Memorandum submitted by Carbon Trade Watch
1. Carbon Trade Watch, a project of the
Transnational Institute, monitors the impact of pollution trading
upon environmental, social and economic justice and seeks to challenge
the assumption that a liberalised marketplace is the only arena
in which environmental problems can be resolved. It also pools
the work of others and acts as a meeting point for researchers,
campaigners and communities opposing the negative impacts of pollution
trading. The aim is to create space for bottom-up solutions and
alternatives. In the past, Carbon Trade Watch has submitted evidence
or memoranda on the International Challenge of Climate Change:
UK Leadership in the G8 and EU.[1]
2. Carbon Trade Watch welcomes the Environmental
Audit Committee's present inquiry into the voluntary carbon market.
They are grateful for the opportunity to comment on the following
issues in the Committee's remit:
— many offset projects involve afforestation
or reforestation. Is the science sufficiently coherent in this
area accurately to assess overall long-term carbon (or other GHG)
gains and losses from such projects;
— is there enough clarity within the
offset market to allow customers to make informed choices based
upon robust information about different schemes at different prices;
and
— is there sufficient data available
to guarantee accurate amounts of carbon or other GHG mitigation
in the sorts of schemes which offset projects finance?
3. The principal conclusions of this Memorandum
are as follows:
— There are many published, scientifically
robust studies showing that our current scientific understanding
of the carbon cycle and its impact on climate change does not
permit an accurate assessment of the overall long-term carbon
gains and losses form such projects.
— Customers are being led to believe
that their emissions are being immediately neutralised by the
offset projects. In reality, the length of time in which the projects
are taking to supposedly neutralise emissions means that the whole
system of voluntary carbon offsets is based on `future value accounting'
whereby carbon offsets expected to be made in the future are counted
as having been offset in the present.
— Customers are not being presented
with accurate information as to the effectiveness or the efficiency
of the offset projects.
SOME OF
THE STUDIES
SHOWING THE
UNCERTAINTIES REGARDING
THE CARBON
CYCLE AND
TREE-BASED
OFFSETS
4. In January 2006, research published in
Nature magazine revealed that the planet's plant-life was responsible
for far greater methane emissions than had previously been though.
Methane, as one of the most potent greenhouse gases, is a serious
contributor to climate change. This finding upset a lot of the
assumptions that had been made about climate models and undermined
the calculations that were being made by offset companies about
the net climate benefit of trees.[2]
5. In December 2006, a study was published
by Ken Caldeira of the global ecology department at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington in Stanford and Govindasamy Bala, of
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, which
said that most forests do not have any overall effect on global
temperature, while those furthest from the equator could actually
be making global warming worse. The report showed that outside
a thin band around the equator, forests trap more heat than they
help to get rid of by reducing carbon dioxide, thus negating the
supposed climate benefit. The co-author Ken Caldeira commented
that, "To plant forests to mitigate climate change outside
of the tropics is a waste of time."[3]
CARBON OFFSETS
ARE BASED
ON THE
PREMISE OF
"FUTURE VALUE
ACCOUNTING"
6. Carbon offset schemes are selling the
opportunity to be "carbon neutral," that is, the same
amount of carbon that one causes to emit is offset through carbon
reduction or absorption projects such as tree planting, energy
efficiency or renewable energy generation projects. In this way
an individual's carbon emissions are "in balance". In
place of the term "carbon neutral" the terms "climate
neutral" or "zero carbon" are also used. These
terms are used interchangeably in this report.
7. This definition however, ignores one
key question—over what time frame does the amount of carbon
emitted have to be fully offset for our carbon balance to be zero?
Searching through the websites of the different offset companies,
it is difficult to see how they are treating the time issue. They
are clearly making assumptions about how many years the carbon
saved will operate over, and so how much carbon will in the end
be saved, but these assumptions are not published.
8. One leading offset company has offered
three ways to offset your emissions—through energy efficiency
projects, which make up 50% of total carbon savings, renewable
energy projects, which give 20% of carbon savings, and tree planting,
which gives the remaining 30%. This company also presented estimations
of the periods of time over which these processes will "neutralise"
emissions, as illustrated below:
|
| Type of Project | Years to offset emissions
| Basis on which calculated
| % of all offsets |
|
| Energy efficiency | 6 years
| Life of low energy light bulb
| 50% |
| Renewable energy | 12 years
| Life of wind turbine |
20% |
| Tree planting | 100 years
| Life of tree | 30%
|
|
9. With this information it is possible to calculate
how long it takes to offset carbon emissions. For example, if
one flew to New York one way, on New Year's Eve 2005, according
to this company, this will result in the emission of 0.77 tonnes
of carbon dioxide, which can be offset at a cost of £5.77
by the money given to the company being spent on the range of
projects listed above. Over time, the individual's carbon balance,
being the difference between carbon emitted and carbon offset,
will be as shown in figure 1:
Figure 1
10. By 2018, 12 years after the flight was taken, 80%
of the original emissions are offset, predominantly as the result
of six years of energy efficiency savings and 12 years of renewable
energy generation. But because the tree projects are only offsetting
emissions at the rate of 0.3% of original emissions a year, it
actually takes till 2106 before the emissions are completely neutralised.
