12 март 2007 г. - Al Gore’s Carbon Solution Won’t Stop Climate Change (Carbon Offets) ILSR 2007, Mar 12

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At the Oscars, former Vice President Al Gore and megastar actor Leonardo DiCaprio informed a billion viewers that this was the first”green Oscar,” at least with respect to global warming. The hosts had purchased sufficient greenhouse gas offsets to allow them to free the event of any responsibility for increasing greenhouse gases.

Two days later, Al Gore and emission offsets were again in the news when reports circulated that his Nashville house consumed 20 times more energy than a typical house. His spokesman responded: The Gore family had purchased green electricity and carbon offsets in sufficient quantities to render the house’s net contribution to global warming as zero.

Over the succeeding weeks, a flurry of articles appeared about the growing use of carbon offsets. According to USA Today, the market for voluntary offsets in 2006 was almost 20 times greater than it was in 2004. Dwarfing this market is the market for what might be called involuntary offsets — that is offsets purchased as part of the mandatory emissions reductions program agreed to by the 38 industrial nation signatories of the Kyoto Protocol. Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and a major player in the global climate change game, estimates the value of carbon credits currently in circulation as $28 billion and predicts it will climb to$40 billion by 2010.

The shortcomings of current carbon trading systems are clear. As a piece in Newsweek concluded, “So far, the real winners in emissions trading have been polluting factory owners who can sell menial cuts for massive profits and the brokers who pocket fees each time a company buys or sells the right to pollute.”

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