Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/27/2008 6:13:39 PM PDT by Clive
Carbon credits' dirty secret
Energy companies and speculators make windfall profits while consumers are hit hard
At the bottom of the house of sand on which the Kyoto accord and world carbon trading markets are built, there's a leaking foundation.
Otherwise known as a carbon credit.
A carbon credit is a permit or, alternatively, a unit of currency, allowing a country or corporation to emit one metric tonne of carbon dioxide, linked to man-made global warming.
Carbon credits are the main mechanism by which Kyoto transfers wealth from developed nations like Canada to developing ones like China.
They are also the stock bought and sold on carbon trading markets, usually in concert with government "cap and trade" schemes.
Under Kyoto, Canada and our carbon-emitting industries can buy carbon credits so these industries can continue to operate.
There are various ways to do that, but they mainly involve having developed nations invest money in developing ones like China, so the latter can reduce future emissions. At least, that's the theory.
While the developed world is responsible for most emissions to date, since modern industrial methods emit less carbon than older ones and the economies of many developing countries are growing faster than developed ones, most future emissions will come from the developing world.
China, for example, recently passed the U.S. as the world's largest carbon emitter.
Kyoto turned the developed world (us) into buyers of carbon credits by stipulating 37 developed nations, including Canada, had to lower their emissions to an average of 5% below 1990 levels (for Canada's it's 6%) between 2008 and 2012.
Simultaneously, it turned the developing world into sellers of carbon credits by exempting 143 other countries, including such emerging economic giants as China and India, from having to lower their emissions at all.
But if developed countries invest in projects in developing ones to lower the latter's carbon emissions, they receive a credit to continue emitting an equivalent amount of carbon elsewhere.
Hence, they get a carbon "credit."
Carbon credits are also the stock used in carbon trading markets and like any stock, their value depends on supply and demand.
In a "cap and trade" market, governments set a gradually shrinking annual limit on the total amount of carbon designated industries can emit, then give away or sell credits to these industries that they, in turn, buy and sell among themselves.
The theory is that over time, inefficient companies requiring more credits buy them from efficient ones, requiring less, thus using the power of the market to lower global emissions.
The reality has been a fiasco.
First, buying and selling carbon credits doesn't remove one molecule of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Second, carbon credits weren't designed to lower emissions. They were designed to shift emissions around. Practically speaking, they will delay the day when we start lowering them.
Their present purpose is simply to permit developed countries and their industries to keep emitting carbon, so long as they pay a huge financial price for it by subsidizing the developing world.
Meaning, so long as we pay that price in higher energy costs.
In theory, it's the "cap" on emissions that's supposed to lower them -- both Kyoto's global cap and the caps developed nations set in operating "cap-and-trade" carbon markets.
Problem is, these so-called "hard caps" have turned out to be hair nets.
They're riddled with holes and megatonnes of carbon emissions are pouring through them into our atmosphere, the exact opposite of what politicians have told us these "caps" are designed to do.
Kyoto's biggest carbon "leak" is that under it, only 37 countries, including us, have to lower emissions while 143, including China, India and the rest of the developing world, don't.
Indeed, Kyoto as designed, guarantees future emission increases, not decreases.
Further, Kyoto's program awarding carbon credits to industrialized nations for financing carbon abatement projects in the developing world, is now facing allegations of corruption, profiteering and ineffectiveness.
GROWING CRITICISM
There's also growing criticism many of those projects would have gone ahead anyway without carbon credits, meaning they aren't keeping any additional carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
As for carbon trading outside the UN, the world's largest cap-and-trade market is Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme. Its annual carbon emissions are rising, while big energy companies and energy speculators have made windfall profits and consumers have been hit hard by skyrocketing electricity bills.
The ETS' biggest mistake? Participating governments initially gave away more free carbon credits to companies than the combined total of all their emissions, destroying the purpose of cap-and-trade, which is to give out less.
Do we really want any part of this?
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et, phone home.
RICO corruption
It’s wealth redistribution from the First World to the Third, plus a shit of capital equipment (the means of production) to the Third World.
It has nothing to do with Saving The Planet From Plant Food.
carbon credits is people.
I have asked the moderator to add the missing "et" characters to the end of the subject line.
...and they did it. Gawd these mods are easy.
False! They are designed solely to extract a tax from wealthy nations so that hustlers like Al Gore can earn a collector's fee managing the Carbon Credit racket. Countries like China and India will never pay such fees. They would just laugh at us. I'm sure, however, they are willing partners with Al as the scheme cripples US industry. Al Gore should be drawn and quartered for what he is doing to us.
When are we going to give up this myth of countries like China being "developing nations"?
* Make all “carbon credit” scams unlawful. Discrediting Algore should have been a slam-dunk a long time ago. Stop electing Reps who buy into the Global Warming / Global Cooling / Climate Change Hoax. CO2 is not our enemy!
I wonder if the Democratic party can get moral credits from the Vatican?
Another one of McCain’s great ideas!
Kyoto is the “move your factory to China” treaty.
And carbon credits are a fine on productivity, when the system works, and a money laundering scam when it really works. It is a con game that makes the Oil for Food scammers look like amateurs.
So it’s a scam? Who knew?
Howcome the government did’nt give me my carbon credit?
"Minorities hardest hit".
Hey kids! Be a “Climate Cop” - rat on your family, friends, and classmates:
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