Carbon Offsets - The Facts

Slicing the carbon pie

The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism was supposedly created to help finance sustainable development projects in the world’s poorest countries. Many of its supporters argued that it would make it possible for these countries to ‘leapfrog’ or skip the process of industrialization to a more sustainable economic model. But most of the money is going to the largest and most industrialized emerging economies. *Expected average annual carbon credits*** from registered projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by host country.*^1^

Expected average annual carbon credits* from registered projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by host country.
Growth of the voluntary offsets market

The Voluntary Offsets Industry

The average price for a tonne of CO2 equivalent from the voluntary offsets market is approximately $1.25 (corporate rates) compared with CDM offsets that cost on average $8.50 per tonne.^3^ Due to the unregulated nature of the voluntary market there is little reliable data concerning its size. One study suggests that the global voluntary offsets market has grown from just over 1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2001 to nearly 9.5 million in 2004.^3^ This puts the voluntary market at close to 20% the size of the official offsets regime of the CDM.

The price of going global, guilt-free

The price of going global, guilt-free

If the science of offsets were as well established as the companies selling them insist they are, then there should be little disparity between their estimates of, for example, a flight’s climate impacts and the remedy.

Consumption

USA: population vs energy consumption

With less than 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes about 25% of the world’s energy resources.^8^

Don’t be bio-fooled

It is widely believed that trees and other plants act as a carbon ‘sink’, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. But a number of exhaustive scientific studies have emerged which cast doubt on this basic assertion.

Environmental health

skull and bones

A common assumption is that CO2 is a ‘global’ pollutant that does not adversely impact the local environment. However fossil-fuel combustion produces a whole range of toxic ‘co-pollutants’ which do. Carbon offsets and pollution permit trading allow polluters to increase their emissions, which puts communities living nearby at higher risk. According to scientists concerned about public health, ‘the benefits of lowering emissions are immediate’.^12^ Common pollutants associated with combustion and their known and suspected health effects^13^: *Toxic Organic Micropollutants* – a whole range of substances that, due to their size, can penetrate the lungs easily and cause health problems. Some of their known effects include more frequent asthma attacks, respiratory problems, and premature death. *Sulphur oxides* – causes ‘acid rain’ and smog. *Carbon monoxide* – interferes with the blood’s ability to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues and results in many adverse health effects including neurological impairment and heart and lung problems. *Nitrogen oxides* – can cause lung damage and other respiratory disorders (also causes ‘acid rain’ and smog). *Arsenic* – highly toxic; carcinogenic (cancer-causing); many other toxic effects. *Benzene* – highly toxic; carcinogenic; disrupts reproductive and neurological systems; anaemia. *Mercury* – highly toxic; affects child development; impairs brain function. *Lead* – highly toxic, particularly to children; neurological toxicant. *Ozone* – lung damage; respiratory impairment. *Polycyclic Organic Matter* – carcinogenic and respiratory toxicant. *Formaldehyde* – carcinogen; respiratory impairment; asthma inducer. *1,3-Butadiene* – carcinogen; neurological impairment; cardiovascular disease.

Renewable revolution?

When the Clean Development Mechanism was proposed in the UN climate negotiations, many campaigners were convinced that it would provide a boon for the core renewable technologies long championed by environmentalists – wind, solar, tidal/wave, geothermal and micro-hydro. However, only 2% of all CDM-sanctioned carbon ‘capital’ goes towards these essential technologies.^1^ The vast majority of credits generated are the result of a few industrial gas capture projects at major chemical and manufacturing plants that capture HFC – a powerful greenhouse gas.1 Critics argue that these sources should not be paid to clean up a mess of their own making. That these companies are significant polluters in other respects is not factored in to the decision-making process. Of the 176 registered offset projects with the UN’s climate office, 99 are biomass projects, initiated by industries such as sugar refineries that have huge environmental impacts in other areas.

Capturing the market: Share of total carbon credits by project type under the CDM
  1. UNFCCC, , information current as of 12 May 2006.
  2. Point Carbon, www.pointcarbon.com
  3. Sonja Butzengeiger, ‘Voluntary compensation of GHG emissions: Selection criteria and implications for the international climate policy system’, Hamburgishces WeltWirtschafts Institut (HWWI), 2005.
  4. (as of 9 May 2006).
  5. (as of 9 May 2006).
  6. (as of 9 May 2006).
  7. (as of 9 May 2006).
  8. US Energy Information Administration,
  9. As quoted in Fred Pearce, ‘Tree farms won’t halt climate change’, _New Scientist_, October 2002.
  10. Peter B Reich, Sarah E Hobbie, Tali Lee, David S Ellsworth, Jason B West, David Tilman, Johannes M H Knops, Shahid Naeem & Jared Trost, ‘Nitrogen limitation constrains sustainability of ecosystem response to CO2’, _Nature_, Vol 440, 13 April 2006.
  11. As quoted in Catherine Brahic, ‘Planting trees “will not cancel out climate change”’, _SciDev.Net_, 13 April 2006.
  12. George Thurston, associate professor of environmental medicine at the New York University School of Medicine as quoted in Aparna Surendran, ‘Fossil Fuel Cuts Would Reduce Early Deaths, Illness, Study Says’, _Los Angeles Times_, 17 August 2001.
  13. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), ; Toxnet Toxicology Data Network, United States National Library of Medicine, ; US Environmental Protection Agency, ; Scorecard,