In this scenario, the claim that an individual can achieve "carbon
neutrality" only holds true if looked at over a period of
100 years.
11. The previous example is based on offsetting a single
journey. However customers of offset companies are being encouraged
to but offsets every time they fly. The claim is that even if
an individual flies every year, so long as that person offsets
their emissions they will remain "climate neutral".
However in practice the more an individual flies and offsets,
the greater is the amount of that individual's carbon dioxide
emissions that have not been offset. For example, if one flies
to New York and back again, every New Year's Eve for the next
30 years, each time paying the £5.77 to an offset company,
using the same basis of calculation, one's carbon balance is as
shown in figure 2:
Figure 2
12. As the individual flies every year, the total emissions
are steadily rising, as shown by the yellow line. As money is
also paid to the offset company every year, the amount of carbon
dioxide offset is also rising, as shown by the dark blue line.
But the offsets are not rising as fast as the emissions as they
occur over a much longer time frame. And so, as the light blue
line shows, the total emissions not offset rise after each flight.
So not only is the individual's position far from "climate
neutral", quite the opposite is true. Each time that person
flies, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases despite
the offsets.
13. The reason why the offset companies can argue for
carbon neutrality is they are using a carbon calculation method
which is best termed "future value accounting". Carbon
savings expected to be made in the future are counted as savings
made in the present. If methods of offsetting which offset carbon
faster, such as low energy light bulbs, are used rather than slower
methods such as tree planting, the time frame to achieve "carbon
neutrality" can be shortened. What rate of offsetting would
be acceptable? Intuitively, few people would accept a rate slower
than one to two years. But achieving this would require offset
methods from three to 50 times more effective.
14. Even if far more effective emission offset mechanisms
were to be developed, the fact that the offsets are only achieved
at a point in time later than when the original emissions were
made means that repeated emissions will lead to an increase in
the overall amount of carbon in the atmosphere even with offsetting.
Offset companies' claims to achieving "zero emissions",
"carbon neutrality" or "climate neutrality"
are then both misleading and false.
OFFSET CUSTOMERS
ARE NOT
BEING INFORMED
AS TO
THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE
OFFSET PROJECTS
15. When the rock-band Coldplay promoted their successful
album, "A Rush of Blood to the Head" in 2002, they bought
the services of the Carbon Neutral Company (CNC) to fund the planting
of 10,000 mango trees by villagers in Karnataka to offset the
emissions brought about in the recording of the album. Fans of
the band were also encouraged to "dedicate" a tree in
the plantation. For £17.50, fans could acquire the carbon
absorbing rights to a specially dedicated sapling in the forest.
16. In April 2006, it was reported in the Sunday Telegraph
that many aspects of the project had been disastrous. Anandi Sharan
Miele, head of the NGO Women for Sustainable Development (WSD),
CNC's project partner in Karnataka, admitted that of the 8,000
saplings she had distributed, 40% had died. In the village of
Lakshmisagara, only one person out of a village of 130 families
received saplings, as the rest did not have the water resources
to support them. This person was able to sustain 50 saplings out
of the 150 she received due to a well she had on the land, but
complained that "I was promised 2,000 rupees (£26) every
year to take care of the plants and a bag of fertiliser. But I
got only the saplings". A number of other people from other
villagers told similarly disgruntled stories; "We were promised
money for maintenance every year but got nothing," and "[Ms.
Mieli] promised us that she'd arrange the water," but the
water tanker visited only twice.[4]
17. Part of the problem with such a project is that while
everyone would like to claim the credit for a success story, no
one is willing to take responsibility for failure. Most offset
companies have legal disclaimers that they are not actually able
to take responsibility for their project partner's inability to
fulfil projects. In this case, while Miele claims that CNC has
a "condescending" attitude and that "they do it
for their interests, not really for reducing emissions. They do
it because it's good money," CNC claims that it funded only
part of the programme and that WSD were contractually obliged
to provide water and ongoing support for the plantations.
18. As of June2006, two months after the report in the
Sunday Telegraph, the CNC was still selling on its website dedicated
mango trees to Coldplay fans and the plantation is still being
presented as another of the company's success stories. There has
been no transparency or accountability to the people who have
paid to see this project realised that things might not have been
going according to plan.
19. The newspaper report indicated that as far back as
2003, the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management (ECCM) who act
as external verifiers for CNC projects had visited Karnataka and
concluded that "WSD had been unable to make the anticipated
progress with the project and had not delivered carbon payments
to farmers".[5] Yet
in that time period of two to three years when the monitoring
body had reported that there were serious problems of this nature,
the CNC had continued to promote and sell the project as a success
story. The existence of supposedly independent verifiers like
the ECCM seems to serve very little purpose if their findings
are not made public and the projects continue irrespective of
them.
January 2007
1
See, for example, submissions to inquiries into the Inquiry into
the International Challenge of Climate Change: UK Leadership in
the G8 and EU. Back
2
Quirin Schiermeier, "Methane finding baffles scientists,"
Nature 439, 128-128 (12 Jan 2006). Back
3
A Jha, "Planting trees to save the planet is pointless,"
The Guardian (15 Dec 2006). Back
4
A Dhillon and T Harnden, "How Coldplay's green hopes died
in the arid soil of India," 30 April 2006, Sunday Telegraph. Back
5
ibid. Back
| 
