copycat of thecompensators.org who have been active for 10 years now..
Compensating carbon emissions
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#12This seems to be based upon the idea that the EU ETS system works. Which it doesn't. Since many years. Far too many emission certificates have been given out for free to industries. And there are plenty of loopholes in the system.
> Far too many emission certificates have been given out for free to industries. My understanding was that that was only in the beginning, when the system was introduced. Businesses that previously polluted for free could continue to pollute for free for a transitional period. I may be wrong. > And there are plenty of loopholes in the system. Do you have a good source to read up on this?
If you speak German, this Wikipedia article explains the issues really well: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Emissionshandel
Primary takeaways:
1. Price is volatile, depending on weather and season
2. For 2°C goal, the price per metric ton should be $50 but it's only €5.5
3. Politics - elections, growth, and other factors play a significant role in setting cap and price.
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Far too many emission certificates have been given out for free to industries. My understanding was that that was only in the beginning, when the system was introduced. Businesses that previously polluted for free could continue to pollute for free for a transitional period. I may be wrong. > And there are plenty of loopholes in the system. Do you have a good source to read up on this?
If you speak German, this Wikipedia article explains the issues really well: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Emissionshandel Primary takeaways: 1. Price is volatile, depending on weather and season 2. For 2°C goal, the price per metric ton should be $50 but it's only €5.5 3. Politics - elections, growth, and other factors play a significant role in setting cap and price.
> Price is volatile, depending on weather and season
Not sure why you think that is a problem. Emissions depend on weather and season. It would not be a market if it didn't react to relevant aspects of reality.
> price per metric ton should be $50
There are too many certificates, agreed. I wasn't surprised to read that Parliament advocated stricter rules.
> Politics - elections, growth, and other factors play a significant role in setting cap and price.
I don't find that in the article. It does say that the Commission screwed us over by empting airlines, but well, that's what we expect from the Commission.
Anyway, so far I'm not convinced about the alleged loopholes mentioned above. The system doesn't work as an efficient market, that is true. As far as I can tell, that could be fixed by stricter caps.
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#14This seems to be based upon the idea that the EU ETS system works. Which it doesn't. Since many years. Far too many emission certificates have been given out for free to industries. And there are plenty of loopholes in the system.
> Far too many emission certificates have been given out for free to industries. My understanding was that that was only in the beginning, when the system was introduced. Businesses that previously polluted for free could continue to pollute for free for a transitional period. I may be wrong. > And there are plenty of loopholes in the system. Do you have a good source to read up on this?
> My understanding was that that was only in the beginning, when the system was introduced. Businesses that previously polluted for free could continue to pollute for free for a transitional period. I may be wrong.
You are wrong: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets/allowances_en
The free allowances are declining slowly, but there's no plan whatsoever to discontinue them.
> Do you have a good source to read up on this?
It's a complicated issue, but roughly things like this can happen: You can get extra certificates if you can show that you funded some kind of climate project somewhere outside of the EU ETS. This is called Clean Development Mechanism.
Then you could do something like this: fund a particularly bad industrial plant that creates severe emissions of highly potent greenhouse gases. Then you create a CDM project to reduce these emissions again. You get emission certificates for a plant that you only built dirtier in the first place.
Plenty of such schemes have been done in combination with HFC 23 (a very potent greenhouse gas that gets created in some industrial processes), wikipedia is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Development_Mechanism#De...
For HFC 23 this loophole has been closed. But there are plenty more such problems.
Further reading, there's an NGO focused on such issued called Carbon Trade Watch: http://www.carbontradewatch.org/
My examples are a bit dated, because it's been a while when I was following it in detail. But it's a weird system that's so corrupted by lobbying that it hardly does any good.
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#15I really like this service; if CO2 emissions can actually be reduced simply by paying this extra amount, it is fantastic. But is it really this simple? I arrived at ~120€ per year to offset all my CO2 emissions. (I live in a small apartment, don't use a car but fly quite a lot). If this extra cost is all it takes, we should increase taxes accordingly, at once. I would think that the price of producing all my goods an…
The amount is low now because of low-hanging fruit: easy CO2 mitigations that can only be done a few times. If tens of millions of people bought offsets, all the easy opportunities would be exhausted and the marginal ton of CO2 would be much more expensive.
That's the theory, anyway. We haven't tried it - currently, demand is limited even at these low offset prices.
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#16Why all the defeatism?
Expressing frustration at the status quo is one thing, but I don't see how expressing a negative attitude toward incremental progress can be seen as more helpful than holding your tongue.
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#17I would like instead to fund reforestation projects, which can have a positive impact also on the wildlife and the economy of certain regions, while capturing CO2
I would like to instead fund advocacy against carbon subsidies/for carbon taxes.
Re: Compensating carbon emissions
#18This sounds like a naive response to a fundamentally flawed system. The EU ETS has been a failure from the beginning. Commoditising pollution just leads to more abstractions and opportunities for fraud, laundering and lack of accountability. It takes the onus away from government regulation and puts it in the hands of the market whereby those most responsible for pollution already have enormous agency to influence ma…
Are you implying that massive industrial interests DON'T have the capability to buy special political influence?
Of course they do, but ceding full control directly to them is hardly the best counter to that.