Is Carbon Emissions Trading a good or bad idea?

[pgrmdave]

For those who think that carbon trading is a good idea but not quite right, how can we fix carbon trading? It seems to me that increasing the cost of carbon would help quite a bit, how could we do this?

[Zythryn]

I think a straight carbon tax would work wonders. Make it a wopper too.

Announce it and tell companies it will be implimented in 5 years at full strength.

The companies that don't do anything to limit their emmisions will pass along the carbon tax to the end users. The companies that do limit their carbon tax, get to undercut the competition without lifting a finger. People will buy the lower priced stuff. Business that didn't lower carbon output is at a major disadvantage and changes or withers.

 

The only problem I see with it is if NO companies cut their carbon emmisions. However, if money is involved I don't think this will be an issue.

[Michaelangelica]

Just came across this while looking for something else

washingtonpost.com

THE NEW ECO-CAPITALISM

When Being Green Puts You in the Black

 

By Daniel C. Esty

Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page B01

 

Are America's capitalist titans really going green?

 

This week's announcement that two of the country's largest privat

Moving from "command and control" regulations to a market approach to environmental protection means that there will be real costs for pollution -- including a price to be paid for greenhouse-gas emissions -- for every business.

But these costs sharpen the economic incentives for pollution control research and development, and create big opportunities for companies that come up with solutions for society's environmental problems.

 

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, CEOs fell over one another stepping up to the issue of climate change. Companies large and small are redoubling their environmental efforts in the face of Wal-Mart's demands that its suppliers reduce waste and improve energy efficiency. Billions of dollars of venture capital are flowing into alternative energy and pollution control technology. Leading companies -- call them "WaveRiders" -- have begun to fold environmental thinking into their corporate strategies.

[Michaelangelica]

Should I post this in the Theology Forum?:)

Selling carbon indulgences

 

Posted on May 17, 2007

Filed Under Venture News, Venture Ideas, Energy Technology |

 

Greeen Cab, a taxi company in San Francisco, and TerraPass, startup founded by former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford, what do they have in common? They are environmentally conscience businesses monetizing on “feel guilty” sentiment . Green Cab drives only hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles. Terrapass sells carbon offsets.

 

How does Terrapass work? You took flight about 6,000 miles. Your share of carbon dioxide emissions is 2,500 lbs. You feel guilty. You buy Flight TerraPass for $9.99. TerraPass promise to spend $9.99 on noble causes works miracles for your sensitive conscience and balances your karma.

 

It reminds me indulgence, which is the prepaid full or partial absolution of sins practized by Roman Catholic Church in 15th century. Selling induldences was flourishing business.

 

Erik Blachford takes no risks by picking up historically proven business model.

Selling carbon indulgences | Venture Itch

[C1ay]

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

 

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained...

 

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

 

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

 

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

 

More...

 

I'm still kind of waiting for someone to explain why the Mars caps are receeding at the same rate as Earth's if man made carbon is the cause of Earth's warming. Could it be the rovers we sent there? :)

[Zythryn]

There was a nice article on that very subject in the last Science journal. In short, the research they have done seems to point towards a change in albedo as the most likely culprit. I'll read up on it again and give you more detail.

[Zythryn]

Here we are, sorry for the delay.

It was not Science, it was the Nature Journal.

Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on Mars

Lori K. Fenton, Paul E. Geissler, Robert M. Haberle

From the April 5th issue, 2007.

Now, studying the climate of Mars is much more difficult than studying our own climate. However any possible links should be studied as best they can.

 

PS. you mentioned they are receeding at the same rate? Do we know that? I thought the mars southern cap was visibly receeding at a much greater rate? Is the northern cap receeding at all?

[C1ay]

PS. you mentioned they are receeding at the same rate? Do we know that? I thought the mars southern cap was visibly receeding at a much greater rate? Is the northern cap receeding at all?

 

It was in some news article I read about the time the news release came out that Mars was experiencing global warming as well. I can't remember exactly how it was worded but I do remember that it also stated that Mars has warmed by about the same amount as Earth over the same period. I'll see if I can find it.

[Michaelangelica]

Mars is stuffed.Earth is next

 

Watch more videos like this at QuantumShift.tv - Your Move..

 

This month I've been writing about carbon - what a carbon footprint is, how to calculate it, what it has to do with climate change, and so on.

 

Our modern lifestyles have released a lot of extra carbon into the atmosphere. Can we somehow trap it again? Trees trap carbon, so does the soil. Can I fly to Malaga as long as I pay someone to plant a bunch of trees for me? Does that work?

