Is your couch a carbon offset?
So - people are familiar with carbon offsets right? Basically - the rough idea is that all carbon dioxide emissions are equal - and it doesn’t matter if emissions come from New York or in Russia. While there are arguments to be made how that is a horrible way to view it - it’s largely the accepted view right now. So if I pollute when driving my car, but make sure someone else doesn’t pollute the same amount that otherwise would have - it all balances out right? Or as is commonly done in with popular carbon offset schemes - if I build a nasty new coal-fired power plant, but pay someone else to plant some trees elsewhere that theoretically absorb the same amount of carbon - then it’s all hunky-dory. That’s the basic concept - though it gets a lot more complicated and questionable when you start asking questions.
But anyway. Somewhat related to carbon offsets, is emissions trading. There is a big push in the US for a cap-and-trade system around carbon emissions. While it’s not set in stone exactly how it will function - basically heavily-polluting companies will likely be given some sort of “carbon credits” that they can either use to keep on polluting, or if they can reduce their emissions, they can trade or sell the excess “Credits” to another company so they can keep on polluting. The idea is that the overall levels of pollution can be lowered without a big economic burden - but what it really does is give corporations the “rights” to our atmosphere.
Making our air into a commodity (which corporations control) can likely grow to a billion dollar industry, so every company is lobbying hard to make sure they get a good piece of the pie. Who decides how many credits go to each company? Do we give credits just to big power companies, or chemical companies, or industrial manufacturers? Should companies that are the heaviest-polluters get more credits than companies that don’t pollute so much? Or should companies that have taken pro-active stances to reduce their emissions get extra credits because they are doing a better job? What about emissions from cars - who is responsible for that? Drivers who buy the gas? The gas station that sells the gas? The car company that made the gas-guzzler? The senator who lowered fuel economy standards?
Not only are big polluters like power plants and automakers lining up in Washington DC to make sure they have friends in the right places, but timber companies are making sure they get in on the action. Since trees absorb carbon as part of their lifecycle, timber companies are arguing they should get credits for the emissions their trees (you know, the ones on land we gave to them) absorb, which they can then sell to offset polluters.
But wait - they aren’t just saying forests they own should get credits. They are trying to argue that something that USED to be a forest should also get carbon credits - since carbon will be safely stored inside the lumber for decades. So that means they want carbon credits for your house, Al Gore’s new book, Barry Bond’s baseball bat, and yes. Your sofa.
The logic follows - that if they simply log more (and leave some seeds behind after the clear-cut) they can just keep creating more and more carbon storage! Timber companies can get richer while safely mitigating all our carbon emissions! And really, shouldn’t they get credit for all the carbon stored in every piece of wood they’ve logged for the past, oh, 200 years?
Giving carbon credits away to corporations is a recipe for disaster. Not only is the very principle of giving away our common resources (our atmosphere) to corporations wrong, but the potential for corruption and delayed action on climate change is overwhelming. Corporations shouldn’t be spending money on lawyers and lobbyists so they can make money trading carbon emissions credits - they need to be kicked into gear to actually reduce emissions.
It’s time that we stood our ground as activists, environmentalists, and people who simply care about our future. Global warming is real, it’s happening now, and fossil fuels are the biggest cause of it. Creative accounting, slick marketing, or token offerings will not get corporations off the hook. We have to stop using oil, keep coal in the ground, and keep our trees standing (not with cushions on them).
Carbon emissions trading could play out to be the biggest corporate give-away in our history. Just as we gave away our forests and land to timber, mining, and railroad companies - we are now posed to give away our climate to the very corporations responsible for its peril.
To learn more about carbon trading, check out:
Cheat Neutral - Carbon Trade Watch - Carbon Sink Watch
11 Responses to “Is your couch a carbon offset?”
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July 25th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
A new policy principle emerging these days is the idea of cap, AUCTION and trade - a cap and trade system in which polluters would actually have to pay for their carbon credits and the resulting revenue would be used for energy efficiency, renewable energy, just transition funds, and other good stuff. This is the opposite of a free giveaway to polluters, and John Edwards has made this principle part of his climate plan. It could be argued that cap, auction and trade is no different from a carbon tax. Of course there may still be moral and technical issues involved with a trading system, but I certainly think that auctioning permits rather than giving them away for free is a big step in the right direction. For more general info: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/5/18/142149/148
For further info on Edward’s plan: http://www.blueclimate.com/blueclimate/2007/03/john_edwards_gl.html
July 25th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Adi - that sounds like a good idea to me. But I personally favor a straight-up carbon tax. Not only does it avoid the problem of giving away too many credits (like the Europeans did), it provides companies with a stable price to build into their business plan. The European cap-and-trade system has produced too much price volatility in carbon to encourage long-term investment in sustainable energy.
