Can I really offset my lifestyle?

Ah carbon offsets! Can you imagine life before them?

I find it particularly fascinating how a brand new term and concept has so easily slipped into the present reality of so many people. A year ago, even less for some people, very few people knew or understood what offsetting was or that they even had a carbon footprint. But within that time suddenly everyone wants to offset their entire life — travels, car, shopping, eating, farting… (yes you could theoretically offset your farts, they are methane after all).

So what is offsetting? How does it work? Who benefits? How do people make money from it? Is offsetting the same as trading?

The best article I’ve found in a while on the subject comes, unsurprisingly, from the Economist. The article explains how credit emissions are created and how they are priced and where they are traded. It also covers the sources of emissions and how they are being brought into the larger carbon offset market.

The author also provides a very good definition for what  the trade in carbon credit is about:

“The trade is not actually in carbon, but in not-carbon: in certificates establishing that so many tonnes of carbon dioxide (or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases) have not been emitted by the seller and may therefore be emitted by the buyer.”

There you go. This means that when you decide to offset your traveling you are in essence paying someone not to pollute for you. Its a nifty idea but does it actually happen?

This article dates back to March, but I think its a good snapshot of how carbon offsets work for the regular consumer.

[Treehugger.com is a good site for all sorts of up to date and relevant information and news on living a more sustainable life.]

I guess the question I’m left with, beyond the ones offered up in the Economist article on the workings of future carbon markets, is whether its really possible to just offset your life and keep living as we have for the past 150 years? I.e. could you just buy lots of relatively cheap — they are really affordable — and drive your fast car, fly to bermuda and not recyle?

The answer to that is probably no. Its not a zero sum game, its more like Commener’s closed circle. This offsetting business is offering us a nifty way to clean up our atmosphere, but for it to be really effective we do have to change our lifestyles. I’m not advocating for a radical change or that offsets aren’t a good idea. But a lot of the money that is getting poured into offsetting could maybe be better placed in developing new technologies that immediately reduce our carbon footprint.

This brings me to the current debacle in the Congress on upping CAFE standards.  Its been an interesting debate to observe, mostly because of the American car industry’s switch last week from full on misinformation campaign directed to keeping standards at the level they are now to a sort of half-hearted compromise.

The way the bill stands now by 2020 US car CAFE standards would increase to 35 mpg (currently at 25 mpg) with a 4% increase in mpg every year. The American auto industry (I specify American on purpose, Japanese and EU car makers are are already building cars with that level of mpg, it seems only Detroit lacks the techy know-how to catch up) changed its tack from all out opposition to support for an admendement to the bill. They are agreeing to the hike in CAFE standards but don’t want the 4% annual increase.

That kind of politics and lobbying makes me sick to my stomach. Some of the ads the car companies screened were full on misleading and pandered to American’s sense of fear. My personal favourite was one that went along the lines of “I want a safe car, not one with higher mileage” implying that you sacrifice safety for better mpg efficiency. I can read or hear that and think how misleading that is, but there are consumers out there who don’t see through the mixed messages and truly walk away thinking an SUV must guzzle to keep me safe.  Argh!!!

So back to what set me off down this road. Offsets are good, the markets are struggling but I think will work, however they are not a replacement for innovative technology and atmosphere-friendly choices.

Carbon diet

Last last year Blair’s Labour government put Climate Change on a policy pedestal. Basically he made it a central part of his governments agenda in the (hopefully) last year of his premiership.

Having lived in England I can safely say the brits, if you measured just by behaviour, are the least environmentally conscious people in northern Europe (the French are probably a close second). However, you wouldn’t be able to tell from their newspapers.

This week the piece that caught my eye was the Times of London ‘Carbon Diet’. Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis are giving readers the tips on how calculate their CO2 impact and how to cut back on it.

Norway’s Carbon Free Future

Norway’s governing Labour Party announced today that they plan to make Norway essentially a zero CO2 emitting country by 2050.

Norway has always been at the forefront in dealing with climate change. Remember that Gro Hartlem Bruntland, ex-PM, was the author of the seminal UN report Our Common Future [The Bruntland Report]. The report gave us the most commonly employed definition of sustainable development: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Back to the present –

Norway plans on achieving this goal by first exceeding their reduction commitments for 2012 made for Kyoto by 10% points, followed by 30% cut in emissions by 2020.

The Prime Minister said that by 2050 they want Norway to be totally a net zero carbon emitter by 2050. How?

The first steps suggested are through energy efficiency improvements in transportation and household. It turns out that their most emitting sector, ironically, is in the sourcing and transportation of their natural gas reserves. He suggests a plan composed of developing more efficient technology with a focus on carbon sequestration. I have my doubts on the effectiveness of this technology, or the cost to benefit ratio, but I’ll get into that on another post.

However they achieve their goal, this bodes well for future international negotiations on climate change. If the US sees a country like Norway manage its CO2 emissions effectively without imperiling its economy, then maybe they’ll realize that its not a zero-sum game and start acting.