Businesses that carbon offset are not helping reduce emissions, say academics
Greenwise Staff
1st December 2009
Two academics from the University of Essex are claiming that carbon offsetting has failed to deliver promised reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) and that businesses and other organisations signing up to the practice may be doing more harm to the planet than good.
Dr Steffen Böhm and Siddhartha Dabhi of the University-based Essex Business School, have published a book, ‘Upsetting the Offset: The Political Economy of Carbon Markets’. The book– which collates contributions from more than 30 leading experts – argues that the measures put in place to reduce carbon emissions following the Kyoto Protocol Treaty on climate change have only made matters worse.
In a statement, Dr Böhm and Dabhi, said: “Carbon offsetting and carbon markets haven’t really delivered the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions they claimed and in many ways have just made the problem worse.”
Carbon offsets are a means of mitigating the GHG emissions of governments, companies and individuals typically through financial support of projects that reduce the emission of GHG in the short or long-term. These projects are often renewable energy ones, such as wind farms, biomass energy, or hydroelectric dams.
Because offsets usually fund projects in developing countries, they may be cheaper or more convenient alternatives to reducing a company’s own fossil-fuel consumption, and because the Kyoto Protocol has sanctioned them, companies or governments that are unable to meet their emissions quota can offset their emissions by buying the protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism-approved Certified Emissions Reductions.
In the compliance market, carbon offsetting is worth billions of pounds. But even the much smaller voluntary carbon offset market is growing rapidly and is worth several hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
But Dr Böhm argues: “These schemes have often just provided an incentive for big polluting companies to continue emitting greenhouse gases rather than to change their ways. Often, carbon offsetting schemes have very negative effects on local communities and eco-systems in developing countries.”
Dr Böhm and Dabhi’s book is being launched to tie-in with next month’s United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen and joins growing criticism about the business of carbon.
The carbon market is expected to explode over the coming decade as more countries embrace cap-and-trade schemes, like the one already operating in the European Union – the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Australia looks set to adopt one and the US is also looking favourably on such a scheme. Some carbon traders are now predicting the market could become double the size of the oil market.
However, environmental groups and even some business leaders say the carbon markets are not working effectively and that carbon offsetting is a big part of the problem.