[Cc-webedit] [Fwd: Re: [networking] G20 Flyer Feedback + websites]

[website at climatecamp.org.uk]

Hi James,
         I've put this up as a page linked to the main G20 page.
In peace Neil


>
>
> i think we should add the text of the carbon trading factsheet to
> http://climatecamp.org.uk/g20-why or perhaps somewhere else on the site?
>
>
>
>
>
> What is carbon trading?
> Don't leave it to the market - leave it in the ground!
>
> Carbon trading is the main way in which wealthy industrialized countries
> and companies are avoiding their emissions reduction targets – by
> trading carbon credits amongst themselves, either between countries (as
> happens under the Kyoto Protocol) or between companies (as happens under
> the EU Emissions Trading Scheme). Essentially, it’s the way that
> industry can continue as usual, while encouraging the poor and
> disadvantaged to sell their rights to pollute.
>
> This fact sheet is primarily for climate activists and independent
> journalists. We hope will also provide the basis for discussions,
> sloganeering & media work.
>
> Carbon trading is aimed at the wrong goal
> Carbon trading is aimed at the wrong target. It doesn’t address climate
> change. Solving climate change means figuring out how to keep remaining
> fossil fuels in the ground. It means reorganizing industrial societies’
> energy, transport and housing systems – starting today – so that they
> don’t rely on coal, oil and gas. Carbon trading isn’t directed at that
> goal. Instead, it’s organized around keeping the wheels on the fossil
> fuel industry as long as possible and making it seem politically
> excusable to go ahead with new carbon-intensive infrastructure, like the
> 3rd runway at Heathrow and the proposed new coal-fired power plants,
> like the one at Kingsnorth. Carbon trading allocates industries a
> generous short-term numerical emissions budget and then tries – through
> trading – to make it cheap and easy for them to continue business as
> usual within those budgets, by buying credits from less economically
> developed countries and companies. We need climate action, not business
> schemes.
>
> So far, carbon trading has been one disaster after another
> Even if you were to accept that it might be a good idea, carbon trading
> has been a massive failure so far and doesn’t show any signs of
> improving. The price of carbon has always been so low that it’s always
> cheaper for companies to buy permits than to start paying for more
> expensive infrastructural changes. The allocations of permits have been
> so generous that a number of Europe’s biggest polluters have made HUGE
> profits by selling on permits that they didn’t need, or by passing on
> the cost of the permits to consumers – despite the fact that they have
> been handed out for free! E.ON is just one example of a company that has
> made billions in windfall profits so far from carbon trading. We need to
> learn from these mistakes, not replicate them.
>
> Leaving it to the market is ineffective and undemocratic
> Markets themselves aren’t a bad thing, but not when they artificially
> create overly-complex markets based on an ideological commitment to
> solving every problem through the market rather than a natural evolution
> of trading in existing commodities. Important decisions, discussions and
> demands about climate change are being swept aside in favour of ‘leaving
> it to the market,’ despite the fact that it’s a market whose parameters
> and rules have been largely determined by some of the biggest polluters
> around, teaming up with the same financiers responsible for the
> ‘structured investment vehicles’ and ‘credit derivative swaps’ that have
> brought economies crashing down. They say markets, we say democracy.
>
> Carbon trading interferes with positive solutions to climate change
> On India’s Bhilangana river, local farmers run a finely-tuned terraced
> irrigation system that provides them with rice, wheat, mustard, fruits
> and vegetables. This ingenious, extremely low-carbon system of
> agriculture is threatened by a new hydro-electric project designed to
> help power India’s heavy industry. Villagers may have to leave the
> valley, losing not only their livelihoods but also their knowledge of a
> uniquely sustainable modern technology. Is carbon trading stepping in to
> support the villagers’ piece of the solution to climate change? On the
> contrary. It’s supporting the hydropower company, which has hired
> consultants to argue that their dam will result in fewer carbon
> emissions than would have been the case if it had not been built. The
> firm plans to sell the resulting carbon emission rights to polluting
> companies in Europe. The example is typical of the way carbon markets
> are undermining positive approaches to climate change everywhere. The
> bulk of carbon credit sales under the Kyoto Protocol benefit chemical,
> iron and steel, oil and gas, electricity and other companies committed
> to a fossil-fuel intensive future, not communities, organizations or
> firms working to overcome fossil addiction. We need grass-roots, modern,
> sustainable solutions, not outdated financial interference.
>
> The financial crisis rings enormous alarm bells about carbon markets
> Carbon trading, like the financial system that led to current economic
> crisis, is characterised by incredibly complicated accounting procedures
> that very few people really understand. Just like our current financial
> institutions, it’s formed around a profit-driven motivation to make
> large numbers of transactions regardless of the ‘sub-prime’ nature of
> those transactions, and fundamental problems in asset valuation. The
> whole concept of carbon trading is based on taking a ‘real’ need (in
> this case, the need to reduce carbon emissions) and abstracting that
> need into increasing complicated financial commodities and derivatives.
> There is a real parallel with the way a basic human need like housing,
> was transformed and abstracted through financial markets to ‘sub-prime
> mortgages’ and eventually ‘Structured Investment Vehicles’. The
> complexity of this process of creating financial derivatives doesn’t
> serve any human need other than making huge sums of money for small
> numbers of people, and in doing so creates enormous instability and
> turmoil once the house of cards inevitably collapses. We need
> grass-roots control of our needs and communities, not the disastrous
> instability of market based ‘solutions’.
>
> Trading carbon doesn't cure our addiction to fossil fuels
> Setting a price for carbon isn't even a very good way of stopping people
> emitting it.  We use fossil fuels because we started using them and then
> it became a habit, this is called lock-in – the way a technology becomes
> ingrained in society even though it isn't the best available – a good
> example is the QWERTY keyboard – this arrangement of letters was
> designed because typewriters jam if you type too fast, on computers this
> isn't a problem but we still use the same technology that is obviously
> less good, and even if other keyboards were cheaper people wouldn't use
> them.  This 'lock in' also doesn't respond to gradual changes, it
> requires a sudden change to break these irrational habits. We need to
> recover from our fossil fuel addiction, not prolong it.
>
> Measuring emissions isn’t easy
> One surprising problem with any numerical system of emissions
> restrictions is that it's quite difficult to measure them. Additionally,
> this sensitive and vital task is not done by an independent body:
> polluters themselves are actually responsible for collecting data on
> both their current and past emissions, data against which any reductions
> will be measured! There is evidence that one of the problems with the
> Emissions Trading Scheme is that the figures on which reductions were
> based were massively over estimated by the polluters. We need commitment
> to change, not complication, corruption & stagnation.
>
> Carbon trading represents the total privatization of the planet
> Accepting the concept of a right to pollute in exchange for money is, in
> effect, like selling the sky. There are certain things in which there
> should never be a complete market. Although land can be bought and sold
> relatively freely, most societies regulate who can own land, how much
> and what you can do with it, otherwise it is theoretically possible for
> one person to own all the land and to decide to leave it uncultivated -
> and no society could tolerate this. So why should we allow this to
> happen to the atmosphere? By carving up the atmosphere itself, all of
> our notions of democracy and fairness become at best ridiculous, and at
> worst, obsolete. We need equality, not ownership.
>
> If you were an energy company

