Friday, April 27, 2007

Carbon offset swindle

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. (...)

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am a tree farmer in east Texas. If I had planted trees in on open land as early as 1990, I could get a contract to sell carbon offset credits.

When new pine trees are planted, the first cutting or thinning is 12 to 15 years off.

So lets say for example, I planted these new trees in 1995, they would not be ready for there first thinning until 2010. I could now get nearly $200 per acre for carbon credits each year until 2010 and get paid for the past three years as well. The present carbon offset credit contracts expired in 2010. So I would then be able to thin my trees, humm, just in time.

These carbon offsets are a hoax. People plant trees either because they like them, or because they want to raise them commercially. Either way, to keep them healthy they would have to be thinned.

These carbon offsets from trees are new. I would not have know this in 1990, 1995 or 2000. The amount of money you can get for the carbon offsets are based on the number and size of the trees.

And if I now planted new trees for carbon offset credits, the trees would be so small, that I would essentially get little to nothing for them between now and 2010.

Gary Tinsley