Carbon Offsets – fix or fig-leaf?
Philip Sargent
online: http://www.cambridgeenergy.com/event-2007-10-18.htm
The speakers were:
Philip Sargent, Cambridge Energy Forum: The Morality of Carbon Offsets
Fiona Harvey, Financial Times: Voluntary Carbon Trading
Michael Schlup, The Gold Standard: The Gold Standard for Carbon
Offsetting Schemes
Jeremy Nicholson, Energy Intensive User Group: Offsets and Electricity
Generation
At the forum and in email since, there has been very active conversations
on carbon offsets and following up on the issues of "additionality" and
"subtractability" raised at the meeting.
Steve Stretton
wrote:
> The presentations from the meeting in Cambridge last Thursday are now
> online:http://www.cambridgeenergy.com/event-2007-10-18.htm
> on carbon offsets and following up on the issues of "additionality" and
> "subtractability" raised at the meeting.
One concern is that offsetting relies on a concept of "what would have
happened anyway" or the "baseline". But there is no obvious way to
define this.
Philip Sargent
"Steve Stretton" <sjstr...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1193082844.9...@v29g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
Yes, it is easy to see a tonne of carbon dioxide being emitted; it is rather
less easy to see a tonne that is not being emitted.
The idea behind The Gold Standard (Schlup) is to create and enforce a
procedure such that the additionality is well defined (the carbon saved is
in addition to what would otherwise have been the case).
Perhaps we need a set of different names. Keep the term "offsets" for
avoided emissions, and have another term where the CO2 is actually taken out
of the air, or out of an exhaust stream?
Tim Joslin
with carbon offsetting. The Gold Standard and other sets of rules for
carbon offset projects rely on a test of "additionality". This test
basically states that, for a carbon offset project to meet the
standard, it must be demonstrable that the reductions in carbon
emissions would not have happened anyway. Examples of projects that
would pass the additionality test are a wind farm in China that would
not otherwise have been funded; energy saving lightbulbs in South
America that would not otherwise have been provided; and projects to
filter HFC23 from factory emissions that would not have happened
otherwise. Critically, the test of additionality is only made within
the scope of the carbon offset project.
The are various problems with the concept of additionality - such as
the virtual certainty of moral hazard coming into play (e.g. wind
farms might not be funded another way simply because China knows
carbon offset money is available) - but I believe the most significant
flaw is that the test is incomplete. The problem is that we are
dealing with an open system - global energy production and consumption
- and not a series of closed systems. The easyJet flight you offset,
VAT free, for £1.77, and the Chinese windfarm are not the end of the
story.
We need another test, which I term "subtractability". That is, there
needs to be an onus on the carbon offset provider to prove that the
carbon emissions saved really are subtracted from total global carbon
emissions. Several types of carbon offset project fail this test and
must be consigned to the fig-leaf category.
Of the 3 examples I gave earlier, the first two both fail the
"subtractability" test. They run into what I have previously termed
"the displacement fallacy" - see my short note at http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/?p=260.
For example, China is using energy as fast as it can produce it. The
wind-farm may simply mean they produce and use more energy than they
would have done otherwise. Similarly, people given energy-saving
lightbulbs may simply be able to afford more electricity for something
else, or power cuts may become a little less frequent in their
country. [Note that I am not arguing that such projects themselves
are not worthwhile - I'm merely pointing out that they most likely
will not successfully offset your carbon emissions].
Projects that directly remove or destroy GHGs, such as those to
capture HFC23 from factory flues, pass the subtractability test, but
may run into other problems, as we heard at last week's Cambridge
Energy Forum. In fact, since the types of project that pass the
subtractability test - such as tree-planting - tend to fail in other
ways, it's difficult to see how carbon offsetting can do more than
salve peoples' consciences.
an...@goldfin.co.uk
about internationality. The concern for offsetting is to reduce
personal carbon emissions. To be useful, this has to be part of a
programme to make continuing reductions over the time until some
target is reached. This should be 60% by 2050, in line with Kyoto as
a minimum, or more realistically 90% or about 1.5 tonnes per person by
2030, as suggested by the likes of the Hadley Centre and WWF. Even if
you believe in the role of offsetting in personal carbon reduction,
the problem comes from the sustainability of the approach. If by 2025
you have reduced your personal emissions by 5 tonnes and offset the
rest by purchasing 7 tonnes of offset, you are now totally dependant
upon the CDM to maintain your lifestyle! The purpose of carbon
trading and capped/validated offsetting is to prompt cost effective
emission reductions, so we would expect projects to become scarcer and
more expensive as time goes on. So in 2015 you now have to make the
carbon savings that you have been putting off. On top of this there
are the second order effects of having done so little. Eg.
* Easy jet claims there is still a demand for flying and a second
runway is built at Stanstead.
* Tescos still see demand for out of town shopping and continue trash
the local trade economy
* There is no demand for domestic renewable energy and the UK industry
remains moribund.
So when you need to make changes, there is not a lot more you can do.
So while 'additionallity' may mean that there is a first order saving,
offsetting sends a message to the world that we don't care about
personal reduction and think that we can use the same imperial
approach that got us here in the first place. If you want to discuss
the ethical issues, it would be more useful to read the chapter in
heat by George Monbiot's book Heat or look at 'www.cheatneutral.com'
philip.sargent
Cheatneutral is fun but not a serious criticism. There is no
additionality argument.