Michael Seifu explains carbon trading and shares his opinion on why he doesn’t think it will work.

Imagine your neighbour offering you money to dump your waste on their own backyard. Sounds hard to believe? Welcome to the world of international carbon trading!

Carbon trading  is about the sale and purchase of the right to emit carbon between companies and countries. The idea is that rich countries use more than their fair share of carbon, while poor countries use less. Carbon trading allows mostly rich countries buy rights to pollute the environment from poor countries.

What’s the problem?

Powerful nations and groups including the EU, Japan, Canada and the United States are the main proponents of the carbon trading system. They claim that it helps to control emission levels of greenhouse gases and raise money that could in turn be channelled towards environmentally friendly energy production projects. However, these only serve to sugar-coat the negative economical and ethical sides of international carbon trading.

“All carbon trading does is free rich country governments and large corporations from the moral guilt of damaging the environment”

Rich countries’ governments are increasingly lobbied by high carbon emitting private businesses not to legislate against carbon use so as to achieve their profit objectives.

Companies’ threats to relocate to other jurisdictions coupled with the possibility of the loss of local jobs forces rich governments to ‘import’ pollution rights from poorer parts of
the world.

The higher the amount a poor country claims its carbon need to be, the larger the revenue it could get by selling those emission rights. This could potentially incentivise governments in developing countries to artificially inflate their carbon needs. This moral hazard could cause the international carbon trading arrangement to lead to more, not less, emissions globally.

Is it ethical?

Economics aside, international carbon trading is devoid of the ethical values that inform global environmental and social justice. The very idea that carbon emission is a marketable right is tantamount to dismissing other valid reasons to protect the environment including issues of intergenerational equity and aesthetic values of the natural environment.

All international carbon trading does is free rich country governments and large corporations from the moral guilt of damaging the environment. It also further emphasises the lack of parity between the richer and poorer parts of the world. People in developing countries who truly care about reducing carbon emissions now find it difficult to do anything about it because carbon emission has become an exportable commodity.

What makes this arrangement even more morally abhorrent is that the buyers of these emission rights (i.e. economically advanced countries) were historically responsible for most of the damage to the environment.

What can we do?

There are a number of things we as global citizens can do to halt and reverse the growing phenomenon of international carbon trading. The Paris Climate Conference (COP21) deferred the establishment of any international system until 2020.

This has not prevented international carbon trading from gaining momentum across many jurisdictions; already sixty-five governments have pledged to use the system. However there is still time to stop carbon trading by mobilising groups and joining existing ones.

Championing the cause of cleaner and renewable forms of energy such as wind power, solar energy and bio energy would help to mitigate the demand for greenhouse gases. What is needed is not a transfer of emission rights from one group of people to another but a concerted effort towards eradicating reliance on carbon emitting energy sources in all parts of the world.

Make you voice heard for a better environment by joining the environmental movement or by getting in touch with Denis Naughten, Minister for Communications, Climate Change & Natural Resources, to let him know your priorities for the environment.

Author: Michael Seifu

Michael is a political economist by training with a PhD in Politics from DCU. He worked as a research assistant at DCU and has also been engaged in several projects aimed at promoting social justice. Michael is also an ardent advocate of the rights of persons with disabilities both in his country of origin, Ethiopia, and Ireland. Currently, he serves as a country peer reviewer for a prominent research and consultancy institute. Michael has published several papers on social and economic issues of African countries.

Photo credit: Great Nature Sale Spoof – campaigners protest about proposals to put a price on nature, Colin Hattersley, Global Justice Now, Creative Commons License.

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