See related articles from the Guardian: Billions Wasted On UN Climate Programme and Discredited Strategy
“It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts.” — David Victor, Stanford University and co-author of a study examining 3000 UN funded offset programs
World’s Largest Carbon Market Facilitates Pollution
An article in the Guardian newspaper reveals that billions worth of ‘clean’ investment on the world’s largest carbon offsets market ends up polluting the environment. The article cites researchers who’ve reviewed the participating companies in the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). They issued a report which seriously undermines the credibility of the CDM.
The CDM certificates facilitate the funding of clean technology investments by Third World companies that are expanding their operations. Western companies can buy the certificates to offset their own pollution. But it turns out that in reality most of the funds go to coal and oil companies, builders of destructive dams and other enterprises that are not green in the slightest.
The research that revealed the practices is of major importance not least because policymakers are set to review the CDM in the near future as the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. CDM credits are the world’s largest offset market, with annual trading last year totalling around EUR40 billion. Most credits are currently traded on the European Trading System (ETS) by European countries and companies but when the US starts to participate, something that’s more or less a given, trading will rise to over EUR 100 billion within two years easily.
The Stanford scholars opened a can of worms. They say that “Much of the market does not reflect actual reductions in emissions, and that trend is poised to get worse.” They researched more than 3,000 projects that had been applying/granted for up to $10bn of credits for the next four years and said that most of the applications should be rejected. If the scheme operated in any way realistically, we’d see a much smaller market, they say cautioning that there’s hardly enough clean air available for the demand that will build up in the near future. That’s rather an important point to consider ahead of next week’s Warner-Lieberman cap and trade bill which proposes US companies are allowed to buy up to 15% of their needed carbon credits from the (successor to the) CDM.
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I must be really smart, because I managed to figure out all on my lonesome that buying “offsets” for polluting could quite possibly increase (or at least no decrease) pollution. :shrug:
crosspatch Rather than building models and attempting to forecast what the climate will do if you double CO2, why don’t they simply look back into time…
Memory says this has been done, and done again, but discounted because it ran against the current agenda. Same with C02 following, not leading, warming.
SteveSadlov: What’s the problem with no-till farming? As I understand it (from a Permculture course a while back) it’s a localised practice that conserves moisture and soils – not something you’d mention in the same breath as massive chemical intervention in the oceans.
One third to two thirds being abused?
Wow.
That’s ‘WAY better than average for th UN!
<cite<But it turns out that in reality most of the funds go to coal and oil companies,
So it turns out that the way to save the oil companies is to get the UN to declare ware on them. (Well, it makes perfect sense, come to think of it.) I wish I had thought of that!
If the scheme operated in any way realistically, we’d see a much smaller market, they say cautioning that there’s hardly enough clean air available for the demand that will build up in the near future.
Gosh, when I was yammering on about how they were plotting strangle the golden goose, I thought I was speaking figuratively,
The UN had to figure out a way to make up for the loss of funding from the dismantling of the ‘Food for Oil’ program.
Jacques! Jacques! Jacques Chriac!
How Many Kids Did You Starve In Iraq?
[Dune]Frauds within frauds . . .[/Dune]
old construction worker:
It’s a gold rush.
If everything causes global warming, then everybody’s entitled to selling carbon credits.
So I guess that means that people who lose weight could sell carbon credits, people who burn trees making biochar (a carbon-absorbing anaerobic catalysis charcoal process) could sell carbon credits, and and car restorers could sell carbon credits (hey, all that manufacturing energy is being sequestered into a cool old ride) … gosh, there must be a long list of human activities that would bring entitlement!
Heck people who commit suicide or mass murder could sell carbon credits. The next Pol Pot could be a CO2 superstar!
Tom in Florida, re: the U.N.:
Um. The U.N.? That despot’s club composed of murderous and loathsome regimes intent on deception and cheating? The organization that sat Libya to oversee the human rights commission? The organization that routinely condemns Israel but has yet to condemn Sudan? The organization that never saw an ongoing genocide it never saw? The organization that missed the nuclear activities in N. Korea, demonstrated perfect obsequity to the ongoing deceptions of the Persians, forgot about both Saddam’s & Milosovic’s 150 kilos (each) of eU232 and other errant WMDs in Iraq (like the unknown number of chemical artillery shells labeled as conventional ones) and generally serves as a conduit of money to unethical opportunists?
Tom in Florida wrote: “I do not think everyone should be so hard on the UN. After all, they have been duly elected by the people of Earth in an open and verified world wide election.”
Tom, you are jesting, of course! The UN delegates, etc., are appointed by their respective governments. The bureaucrats that “serve” under them are simply a ragged bunch of relatives and other political parasites feeding at the trough. The committees and other such “fact finding bodies” are generally related to the “diplomats” and “delegates,” and once again are generally nothing more than parasites and misfits.
I’m not too certain what’s in the water you’re drinking, but Cutty Sark would be much better… straight or on the rocks.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Further to Steve Sadlov – I haven’t yet seen anyone pick up on this:
Sorry – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/29/greentech.geoengineering
Interesting further British commentary:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1808242,00.html
I have quite a few new maple trees in my yard (I do every Spring because of the mature maple trees I already have there). Can I sell carbon credits for the CO2 they are using up? Sounds like a great way to make money by doing nothing.
leebert and McGrats:
Come on guys (or gals). Are you kidding me? “duly elected by the people of Earth in an open and verified world wide election” Of course I was jesting!! That was the point, none of them are elected by any of us to do anything for us. So why do we even give a sh.. about what they say? If I were in a position to do so, I would pull the US out of the UN and ignore them. I would close down the UN building in NY, never put another dime into it, send them all to France and let them squel and shout all they want. I would encourage England, Austraila and Japan to do the same and then watch that organization cave in on itself.
Tom in Fla…. sorry, I’m irony impaired as of late. Plus you forgot to put a smiley or some other hint. We get some really nuts here, didn’t know your byline.
As for the NYC UN building, tough choice. Seal all of them in? Let them all implode in Brussels along with the EU? Or should we keep them close to us where we can watch them better?
Tough call.
Thanks, Aileni Noyle, for that typically ridiculous pro-AGW link. Something to laugh at:
Last sentence says it all.