Sanctimony, Fraud And Failure

The ugly truth about "carbon offsets" and trading. From The Guardian again. (Whatever has gotten into them? They're failing to toe the leftwing line.)

Ten years after the idea was launched at Kyoto; six years after the guidelines were drawn up at Marrakech; a year and a half after it finally went to work: the CDM thus far has issued only 50m tonnes of certified emissions reductions to offset global warming: Britain produces more emissions than that in a single month.

There are doubts about the validity of some of these CERs, on two separate grounds. First, some of them appear to breach the CDM's requirements for sustainable development - 53% of the existing CERs come from just six monster projects, in India, China and South Korea, all of which engage in the most controversial form of carbon reduction. They manufacture refrigerant which produces as a side effect a gas called HFC-23. Although carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas, HFC-23 is 11,700 times more likely than carbon dioxide to encourage global warming. Refrigerant companies find it relatively cheap to instal an incinerator to burn the HFC-23 and, once that is converted into certified reductions of emission, each tonne saved can be sold as 11,700 carbon credits. These companies are now earning millions of euros from these credits - more than from selling their refrigerant products.

The environmental problem is two-fold, first that HFC factories tend to pour out other pollutants which don't happen to be greenhouse gases but which are unpleasant or dangerous for local communities; and second, that the potential profits from burning HFC-23 are so great that companies are being encouraged to expand production of refrigerants so they can produce more HFC-23 to incinerate, thus increasing the net amount of pollution.

Secondly, as our front-page story today reports, there is evidence that a significant percentage of current and future CDM reductions, possibly as many as 20%, may have been wrongly checked. This effects not just the 50m tonnes of CERs which have been issued already, but a massive quantity which is sitting in the pipeline as a result of hedge funds pouring an estimated €4,000m into high-profit carbon projects.

Within the world of carbon trading, there are numerous cases of projects which are widely regarded as breaking CDM rules. Some of them existed long before the CDM project was launched: if they do happen to be producing fewer greenhouse gases, that is the natural state and not a reduction which can be claimed and sold. Yet, such schemes have been validated by specialist companies and accepted by the CDM board; and the companies running them have been allowed to earn large amounts of money by selling unjustified Certified Emissions Reductions.

Save the earth by polluting the living heck out of it, apparently. True believers in the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming® are very quick to accuse anyone who questions their pronouncements as tools of the oil companies. It's pretty apparent that the true believers are tools of other companies and schemers who are lining their pockets at the earth's expense. (This is pretty much guaranteed if the inept and incredibly corrupt UN is involved.) And who is pushing global warming issues and insisting on more and more stringent controls and projects like the above?

Why that would be the inept and corrupt UN. With assistance from others with their hands in the cookie jar. Like Al "Gorezilla" Gore.

Other Links to this Post

1. The Anchoress » Blog Archive » Scanning the ’sphere: Kelo, Neanderthals & Gullibility Version — Monday, 4 June , 2007 @ 2:21 pm