AP Photo/Aaron Favila
DCL
Carbon offsets and the UN's Clean Development Mechanism seem to lose credibility pretty regularly. There's questionable validity to the concept itself: an effective green light for people, companies, governments to pollute as they wish and to avoid lifestyle or policy changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions—but without the guilt.
Then we learned that the carbon credit scheme run by the UN, the Clean Development Mechanism, is actually funding construction of coal plants. Doesn't really sound so clean...
Now, there are holes in the argument that it economically benefits developing countries: the Guardian reports that the UN program allows consultants in rich countries to charge high fees to implement the credits.
The government of Nepal, for example, has paid
More from the Guardian:
The money is paid via a World Bank contract with the company for this evaluation work; the bank then pays the consultancy for the work. Such a sum would pay for 340 of the small-scale carbon cutting projects the Nepalese government is trying to set up.
Seperately, the conservation charity WWF pays
Kyle Ash, a Greenpeace official in Washington DC called the fees "exorbitant" and questioned the entire UN-administered cap and trade system... "We need to restrict global warming pollution [in industrialised countries]," he said. "And we need to finance clean development in third world countries. But the two things aren't connected."
Det Norske Veritas' justification is that competition is high, and the fees charged are simply the market rate. The UN's justification is that the verification process is necessary to ensure the validity of the carbon reduction programs.
Pictured above are people affected by the flooding in Pakistan, where several carbon offset projects have been affected: no word on whether these consulting companies give discounts for disaster-hit countries.
Is this really an efficient use of developing countries' already-limited resources? Especially when the programs don't reduce the net greenhouse gas emissions of companies or governments purchasing carbon credits—and considering the disproportionate impact that climate change is projected to have on developing countries, where the carbon offset projects are being built. At the least, you'd think the exorbitant fees could at least be paid by whoever is creating the demand for carbon offsets.
More importantly, as Kyle Ash from Greenpeace pointed out, greenhouse gas reductions in industrialized nations and clean development in other countries are separate issues, and it's time they start being treated as such.
