Some people of my course enjoyed an urban weekend holiday in Eastern Europe during term time. This created some benevolent debate, not only wondering how they managed to spare the time, but also concerning the possible contradiction with the fact that we are studying environmental policy after all. After term is over such considerations promptly disappeared. “When are you leaving?” became the standard small-talk opener, and even those who did not want to pay to get to the other hemisphere made use of the cheap tickets to the mainland.
Naturally I too am boarding a plane before christmas. If this is brought up in conversation I typically refer to my mother as an excuse. I might have considered not going, but she wouldn’t have it any other way, you see?
For the first time, I am going to offset my flight. I am not a particularly big friend of the notion, but given that I am currently writing a paper on the phenomenon, I thought I would give it a try.
Offsetting is mostly criticized with reference to the implemented projects and their sometimes dubious gains. Even assuming perfect mitigation, I find the whole concept curious. When did the whole idea of charitable giving morph into the form of canceling out the externalities caused by one’s actions? If it is ultimately the global commons that I altruistically care about, and not particularly how much I myself happen to destroy them, then why should I not just give based on my ability and willingness to pay? I am inclined to think that this offsetting business is a clever marketing strategy to counter the fact that people tend to give the minimum amount possible to charities.
What kind of offsets would then give the best effect for the money? Firstly, I think it is a good idea to forget the Kyoto compliance market for the moment. Even though the real Kyoto cap will kick in just two weeks from now, I fear there might still be issues with over-allocation and hot air that make the credits quite abundant. Note to home: even though I did link to a scheme that was packaging ETS credits as christmas presents, I didn’t mean to say that you should buy them to me. Although I have had worse gifts..
That leaves a plethora of offsetting projects in the south. Carbon sequestration, for example in the form of planting trees, is generally not a good idea in terms of keeping the gases away. The sequestration will be complete only in some decades, whereas my plane will be done with the puffing tomorrow afternoon. There is also a huge time inconsistency problem, since I can never be sure that there won’t be a point in time when some local inhabitant will have the need to just axe down all of my precious carbon storage.
So I want to prevent some emissions from happening in the first place. This is usually accomplished through investing to either renewable energy or energy efficiency. Since the pecuniary effects of the latter are on shaky grounds, I will go with efficiency. Based on a report by the SEI, I chose the cheapest project with a good rating and the Gold Standard. The 0.69 tonnes that, according to their calculator, I’m responsible for based on my flight from London to Helsinki and back are forgiven just for about 20 euros. Carbon is cheap.
At least I can now spare this load from my mother’s conscience. Farewell Oxford, I look forward to Helsinki and not having to wear mittens in libraries!
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Opiskelijaelämän ongelma on tässä: kaikelle toiminnalle on vaihtoehtokustannus. Voisin lukea yhden artikkelin ennen kuin lähden. Voisin olla kirjastossa juuri nyt. Ensimmäinen lukukausi on ohi, mutta loma alkaa vain muodollisesti.
» No comments.Imagine that Joe from London decides to switch his electricity contract from coal power to wind power. Now it is no longer the dirty fossils that heat up his tea, by paying a small premium he can make sure that his electricity comes from a form of production that is relatively low on carbon. Joe is quite a respectable chap, isn’t he?
Well, perhaps, but not in the way you would imagine. Joe’s switch of contract has zero impact on the amount of carbon that goes into the atmosphere. In fact switching the lights off and sitting in the dark wouldn’t make a difference either. The reason is the Kyoto Protocol that regulates the energy industry in Europe. The coal power plant, with its decreased production, will be left with extra emission permits in its hands. Some other firm will be happy to buy them off and pollute on their behalf. Inside a cap-and-trade system every decrease in pollution will be matched with an increase elsewhere. Hence any choice for greener products will have no effect on the total amount of emissions.
That is not to say that the choices don’t have any significance. The production of Joe’s windmill has a number externalities apart from greenhouse gases. Just through buying wind energy, Joe is indirectly also promoting the technology. The demand for cleaner energy brings about a gradual rise in its productivity. But there is also a contradicting aspect: the shift of demand away from carbon also hits the prices of the emission permits. This weakens the incentives for abatement and thereby technological progress in other sectors. The net effect of going green is very difficult to assess.
We see that emission trading schemes have a curious interaction with the environmental consequences of production. This interaction is not widely recognised or understood. You can see this in the marketing of green energy companies, where the idea of emission reductions is ubiquitous. Firms and individuals go on about carbon neutrality and reducing their impact. But the whole notion of ecological footprints, perhaps even of responsibility for emissions, breaks down when the cap is in place. This is because decisions of consumption or production change only the price of carbon. It is the cap alone that determines the amount of pollution.
There is one single way to reduce emissions: buy the permits and don’t use them. This can actually be interpreted as a Coase-style negotiation on reducing the amount of pollution to the optimal level. Needless to say, such activity is quite alien to the common understanding of being environmentally aware, which is all about reducing the direct ecological impact of one’s own actions. The Kyoto-world requires a different subjectivity.
Of course buying offsets has become a popular pastime for a number of firms, strangely even states. Their misunderstanding is revealed through the fact that they call themselves carbon neutral. This is in fact unnecessary modesty. Inside the cap everyone is carbon neutral, in the sense that emissions are independent of their activities. By buying credits and planting trees in Africa the firm actually decreases total pollution: it is carbon negative. Would that be a notion too complicated for marketing?
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