Skip to main content

Carbon Trading - Ills and evils


World Bank states the global demand for carbon emission credits will exceed supply by 2012. [1]

The total trading of emission credits reached $30bn (£15bn) during 2006, three times as much as in 2005. The growth in 2004-2005 was 240%.

Carbon Credit

One Carbon credit is equivalent to one tonne of CO2 emissions. This credit can be sold at market price. The exchanges that deal with carbon credits are Chicago Climate Exchnage and European Climate Exchange

Kyoto Protocol
Under Kyoto Protocol, the countries hava a emission quota while siluataneously having to take steps to reduce the emissions. The countries can tackle their obligations by implementing clean projects (usually in developing countries taking advantages of costs) or by buying other countries'carbon credits.

Absolution

Carbon Credit, a hotly debated issue before being ratified at Kyoto, seeks to put a price on the activities of pollution. The basic idea is to penalise the polluting country/company.

Carbon Credit was hotly protested as it was seen as easy way out for the developed countries by "selling the sins of their pollution" to developing countries (the usual buyers). It was also protested because getting the pollution monkey off their back would lead to slack in new cleaner technologie and thier research.

The statement from World Bank of demand outstripping the supply means we will live in a far more polluted world, with polluting companies washing off thier sins by buying Carbon Credits. This is reminicient of medival knights buying absolution for past sins from clergy.

Issues

Not everybody is convinced of the concept of notional environment. The issues like what qualifies for the Carbon Credit , the effectiveness of these clean project in offsetting pollution and Cabon Credits acquired because of natural progression of technologies etc are some of the issues that are yet to be sorted out.

The Existence of Carbon Credit holds the environment hostage. To put it more finacial-jargonish, it spilts the pollution (risks) into small bits and pieces so that offset-party takes the risk. But as we know, the risk does not dimish - it barely changes hands. But alas, as long we have only one planet to live, the risk stays at home. The accounting tricks cannot brush off the realities of climate impact.

Cant help but squirm at this futile excercise when you read the solgan for International Emissions Trading Association - "Market soultions for Global environment problem".

Misguided intentions

The honorable intention of saving the earth is misguided: there is no point in us tracking our Carbon emmission for our drive to office, 'neutralise' it by buying the credits and print a needless 500 page printouts! NeW York Times poses "Is Carbon-neutral movement a gimmick?". Tell me otherwise.

What use is the accounting, offsetting or trading when the house is on fire. Its the only blue pearl we have.


:) Falkor

Kyoto protocol:







Resources:

Carbon Exchanges:

Fallacy of Carbon Trading:

Cons of Carbon Trading:

Pros for Carbon Trading:

In the news:


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How-to overcome sendentary lifestyle.

Some interesting points on overcoming sedentary lifestyle. There are many other routine ones, just try googling that. 1. Some not so routine tips on avoiding the sedentary lifestyle 2. Walking while talking on phone is a good way to get expressive and burn calories too. 3. Don't use the phone to call someone a short walking distance away. Walk and visit whenever possible. Same for grocery shopping. 4. Catch a different bus that makes you walk a bit more. You can catch a bus from a different stop, a little farther from your regular stop. 5. Pacing the length of the subway platform whenever the train/bus is late. 6. Dance Source: from various places on net
Post a Comment
Read more

Cognitive rules of business presentations

In his recent book, Clear and to the Point, Kosslyn explained that the four rules of PowerPoint are: The Goldilocks Rule, The Rudolph Rule, The Rule of Four, and the Birds of a Feather Rule. Here's how they work. The Goldilocks Rule refers to presenting the "just right" amount of data. Never include more information than your audience needs in a visual image. As an example, Kosslyn showed two graphs of real estate prices over time. One included ten different numbers, one for each year. The other included two numbers: a peak price, and the current price. For the purposes of a presentation about today's prices relative to peak price, those numbers were the only ones necessary. The Rudolph Rule refers to simple ways you can make information stand out and guide your audience to important details -- the way Rudolph the reindeer's red nose stood out from the other reindeers' and led them. If you're presenting a piece of relevant data in a list, why not mak...
Post a Comment
Read more

Definition of Cult Stocks

From a blog: A classification describing stocks that have a sizable investor following, despite the fact that the underlying company has somewhat insignificant fundamentals. Typically, investors are initially attracted to the company's potential and accumulate positions in speculation that its potential will be fulfilled, providing the investors with a substantial payout. While most of these cult stocks promise they will be the next big story after they make a new discovery or get the newest contract from the government, most do not provide investors with anything other than the story. Furthermore, these stocks typically generate very little, if any, revenue at all. For example, many micro-cap biotech stocks are cult stocks. While they promise that they are going to be working on a miracle compound or drug, most of them do not have any source of income as they slowly burn away their initial capital in research and development. However, some cult stocks do occasionally make good on...
Post a Comment
Read more