Climate change: is emissions trading the answer?

The Greens' position on climate change is that we need to   reduce carbon emissions through the expansion of renewable energy production.   But tackling climate change doesn’t simply mean ‘business as usual’, as both   Labour and the Lib Dems think. The Greens argue   that we would actually need to reduce energy-use (in the home as well as in   business) and find more equitable means to distribute the limited resources   that the earth provides. They also reject the myth that nuclear power   can be a clean energy source, arguing instead that a 40% increase in renewable energy by 2020 should be achieved by a mix of solar, wind and wave power.

So far, so unobjectionable. But the Greens are less impressive when it comes to addressing the Kyoto   model of emissions trading: ‘We have an opportunity to lead Europe,   not only in energy generation, but also in carbon emissions trading.’ This is   not necessarily as progressive as it might sound, since there is significant   research – conducted by Carbon   Trade Watch, amongst others - which shows that the  ‘emissions trading’ system has the potential   to exacerbate environmental and social injustice, creating incentives   for the expansion of monoculture plantations in the global South rather than   restraining consumption in the North. A more consistent commitment to   economic localisation might take account of the perverse incentives that the   commodification of pollution creates.

This is taken from a lengthy analysis of the Green manifesto (in case you were wondering what happened to this blog, I was writing that and updating the Red Pepper website).  OR

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Comments

[Timothy]

I don't know the detail of the Green's proposals, but if it were based on a per capita quota system [contraction and convergence?] then I would have thought it would lead to a transfer of financial resources from poor countries [who wouldn't be using their quota] to rich countries [who use far too much]. Perhaps this would be the equitable system the Greens were thinking of?

As to emissions trading in general there are many problems with it, particularly in what 'activities' can be counted to offset emissions [eg Tree planting]. Some research a few years ago at the Hadley Centre found that the albedo change from planting trees actually helped to counteract the CO2 that they absorbed which means that the world would warm more if trees were used to offset CO2 emissions than if the CO2 were simply not emitted.