Things don’t quite add up when it comes to carbon trading and the airline industry. On the face of it, offset solutions provided by businesses such as Climate Care and Carbon Neutral constitute a win-win scenario. For an extra bit of spare change, we can all continue flying with abandon, safe in the knowledge that it will result in a net benefit to the global environment. Yet aviation emissions are the fastest growing contributor to global warming by all accounts and wholesale expansion in air travel is being quietly championed by the same people who profess unreserved, vote-winning commitment to tackling climate change.

There are several inherent flaws in the carbon offset solution. Firstly, despite the instant ‘carbon calculator’ so beloved of the green sector, emissions estimates are often little more than shot-in-the-dark guesstimates. Working out the CO2 emissions of a given flight is hard enough (different schemes often quote different figures for the same flight), but measuring the net carbon reduction of planting trees or replacing coal fires with solar panels is infinitely more complex. A whole host of factors can affect the survival rate of plants for instance (both natural and synthetic), whilst the net effect of energy saving initiatives often depends on whether they are actually implemented in a voluntary and unregulated industry.

In 2007 the Financial Times commissioned an investigation into carbon trading and found “widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions”. The explosion of the emissions trading sector in recent years has resulted in a ‘green rush’ as businesses scramble to cash in on the profits whilst consumers remain relatively blind to the actual value of their ‘credits’.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that most carbon credits are purchased in the West whilst offset solutions generally reside in the developing South. This makes it harder for consumers and watchdogs to monitor their progress or even verify their existence. Whilst there is an argument to say that environmental and social justice projects are more urgently needed in such places, there can be little doubt that the relatively low cost of implementation is an added incentive for carbon trade businesses.

But it gets worse. Not only is it unclear as to whether carbon trading affords any environmental benefit in practice, there is evidence to suggest that it often results in a cost for local environments and communities. Expanded biofuel plantations are threatening the world’s remaining natural forests and the livelihoods of indigenous peoples in countries such as Indonesia. They are also sourced from crops, displacing production of staple foods with a resultant hike in world food prices. Once again, it is the Developing World that will bare the brunt of this. According to Sri Widihiyanti, an indigenous activist and part of the Wahli tribe in Indonesia,

The Carbon Trading mechanism only will harm indigenous peoples because their land tenure rights will be looted. New conflicts with the government will evolve, and on the other side, the trade will create a new field for corruption.

In the stampede to help in the fight against climate change (or be seen to), a harsh reality often gets lost: climate change is ultimately the consequence of our dependency on fossil fuels – something that carbon trading at best does nothing to reduce. At worst, it increases our dependency by encouraging us to fly and consume energy with less attention to the environmental costs. In turn, the consequences of that dependency extend beyond climate change and into the realms of social and economic justice. Whilst 85% of human carbon emissions are caused by the developed world, it is the developing South that will carry the burden of climate change costs, just as they do for the costs associated with offset solutions. Such countries are relatively more vulnerable to new and dramatic weather patterns both in their geographic localities and capacity to deal with them.

There can be little doubt that some carbon offset schemes do benefit the environment in some way, locally or globally. But the question is at what price and in what time frame? It’s self-evident that energy saving projects will take time to realise their effects whilst the scientific and political consensus on climate change is that drastic action needs to be taken now. To avoid the sticky contradiction at the heart of its environmental policy, the UK government – self championed under Tony Blair and subsequently Gordon Brown as the global arbiter in setting the green policy agenda - does not include aviation emissions in its 60% carbon reduction target for 2050.

In the world of officialdom, carbon emissions from planes don’t seem to carry much weight. In reality however, additional emissions such as water vapour ensure that each tonne of CO2 emitted by aircraft has an enhanced effect on climate change compared with land-based transport. And Virgin Atlantic’s trial flight partly powered by biofuel last month turned out to be a load of hot air as green campaigners across the board condemned it as a vacuous PR stunt. The net carbon effect of replacing kerosene with biofuel is negligible: according to the World Development Movement, even if all flights were powered by biofuel, the reduction in aviation’s contribution to climate change would be cancelled out by one year’s growth in flights at the current rate. It’s a sad irony that just as the ‘public consultation’ on plans to develop a third runway at Heathrow draw to a close – by far the greatest hindrance to achieving any meaningful carbon reduction targets – the UK government and media only seem to want to talk about shopping bags.

The upshot is we can’t have it both ways. To act now against climate change in any tangible sense involves flying less – in addition to consuming less and renewing more. The tourism industry in particular has everything to lose from long term climate change and must face up to the reality that unchecked aviation growth is incompatible with a genuine commitment to help tackle the problem, regardless of offsets.

Sources:

www.monbiot.com
www.newint.org
www.carbontradewatch.org
www.turnuptheheat.org
www.ft.com
www.independent.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk
www.mdm.org.uk