Offsetting Democracy - How Carbon Trading is Smoke and Mirrors
international |
environment |
opinion/analysis 
Wednesday March 05, 2008 10:09
by Soundmigration - WSM
by Kevin Smith - Carbon Trade Watch/Transnational Institute
Carbon trading and offsets distract attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches to climate change involves moving away from the blinkered reductionism of free-market dogma, the false-economy of supposed quick fixes, the short-term self interest of big business.
THE CONCEPT THAT underpins the whole system of carbon trading and offsetting is that a ton of carbon here is exactly the sameK as a ton of carbon there. That is, if its cheaper to reduce emissions in India than it is in the UK, then you can achieve the same climate benefit in a more cost-effective manner by making the reduction in India.
But, the seductive simplicity of this concept is based on collapsing a whole series of important considerations, such as land rights, North-South inequalities, local struggles, corporate power and colonial history, into the single question of cost-effectiveness. The mechanisms of emissions trading and offsetting represent a reductionist approach to climate change that negates complex variables in favour of cost-effectiveness.
see more at:
http://wsm.ie/news_viewer/3568
Carbon Trading Myths
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