Hello list members:
I posted the following on the newgreencanada list serve a couple of days
ago. Perhaps it may be of interest to some on the enviroethics list.
Kyoto is much in the news. As most on this list know, the federal Green
Party in the last election was advocating in its Platform to "Legislate a
'National Emissions Trading System' that will cap, trade and reduce CO2 and
other emissions." Below is the section from my book review of George
Monbiot's book, _Manifesto For A New World Order_, which deals with
emissions trading which this author, like the Green Party, supports. The
full review is on our web site.
Best, David
*********
What is the problem with Carbon Emissions Trading?
Emissions trading is put forward by its proponents as a serious attempt
to put some curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Governments, by accepting
this concept, have given themselves the right, within a "market" framework,
i.e. buying and trading for a price, to pollute in order to come into
compliance with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework on Climate
Change. (Those countries which have signed onto the Protocol, which is now
in effect, if they are "industrialized" must reduce their output of
greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. For "developing
countries" like China -- which is second behind the US, the top emissions
producer in the world -- and India, the commitment is voluntary to develop
ways in which the growth of emissions can be limited.) The accord states
that "emission permits" are granted to utilities and companies that are
pouring out polluting greenhouse gases. Each country has been allocated a
fixed number of credits. The permits are then subject to trading in an open
market. It means that plants which fall below the output ceiling of their
polluting greenhouse gases can sell their "credits" to plants which have
exceeded their emission permits. The market for these emission permits is
potentially world-wide. For example, industrialized countries which
proportionately have released far more carbon into the atmosphere than
so-called Third World countries, can now further oppress such countries by
utilizing them for carbon credits by such schemes as creating "carbon-sink"
forest plantations. This is basic social injustice, whereby the powerful
industrialized nations can continue, in the short term, their Earth-eating
high consumption lifestyles. Is not this also an example of the acceptance
of a "market fundamentalism" which Monbiot rightly rails against?
We need to see the atmosphere as part of the global commons. Emissions
trading is just a continuation of the ongoing enclosure movement, the
attempt to assert "private property rights" over the commons by the rich
and the powerful. We also know that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change has said that greenhouse gases must be cut by 60-80%, so the
Kyoto Protocol is tokenism and essentially a scam in terms of what really
needs to be done. There is no NEW path forward here out of the ecological
crisis.
Canada no longer has an independent energy policy but, through NAFTA,
is integrated into the US (which has not signed the Kyoto Protocol) energy
market. Currently about 60 percent of Canada's oil and gas is contracted
through this treaty to the States. We in Canada cannot reduce the amount of
energy we send to the States, without also reducing our own consumption.
Under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada has agreed to reduce its
greenhouse gases by 2012 to 6 percent below 1990 levels. According to
newspaper reports (_Globe and Mail_, March 26, 2005), Canada has agreed, as
part of signing onto Kyoto, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 270
million tonnes a year by 2012. Each country is free to meet their assigned
targets anyway they think is necessary. It is clear that Canada, under this
protocol, could vastly increase the actual greenhouse gas emissions being
discharged into the atmosphere. This is the actual situation, as emissions
are far above the threshold of 1990: some reports say approximately 20
percent above 1990 levels. By the purchase of carbon credits, which are for
sale in other countries, Canada can still theoretically come into
compliance with what it has agreed to, under the terms of the Kyoto
Protocol. The federal government in Canada has fixed a Ca$15.0-a-tonne cap
on the payment by business for the purchase of carbon credits. We have also
seen in Canada, within an acceptance of the carbon emissions trading
scheme, that there is a basic unwillingness to take the necessary real
steps to meet the 6 percent reduction. Instead, we have government
ministers and industry spokespersons promoting increasing fossil fuel
extraction, e.g. Alberta Tar Sands, East Coast and Northern oil and natural
gas extraction, plus a number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, all
with 'normal' state subsidies of one kind or another. At the same time
these spokespersons are asking for bookkeeping credits, so as not to have
to meet the 6 percent reduction in carbon emissions -- by counting in
forest "carbon sinks," credits for selling "clean" nuclear CANDU reactors,
or credits for so-called clean renewable energy from hydro plants, biomass
and windmills. Carbon emissions trading is a harmful diversion which stops
the needed societal mobilization and cannot be supported by those who have
an ecocentric consciousness. It is fraudulent as a means to basically
change global warming. It is the fossil-fuel based, human-centered
industrial capitalist society itself, which global warming should be
calling into question. This is the message which global warming, which is
well underway, conveys. Yet Monbiot's support for carbon emissions trading
covers all this over.
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