> If you were an energy company that relied predominantly on fossil fuels
> and a worldwide carbon trading system was to be brought in: first, you'd
> be lobbying to make sure that the scheme suited you, then you'd get as
> many permits as possible by lobbying and claiming that your past
> emissions were higher than they really were. You'd find cheap ways to
> generate credits by buying into schemes that created permits (often in
> the developing world) and you'd employ a group of hotshot traders to buy
> and sell your permits to try and increase the number you had.
>
> In addition you'd ensue that the people regulating the system were as
> friendly to you as possible and you'd probably try and make sure that
> the emissions recorded for your power plants were recorded as low as
> possible. If all else failed, you'd pass on the increase in costs to
> your customers, perhaps even with a bit extra because all the energy
> companies will be doing the same. You could also invest some time in
> persuading the regulators that this technology was reducing emissions
> more than it really was. Each year as the government tried to reduce the
> number of permits, you'd also try and make sure that yours were cut a
> bit less than everyone else's, while your lawyers argued in the courts
> that the government can't take away what is essentially your property
> (your permits to pollute) without compensating you monetarily.
>
> What are the alternatives to carbon trading?
> This is a bit of a false question: it presumes that carbon trading has
> some sort of merit that justifies it being included in the selection of
> possible options available. Its like asking, what’s the alternative to
> implementing an ineffective, unjust system to deal with climate change
> that rewards the biggest polluters and that has very harmful
> consequences for communities in the Global South?
>
> The most obvious and rational alternative is to simply not do it. There
> are a wide variety of ways to reduce emissions that are appropriate for
> different individuals, communities, companies and countries. Any of
> these many ways forward should be evaluated (along with important
> factors like equity and social justice) on the criteria of whether or
> not it allows us to move away from extracting and consuming large
> amounts of fossil fuels. Carbon trading does exactly the opposite of
> this – it sanctions further fossil fuel burning. Climate justice now!
>
> Compiled for the Climate Camp National Gathering, Nottingham, March 7th
> 2009.
> Revised for the London Climate Camp Carbon Trading Weekend, March 21st
> 2009.
>
>
>
>
> James Holland
>
> http://risingclevel.blogspot.com/
>
> Jonathan Leighton wrote:
>> We have http://climatecamp.org.uk/g20-why from a list compiled by Kevin.
>>
>> Kevin also told me a while ago he was going to work on a longer piece of
>> text, I don't know whether that is still happening.
>>
>> When we agree on the flyer text I can put it up on the website.
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> On Sun, 2009-03-15 at 08:43 -0700, Gwyfyn wrote:
>>> I think Sky had a point re URL's, have we got ours on there?
>>>
>>> Maybe that would lead people to links etc anyways.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> PS Can some one send this to the right ppl:
>>>
>>> Dear G20 ppl/ Website bods.
>>>
>>> We will need a critique of Carbon Trading on the website somewhere.
>>>
>>> I have not checked yet. But will be able to shortly after I have gotten
>>> some fresh air.
>>>
>>> M x
>>>
>>>> hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Okay i have just stuck Danny's & Jess's text in very quickly, because
>>>> if I
>>>> dont get outside today I might start to rot. I will fix it tonight (as
>>>> it
>>>> doesnt work anymore in terms of design).
>>>>
>>>> We might be able to get agreement to send it to print tomorrow- in
>>>> which
>>>> case we will have it for next weekend. Otherwise, we have until next
>>>> Monday
>>>> to fix it - and we will get it Friday the 27th.
>>>>
>>>> I am really attached to the 'Age of Oil' , but i have changed it. Are
>>>> people
>>>> sure it is better?
>>>>
>>>> jody
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
>
> James Holland
>
> http://risingclevel.blogspot.com/
>