A straight carbon tax is even favored by that well-known leftist publication, The Economist.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I agree - an auction system is FAR better than a giveaway system. But Luke hits the nail on the head. Companies will do whatever is the cheapest - if it’s cheaper to buy credits than reduce emissions - they’ll do that. If reducing is cheaper than buying credits on the market - then they’ll do that. But both scenarios will effect the supply/demand of credits, so the price can fluctuate wildly.
So the uncertainty over the cost differences between reducing your emissions and buying credits means companies are more likely to make small, incremental changes that aren’t big risks. But making the big long-term investments and overhauls we need to get off fossil fuels are going to be too risky for companies to undertake.
A carbon tax (across all industries!) would be much simpler to implement, would be fair across all industries, and give companies a long-time frame to budget and plan with. The tax could increase over years too to encourage bigger cuts, and long-term investments would be clearly smarter for companies - and bring about the big changes we need to stop climate change.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Oh I would definitely support a carbon tax above anything else too. I guess I just wanted to convey that cap and trade in and of itself isn’t necessarily a horrible option - the devil as they say is in the details. Another serious strike against a trading system is that it is likely to be an administrative nightmare. Matt I like the way you frame a carbon tax in your comment. I’m definitely going to file those talking points away for future reference!
July 26th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Seeing all these mitigation plans and debates over it makes me think that we need a real environmental leader. Someone who can stand up and convince people that we don’t have to make decisions that are mainly focused on our economics. Economics and environment cannot be allied. Short term solution is a long term problem. I wasn’t impressed with Al Gore’s documentary as it was full of facts and figures only. What about those people living in the slums in poor countries. How are they being affected now? We have been talking about reducing, recycling and reusing since the Brundtland Commission but things have gotten worse because it was again centered on Environment and Economics. So is the Earth Summit. It is pretty obvious why US hasn’t made any commitments to Kyoto Protocol - because US doen’t want to compromise its economy for environment.
We need to rise to a new level of consciousness. We should be willing to downsize our needs and that will bring a downsize in our scale of economy too. Why do we have to drive our car everyday to work? Because that is how our modern society is built. Basically, our system of economies is very ill.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I don’t have as much to say as the others but I must say that the candidates for presidency are using this idea to alleviate the problems concerned with the questions of pollution. Sen. Edwards uses cap, auction and trade. Like Adi says, It could be worse, but still it’s making it easier for the big companies to pollute.
July 27th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I read recently in Power Engineering (May issue, I think), an editorial in favor of a carbon tax instead of cap and trade. Power Engineering is a trade magazine of electricity producers. They are very much in favor of coal, and generally bad-mouth wind power, biomass, or whatever alternative energy they might bring themselves to print one article about. One point they bring up is that with a tax, we could all save money. If tax revinues go up from the carbon tax, we should get a reduction in our payroll taxes to compensate. They recommend that the two issues be linked in the same bill. With a cap and trade system, the polluters are still paying, but public programs wouldn’t be paid for. One problem with the tax is that it cannot guarantee a certain reduction, and would be hard to pick the right number to get the target amount of reduction. I think the combination thin would be good. the government should sell or auction a certain number of credits, which can then be traded, and use the money for good programs, like research on alternative energies. I think the government should buy productive farmland near cities before it gets turned into houses, so that local sources of food still exist when we don’t have enough oil to import it from 1000 miles away. I think that’s another subject though.
July 29th, 2007 at 10:18 am
In a related matter, it is time for RAN to clarify how they can both “promote sustainable logging” while “preserving endangered forests” (both statemens made on home page at http://www.ran.org). You cannot both protect and log ancient forests, you are confusing preservation with conservation. What is RAN’s policy on FSC approved logging of ancient forests, and the recent string of scandals in this regard?
August 6th, 2007 at 10:26 am
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September 12th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] I’m generally not a fan of offsets. I’ve written about it before, our friends at Grist have had a raging debate on it, and I’ll spare you by not totally [...]
November 16th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
[...] Well, everytime you make a purchase you earn points, but instead of using the points to get airline tickets or electronics, MBNA buys carbon offsets. [...]