 

There's an interesting video about carbon sequestration which you should look at if you have about 9 minutes to spare. It explains how organic farming can help trap some excess carbon in the soil, which just adds to the long list of reasons why organic farming is a good idea. I love the guy who narrates it, Percy Schmeiser. He's pretty rubbish at looking natural in front of a camera and reading from a script, but this somehow makes his statements more convincing. He must know what he's talking about because he sure as hell wasn't chosen for his presenting abilities.

 

But that's different from paying someone to plant trees for you so you can fly to Malaga with a clear conscience. Carbon offsetting is a last-ditch option. It's like having chemotherapy when you've got cancer. You don't say "Oh, I might as well smoke as many cigarettes as I like because I can always have chemotherapy if I get cancer". Similarly we shouldn't say "It's perfectly OK to live a high-carbon lifestyle because I can afford to offset it by planting loads of trees someplace". It's a radical attempt to fix damage already done, not a "get out of jail free" card.

 

Yes, we should be planting trees, returning to organic farming, collecting methane and all the other carbon offsetting things. But we should be doing them to offset the damage we have already done, not as a sort of "indulgence" permitting us to carry on with our planet-damaging activities and still sleep soundly.

 

 

Bean Sprouts: What are Carbon Offsets?

[Michaelangelica]

I think this is all to much for Bears of little Brain.

The article is ten pages long (!)

Clean Development Mechanism

Without any practical way to force developing nations to control their emissions, the Kyoto signers instead reached a compromise known as the clean development mechanism.

Under this scheme, investors could earn credits for projects that cut emissions in developing nations even though the host country faced no binding restriction on its output of these gases.

A British firm that faces strict (and thus costly) limits on its emissions at home, for example, might invest to build wind turbines in China.

The company would then accrue credits for the difference between the “baseline” emissions that would have been released had the Chinese burned coal to generate electricity and the essentially zero emissions discharged by the wind farm.

China would gain foreign investment and energy infrastructure, while the British firm could meet its environmental obligations at lower cost because credits earned overseas are often less expensive than reducing emissions at home.

Making Carbon Markets Work (extended version): Scientific American

[Michaelangelica]

Is life too short to inform youself on all the things you need to know about saving the planet?

Carbon trading

 

Carbon trading has become the central pillar of international agreements aimed at slowing climate change. Proponents of this market-based approach to addressing an environmental crisis argue that carbon trading allows reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the most economical manner. What proponents of this market based-approach do not mention are the hidden consequences of carbon trading - the creation of a new commodity and of private property rights to the atmosphere, the hand-out of tradable pollution rights worth billions of euro to large emitters in industrialised countries free of charge. Through this process of creating a new commodity - carbon - the Earth's ability and capacity to support a climate conducive to life and human societies is now passing into the same corporate hands that are destroying the climate. Carbon trading will thus not contribute to achieving protection of the Earth's climate. It is a false solution which entrenches and magnifies social inequalities in many ways.

 

The public debate about these consequences of carbon trading has only just begun. The Durban conference on "Commodifying Carbon: Consequences and Strategies" , held in Durban, South Africa, in October 2004, brought together some 30 organizations from more than 15 countries to exchange information, analysis, and strategy ideas concerning the social, environmental and human problems posed by the emerging carbon market.

 

This page aims at providing access to the existing and emerging literature and analysis challenging the assumptions of the emerging carbon market.

 

Click here to read the Durban Call to Action or to sign the Durban Declaration on Carbon trading.

 

Read the Carbon Trade Watch report Hoodwinked in the Hothouse

 

Check out Carbon Trading - the different trades explained

 

Read about some lessons from the EUropean Union's flagship Emissions Trading Scheme here

 

Click here for links to the Durban Group's comprehensive critique of carbon trading, published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and edited by Larry Lohmann. Carbon Trading. Critical Conversations about Climate Change, Privatisation and Power. Send an email to [email protected]

 

Read the Carbon Trade Watch report 'The Carbon Neutral Myth. Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins'

 

www.sinkswatch.org

[Michaelangelica]

Some more anti voices on carbon trading.

carbon trading | Raised Voices

EG

Hi, my name's Vanessa Black and I live in eThekwini in South Africa. I just want to say that I don't think that carbon trading is a way for us to solve climate problems which is one of the most serious problems we face at the moment. We can't just try to trade out way out of this. We all have to take this a lot more seriously and start thinking about how our economies are structured, how our lives are structured. It's not just about each individual trying to save energy alone.

 

It's about us all working together to live in a completely different way, where we're not relying on goods that are sent all over the world. Where we're not trading all over for things we could be growing in our own gardens or our backyard. It's about the way we plan our settlements. So that we're working and living and communicating with people around us, not completely isolated and then trading with people on the other side of the planet.

