Green Options

While investing in clean energy projects in developing countries, the developed nations must not ignore their responsibility to reduce domestic carbon emissions.

EU wants to include a $200 billion climate tax on developed nations in the next climate treaty but is it the right step forward given the global economic conditions. It’s time to include countries like India and China in a long-term climate solution and ask them to shoulder greater responsibilities in the fight against Climate Change.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced earlier this week that five additional US governors will co-host the upcoming Governor’s Climate Summit at UCLA. The summit brings together leaders from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia, Mexico, and the European Union, and attendees from 36 states and Washington, D.C.

To be held November 18 – 19, people are encouraged to join in via webcast. The event will consist of high-level negotiations to lay the groundwork for the next global agreement on climate change. The United Nations will begin negotiating this agreement in earnest in December at a meeting in Poland.

“This international summit will bring together world leaders to develop creative, collaborative actions to advance the global climate agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will be negotiated in Poland in December and in Copenhagen next year,” the governor said.

Gazing into the future of a carbon market, two things seem certain: a fundamental change to the economy and sweeping land reforms.

There are two well known and highly charged sayings about land:

—–agriculture is the foundation of economic growth
—–all land use is inherently political

The fast approaching world of a carbon market could see how we use land becoming the most important issue in stopping climate change becoming a disaster for mankind.

On Friday, the European Council adopted a directive that demands aviation activities must be included in the EU’s Emission Trading System (ETS). The ETS started operations back in 2005 in an effort to curb Global Warming, and is the largest multi-country Greenhouse Gas emission trading system world-wide.

Carbon offsetting has been around for a while now, giving you the opportunity to reduce your “carbon footprint” by trading cash for your personal carbon output. In most cases, this quid pro quo occurs through a donation to an organization that plants trees of some sort in some place where, hopefully (but not always), they are both needed and helpful to the original habitat. In theory, these trees then sequester carbon dioxide in the air–a major cause of global warming, acid rain, and other current environmental problems.

Let me say upfront that so far I have been skeptical of carbon offsetting. However good the underlying intentions, this sort of tradeoff can be used as an excuse to keep on stomping around on the Earth and avoid making real changes in our lifestyles. If we pay for the things we step on, then that absolves us from guilt or responsibility, right? If we can buy our way out of guilt, then we can buy our way out of changing ourselves, right?

Also problematic is the fact that many offsetting programs may or may not be reliable; it is often hard to tell how trustworthy one organization is or how true its claims are about its use of funds. Even if the organization does use offsetting donations to plant trees or do something similar, how can we be sure that the measures employed are indeed helpful overall (e.g., the right types of trees are planted, needy/imperiled habitats are targeted, sustainable methods are used, etc.)?

In light of this skepticism, I am surprisingly excited now that The Nature Conservancy has launched its own Voluntary Carbon Offset Program. I find this to be a really noteworthy venture for TNC, since it is a global leader in habitat and species preservation, research, advocacy, and general stewardship–or, as its new motto puts it, “Protecting Nature. Preserving Life.”

The Conservancy’s Program is actually going to involve a collection of individual projects focused on restoring and preserving specific areas using the funds contributed through voluntary carbon offsets. The first is the Tensas River Basin Project, which seeks to restore and preserve a key tract of land in Louisiana encompassing forests once populated by ivory-billed woodpeckers (hopefully there are still a few of these flying around!), Florida panthers, and Red Wolves.

Meet Beatrice Ahimbisibwe. She’s a widowed single mother and a school-teacher in Uganda. Plus she creates 5.7 tons worth of carbon offsetting credits annually for TetraPak UK, a company intent on reducing its carbon footprint.

Ahimbisibwe owns a little plot of land on which she grows some of the trees involved in TetraPak’s contract to produce fresh air for all the pollution caused by its production processes. A case study of the carbon sequestration project on EcoSystemMarketplace.com reveals interesting insights into the practices of an emissions offsetting program.