Carbon offsets
From Envirowiki
Carbon offsets are a way of reducing carbon emissions, by offsetting emissions produced, or repaying carbon debt by reducing carbon production elsewhere.
One of the most common forms of carbon offsets is buying or sponsoring offset plantations. Other forms may include sponsoring equivalent reductions by polluting factories, or other sources.
[edit] Problems with offsets
Problems with offset can be huge, and extreme. Tree planting, a common method of offsetting, probably has the most and worst problems associated with it. For example, a BBC report[1] exposes a plantation in Uganda, which may be fairly typical of third-world carbon offset plantations, in which local villagers' land was annexed, livestock stolen, and lives endangered, when the carbon offset plantation's rangers shot at them[2][3]. this may be typical of a number of plantations in the third-world.
There is also a lot of skepticism around the way offsets are marketed. Ruth Davis, head of climate change policy at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), believes the way offsets are marketed is “harmful”[1]. Davis further explains "It is very hard to convey to people that when they are buying an offset they are not actually neutralizing their impact on the global environment… They, I think quite understandably, believe what they are doing is buying something which means they are relieved from the responsibility of further action.”[2]
There also appears to be a problem with 'additionallity' when it comes to offset projects; that is whether or not the project would have taken place regardless of the offset funding. If the project where to have taken place anyway, than the offset would not 'negate' or 'neutralize' the emissions in which the offsets where purchased for.
[edit] Sources
- ↑ Broken Promises in Uaganda - BBC News UK
- ↑ “Human rights abuses, land conflicts, broken promises – the reality of carbon ‘offset’ projects in Uganda" - Sinkswatch.org front page 14 January 2006.
- ↑ ‘A funny place to store carbon: UWA-FACE Foundation’s tree planting project in Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda’ - the World Rainforest Movement
