http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2009/09/china-emissions-carbon-levels
“The poor are burdened twice”
Vandana Shiva Published 17 September 2009
Vandana Shiva on the injustice of offsetting
The science of climate change is now clear, but the politics is very
muddy. Historically, the major polluters were the rich, industrialised
countries, so it made sense that they should pay the highest price. The
Kyoto Protocol, adopted in December 1997, set binding targets for these
countries to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 per cent on
average against 1990 levels by 2012. But by 2007, America's
greenhouse-gas levels were 16 per cent higher than 1990 levels. The
American Clean Energy and Security Act, which was passed in June,
commits the US to reduce emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by
2020, yet this is just 4 per cent below 1990 levels.
The Kyoto Protocol also allows industrialised countries to trade their
allocation of carbon emissions, and to invest in carbon mitigation
projects in developing countries in exchange for Certified Emission
Reduction Units, which they can use to meet reduction targets. But
emissions trading, or offsetting, is not in fact a mechanism to reduce
emissions. As the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank,
has pointed out, the emissions offset in the American act would allow
"business as usual" growth in US emissions until 2030, "leading one to
wonder: where
's the 'cap' in 'cap and trade'?".
Such schemes are more about privatising the atmosphere than about
preventing climate change; the emissions rights established by the
Kyoto Protocol are several times higher than the levels needed to
prevent a 2°C rise in global temperatures. Allocations for the UK, for
example, added up to 736 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over three
years, meaning no reduction commitments. And emissions rights generate
super profits for polluters.
The Emissions Trading Scheme granted allowances of 10 per cent more
than 2005 emission levels. This translated to 150 million tonnes of
surplus carbon credits, which at 2005 prices translates into profits of
more than $1bn.
Carbon trading uses the resources of poorer people and poorer regions
as "offsets" for richer countries: it is between 50 and 200 times
cheaper to plant trees in poor countries to absorb CO2 than it is to
reduce emissions at source. In other words, the burden of "clean-up"
falls on the poor. From a market perspective, this might appear
efficient, but in terms of energy justice, it is perverse to burden the
poor twice - first with the impact of CO2 pollution in the form of
climate disasters and then with offsetting the pollution of the rich.
In a globalised economy, addressing pollution by setting emissions
levels for each country is inappropriate for two reasons. First, not
all the citizens of a country contribute to pollution
. As a result of
China becomin
g the world's factory, its CO2 emissions outstrip those of the US,
putting it in first place worldwide. In 2006, China produced 6.1
billion tonnes of CO2; the US produced 5.75 billion tonnes. But in the
US, emissions were 19 tonnes of CO2 per capita, compared with 4.6
tonnes in China. And much of China's CO2 could be counted as US
emissions, because China is producing goods for US companies that
America will consume. Wal-Mart, for example, procures most of what it
sells from China.
Similarly, while only 2.13 per cent of the world's emissions emanate
from the UK's domestic economy, CO2 is created on the UK's behalf in
China, India, Africa and elsewhere. The global carbon footprint of UK
companies is not known, but estimates suggest that emissions associated
with worldwide consumption of the top 100 UK products accounts for
between 12 and 15 per cent of the world total.
Thanks to industrialisation, the rural poor in China and India are
losing out on their land and livelihood. To count them as polluters is
doubly criminal. When global firms outsource to China or India, they
need to be responsible for the pollution they carry overseas.
Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns.
Governments and the UN should impose a carbon tax on corporations, both
for production - wherever their facilities are located - and for
transport, which the Kyoto Protocol does no
t account for directly.
Incentives for renewable
energy are also essential. We face a stark choice: we can destroy the
conditions for human life on the planet by clinging to "free-market"
fundamentalism, or we can secure our future by bringing commerce within
the laws of ecological sustainability and social justice.
Vandana Shiva is a leading environmental activist
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