Guilt-Free Pollution. Or Is It?
Two years ago, Sami Grover, an environmentally minded Englishman, vowed to take his last trip by airplane. Then a summer romance in North Carolina turned into a long-distance love affair — and then into months of busy trans-Atlantic travel.
Jenny Butler and Sami Grover bought carbon emission credits. Courtesy International Herald Tribune.
To compensate for the tons of greenhouse gases the couple’s plane trips helped spew into the atmosphere, Mr. Grover quietly began paying Climate Care, a British company, to help make the world a little greener for him and his girlfriend.
“I didn’t want her to think I was some kind of eco-fascist,” said Mr. Grover, 28. “I did it for her flights, too, but I did it in secret.”
Mr. Grover could no longer be called an environmental zealot. Indeed, he is now in the mainstream of a budding market where individuals can buy and sell rights to offset “carbon footprints” from their personal activities, such as driving a car, using disposable diapers, even jet-setting across the Atlantic.
These days, pop stars, chief executives and politicians vaunt how they offset carbon emissions by planting trees or investing in renewable energy projects — many in poorer countries in Africa or in India.
Pledges by celebrities, like Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and members of the band Coldplay, have helped generate huge publicity for these carbon-offset trading companies. In turn, the companies have actively sought out a green glitterati and concerned consumers in Europe and the United States.
The operations reflect a new consciousness about climate change, but scientists and environmental watchdogs say that the carbon trading actually may be producing little of real value to the environment.
“These companies may be operating with the best will in the world, but they are doing so in settings where it’s not really clear you can monitor and enforce their projects over time,” said Steve Rayner, a senior professor at Oxford and a member of a group working on reducing greenhouse gases for the International Panel on Climate Change. “What these companies are allowing people to do is carry on with their current behavior with a clear conscience.”
Some carbon-offset firms have begun to acknowledge that certain investments like tree-planting may be ineffective, and they are shifting their focus to what they say is reliable activity, like wind turbines, cleaner burning stoves, or buying up credits that otherwise would allow companies to pollute.
[Read the full article here from the New York Times]
