbertson talk about what's wrong with carbon credits, how they do nothing to fight global warming, and even exacerbate the problem.

Listen to the debate - mp3

REDD: Growing money on trees

February 2008
Oscar Reyes
Deforestation is responsible for one-fifth of annual carbon emissions – more than the entire transport sector. Yet a new global scheme to ‘reduce deforestation’ could end up rewarding the companies and governments that cause it, writes Oscar Reyes.

On the eve of last December’s UN climate conference in Bali, the Indonesian government announced that it would plant 79 million trees in a single day to ‘offset’ the emissions of the entire conference.

Does carbon trading really work?

January 2008
Larry Lohmann

Part 1

Part 2

Permission to pollute

January 2008
Oscar Reyes
Far from tackling climate change, the EU's timid plans are rewarding those on the wrong track.

Promising a 20% cut in carbon emissions by 2020, the EU now claims to be the world leader in tackling climate change.

EU energy package: a licence to carry on polluting

January 2008
Carbon Trade Watch
New EU rules announced as part of the European Commission’s energy package, released today, will do little to cut carbon emissions without more fundamental changes to the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS).

The Commission has been subjected to a fierce bout of industry lobbying as it looks to replace free emissions permits with an auction system, although this has been subjected to a series of opt outs and will not take full effect until 2020.

“The EU has compromised to corporate lobbyists again” says Tamra Gilbertson of Carbon Trade Watch, a project of the Transnational Instit