In order to respond to the mandate of the Kyoto Protocol for countries to reduce or make a cap on their carbon emissions, the idea of carbon trading came up. The principle is that a country who can not (this is very subjective) reduce their carbon emission may ask another country who has reduced its carbon emission to share it. They can do this either by joining their carbon emission requirements and production. The seeking country can also fund a program approved by the UN through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in order to take the credit and be allowed to exceed knowing that it was offset by the CDM funding they had done. In the process, they feel less guilty because they know that even if they are exceeding, they had made actions to offset it. The most common and attractive way used here is to plant trees in thousands of hectares of land.
This is seen by many as a lot of bull! There are many questions to it. How do we measure how much carbon was emitted and how much carbon was taken in by the trees? It does not adhere to the purpose of reduction but merely neutralization (which is still doubtful). It lacks force and sincerity in the sense that there is no real move to change the way of life but merely pay for it. (And in the long run, what is money anyway? It can not save us if nature is devastated!). How sure are we that it can not be a source of corruption through unfounded and inaccurate data? The land use will be threatened; food for carbon credit? preserved areas for carbon? In other words, there is no guarantee and more importantly, not a solution for its aim is merely to neutralize and not to reduce. It is back to "business as usual" and not a "change in way of life". It is back to the original threat of extinction and not to the knowledge that it had been delayed, stopped or reversed.
The bad news is that it is becoming to be the road being taken by the Bali Conference thanks to the G8 (United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia, and Russia). Along the "road", those who will be abused, misused and confused are the rest of the world.
God help us!
This is seen by many as a lot of bull! There are many questions to it. How do we measure how much carbon was emitted and how much carbon was taken in by the trees? It does not adhere to the purpose of reduction but merely neutralization (which is still doubtful). It lacks force and sincerity in the sense that there is no real move to change the way of life but merely pay for it. (And in the long run, what is money anyway? It can not save us if nature is devastated!). How sure are we that it can not be a source of corruption through unfounded and inaccurate data? The land use will be threatened; food for carbon credit? preserved areas for carbon? In other words, there is no guarantee and more importantly, not a solution for its aim is merely to neutralize and not to reduce. It is back to "business as usual" and not a "change in way of life". It is back to the original threat of extinction and not to the knowledge that it had been delayed, stopped or reversed.
The bad news is that it is becoming to be the road being taken by the Bali Conference thanks to the G8 (United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia, and Russia). Along the "road", those who will be abused, misused and confused are the rest of the world.
God help us!
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