[Michaelangelica]

What to look for when purchasing carbon credits

Wednesday, 06 February 2008

. . .

. . .

the report found that:

 

* Some industrial companies are profiting from doing very little, or from gaining greenhouse gas credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

* Brokers are providing services of questionable or no value.

* A shortage of verification exists, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of greenhouse gas credits.

In fact, critics argue that the carbon offsets industry is allowing individuals, organisations and countries to think it is alright to keep polluting

 

. . .

 

In their RMIT report, Ribón and Scott developed a set of criteria that can help customers choose between offset products:

 

* Additionality: Would the project have occurred anyway without funding from greenhouse gas offsets?

* Baseline determination: Does the provider state commitments to a robust process to determine the baseline greenhouse gas emissions?

* Benefit quantification: Does the provider have a track record of accurate quantification of emissions reductions or has that provider had failures in the past? Do the figures quoted reflect uncertainties?

* Permanence: Are there risks of loss of greenhouse gas from bushfires and drought? Is there a risk that customers will not install compact fluorescents? Is there a potential for future reversal of sequestration?

* Ownership and registration: Is ownership of offsets clearly and formally registered? Is there any possibility of offsets being sold many times over?

* Monitoring and verification: Does the provider commit to regularly monitor, verify and report greenhouse gas offsets over time?

 

The fact is, because the voluntary greenhouse gas offsets market is immature, no universally accepted standards for product quality have yet gained market dominance.

What to look for when purchasing carbon credits (ScienceAlert)

[HydrogenBond]

The problem with offsets is it reduces the overall benefit. If one company reduces C by 50 tons a day, and sells this credit to someone else, there is no net reduction. The 50 tons saved is sold to someone so they can put the 50 tons back into the air. For example, if Al Gore wants to heat and light the new addition to his already huge house, he may need you and all your neighbors to live in one room so you can save enough C. He will buy that offset and put it back in the air heating and lighting his addition. The better solution is AL doesn't touch the C savings of the neighbors but adds his own share to the pot. That's the catch. Only some are suppose to sacrifice to make it possible for others to go about their normal business.

 

Where offsets could come in useful are for businesses which would be hit hard by massive conversions to meet strict emission standards. In other words, if the conversion is too massive all at once, to meet the standards, the company could fold and many people could lose jobs. In that case, a slower conversion path to maintain viability of the company may require they buy offsets until the prolonged conversion is complete.

 

Say the EPA decided everyone has to heat all their hot water with solar. One is no longer allowed to use gas, electricity, etc., for water heating. There are many people who could not afford the conversion in the short term. Offsets would allow them to continue using their old hot water heaters, until they could save enough for the conversion. Those who can afford the conversion, right away, can use the offsets to make money off the poor. This scam would be like high credit card interest with the poor ultimately buying the solar kit for the rich. The poor may never be able to get ahead to get the solar, but may have to pay for offsets forever, or until the solar power unit of the rich is paid off.

[Michaelangelica]

This is becomming a big issue in Australia at the moment as the government plants to introduce a carbon trading scheme.

Most are having trouble getting their heads around it.

The government is being attacked from all sides.

There are dire warnings that business will just pack up and move off-shore due to incresed costs of trading in Australia.

GW denialists are comming out of the woodwork

But our cousins across "The Ditch" have never been slow to seize an oportunity.

Business Could Make Billions From Emissions Trades

Monday, 18 August 2008, 4:48 pm

Press Release: New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Dev

 

Business Could Make Billions From New Emissions Trading-Related Investments

 

A new report released this morning says New Zealand businesses have an opportunity to make billions from new technology investments stimulated by the proposed emissions trading scheme.

 

The opportunities range from starting major new industries, exporting biomass (like woodchips) to fuel major new power plants in Europe, to storing carbon in soil – along with major renewables energy developments, and smaller scale activities which will let farmers create income from power generated from cow manure methane.

SEARCH NZ JOBS

Search Businesses FindA

Go to Grand Prix and Paris

BUY RENT INVEST today!

 

The report was released at a business breakfast in Auckland this morning.

 

It was produced by Sam Tobin of NRS Consulting for the Tindall Foundation in May 2008, in support of Stephen Tindall's chairing of the Climate Change Leadership Forum, which is advising Ministers on emissions trading issues.

 

The report, to be released at the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development's Clean Billions CEO Breakfast, preceding a Clean Billions investment symposium later this morning, warns that businesses competing with New Zealand can be expected to go beyond "carbon neutral" to become "carbon negative".

