Articles by Gar Lipow

A new report

"The Carbon Neutral Myth: Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins" (long PDF), a report from Carbon Trade Watch by Kevin Smith, is a new critique of the idea of carbon neutrality.

The press release says:

Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon-conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate-change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice as offset projects are inflicted on them.

The report also deals in more depth with an issue Grist has covered in passing -- the energy-saving CFL bulbs Climate Care paid for in the South African urban township of Guguletu.

Now and later

Peter Madden asks, "What should greens do about air travel?" The problem is twofold. Planes are responsible for about 3 percent of carbon emissions. But thanks to NO2 emissions from planes, and the fact that water vapor emitted at or near stratospheric levels (where planes fly) acts as forcing and not just as feedback (as at ground level), the actual effect on climate is about triple that from CO2 -- about 9 percent and rising.

Yes, yes, part of solution to all these problems is to tax environmental effects, and to stop massive subsidies of environmentally destructive things (like airports). But what technical means exist to respond to such signals? Is the world going to have become a bigger place again, with less travel?

Rebutting some common criticisms of the carbon tax

Charles Komanoff's excellent work on carbon taxes vs. emission trading tends to attract certain frequent objections. This is an attempt to answer some of them:

Cap and trade is the way we do things now. Politically, we can never win a carbon tax.

Answer: Cap and trade has political heft mainly because it was instituted at a low level over a long period of time -- thus it did not require very high emission reductions. Further, because the emission cap was confined to a few nations, but emission credits can be bought from nations without such caps, the emission reduction as a percent of total emissions in countries taking part in the Kyoto negotiations is even lower than the nominal target.

In addition, emission reductions are measured against a 1990 baseline, which has been increased by 3% due to various revisions (subscription). And while there is room for argument over just how many, there is no question that a fair percentage of Kyoto credits are fraudulent -- excessive credits were granted to EU utilities, and many of the CDM credits sold in China are bogus.

Put a tight enough cap on the number of credits, with stricter controls to prevent fraud, and you will find political resistance is as great as resistance to a carbon tax.

Emissions trading: A mixed record, with plenty of failures

In arguments over carbon trading, both sides often assume that past emission trading schemes have been notably successful. But in practice, trading schemes have lowered emissions more slowly than rule-based methods, and have discouraged rather than encouraged innovation. Even in the area where emissions trading shows some success — lowering gross compliance costs to industry […]