Scoop: Business Could Make Billions From Emissions Trades

[Michaelangelica]

Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne Australia media release 14/11/08

 

Carbon emissions trading scheme must be fair to work, says Garnaut

 

 

 

Measures to counter global warming must be fair across society, including for the most vulnerable, to work properly, according to Professor Ross Garnaut as he delivered a lecture in Melbourne last night hosted by national welfare agency the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

 

 

Professor Garnaut, who headed the recently completed Garnaut Climate Change Review, said: “We are not going to be able to maintain the steady mitigation policies over long periods of time that are necessary to get our emissions down, unless our community thinks that the policies are fair.

 

 

 

“For that reason, getting the income distribution effects of the emissions trading scheme right is an essential part of getting the scheme itself right,” said Professor Garnaut, speaking at the Brotherhood’s annual Sambell Oration.

 

 

 

“Looking after low-income Australians is not part of the design of the scheme itself, but the success of income distribution policies will determine whether the intrinsic operations of the emissions trading scheme will work.”

 

He said that the most vulnerable would be the most affected by climate change itself. However, putting a price on carbon also risked damaging the welfare of low-income Australians, immediately and through the structural pressures that it put on the economy.

 

 

 

“An effective emissions trading scheme will affect differentially various sectors of the economy and various geographic regions. It is possible that it could hurt some industries in ways that did substantial damage to some communities. We need to recognise these possibilities, and have policies to manage their consequences,” he said.

 

 

Professor Garnaut also raised the issue of the world financial crisis. He said this did not make the problem of global warming less important or less urgent, and that government measures to boost the economy should include investment in low-emissions technologies.

 

“Most Governments are shifting to expansive fiscal policies. Focusing part of the expansion out of recessionary conditions on investment in research, development and commercialisation of low-emissions technologies makes good economic sense, and is likely to be politically attractive.

 

 

 

“Nevertheless, the preoccupation with the financial crisis and its aftermath may distract the Australian and international polities from the urgent task of mitigation. That would be a costly mistake. The consequences of unmitigated climate change would still be here tomorrow. The chances of avoiding high risks of dangerous climate change may not,” he said.

 

 

The Sambell Oration is named after a former director, Archbishop Geoffrey Sambell (1914-1980), and reflects his vision for social justice. Sustainability Victoria was the sponsor of this year’s Sambell Oration. Download the speech from:

http://www.bsl.org.au/pdfs/Sambell_Oration_2008_Garnaut.pdf

[Michaelangelica]

Obarma might like to watch and learn as the argy baqrgy starts with Australia's attempts to bring in carbon trading

Greens protest over Australian carbon targets

Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:59am GMT

 

By James Grubel

 

CANBERRA, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Environmentalists staged protests in Australia's major cities on Tuesday to demand tougher greenhouse emissions targets after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised to curb emissions by 5-15 percent by 2020.

 

Rudd announced the new targets on Monday, angering green groups but winning support from business, as he unveiled details of a carbon trading scheme set to start in July 2010, just months before he is due to call national elections.

 

Analysts said the cautious carbon targets were designed to appease business and protect jobs in the face of the global economic slowdown, and could help Rudd's re-election hopes.

Greens protest over Australian carbon targets | Reuters

 

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - Home Page

you will fell like this if you manage any of the above link

 

 

 

Reuters

Government shrugs off climate plan criticism

The Age, Australia - 20 hours ago

THE Federal Government has shrugged off criticism from its own climate change expert adviser that its emissions trading scheme is too weak and panders to ...

Government defends climate change policy Melbourne Herald Sun

Garnaut criticism shows Rudd is a 'climate change fraud' ABC Online

Ross Garnaut attacks climate compensation as funding crisis looms The Australian

Daily Telegraph - The Australian

all 269 news articles »

 

TVNZ

$1.4bn to soften pain of carbon trading scheme

The Australian, Australia - 14 Dec 2008

Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said the emissions trading scheme must make Australia part of a global effort to tackle climate change. ...

The battle for the emissions trading scheme hots up ABC Online

Govt rules out deep cut in emissions Sydney Morning Herald

Prime Minister's middle path on emission cuts The Age

The Australian - The Australian

all 1,452 news articles »

St Kevin breaks faith

The Australian, Australia - 18 Dec 2008

The disappointment from environmental groups on the detail of the emissions trading scheme is the first real dissension to appear over Labor's promises and ...

 

New Zealand Herald

Australia's war on emissions gets off to a sluggish start

Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 18 Dec 2008

And since it is such a gentle start, will it send a meaningful message to business that the era of free carbon emitting is reaching an end? CARBON trading ...

Switch to solar undermined by Rudd climate plan The Age

Global get-out clause Business Spectator

Turnbull Joint Doorstop Interview with Robb - Emissions trading ... Australia.TO

The Canberra Times - People's Daily Online

all 55 news articles »

 

carbon trading australia - Google News