AndrewsJan 19th, 2007 - 04:22:16

Recently, I read some articles mentioning that Global Warming mitigation by purchasing carbon offsets is not having the effect that it should have to. This made ask myself, Is our money going through a black hole to finance carbon offsets providers operations or is it going to financially support the eco-projects that we expect? Are our PM plans for his personal carbon emission reduction going to be useful?

Today news confirmed my thoughts. These reports show a lack of transparency in the carbon offset retail market and we might find that a good cause has been used for some organisations to cash on the Global Warming crisis. UK figures are available in CarbonSMS.com and you are free to decide whether online carbon offset providers are cashing on the Global Warming crisis or not. A good guidelines on what to ask carbon offsets providers before buying is also available scrolling down CarbonSMS.com website. The comparative table shows their range of products carbon offset prices, sales volume by organisation, and prices per tonne in the UK. Even you will discover a FOR-PROFIT company that uses a .ORG domain when it is not a charity organisation. It is surprising that prices in different British websites range from £7.40 to 9.00 tonne/CO2 when in the US the same tonne of CO2 costs £1.50. This seems a bit scandalous because this could mean that we pay more without making a real benefit on the environment and therefore we might be paying in excess administrative, marketing, shareholders and investors expenses. Is the price these offfset providers charge really the cost of the eco-project? or Is the money being taken by intermediaries? How much money are they taking from our pockets that really has a proven benefit on the environment or poor communities? How do these eco-projects help to protect biodiversity instead of growing trees only? Do carbon offset providers teach what they praise? Why their ecological footprints are not publicly available? Why our obsession of promoting carbon footprints instead of ecological footprints that includes biodiversity protection?

In one hand, it seems that the carbon offset market needs more disclosure of information so consumers can evaluate the offset quality, where the money goes, how the projects are selected and benefits they provide to the environment and communities. In the other hand, it is also reasonable to recognize that without most of these organisations probably most of us wouldn`t be aware of the current situation in the environment and options to reverse the effects of our consumerist behaviour.

In order to tackle Global Warming and be successful, all of us have to take full responsibility of our own actions and emissions, and not only by following the easy path.

It will be dangerous and sad to see that our hopes to mitigate Global Warming by offseting our emissions are not helping as they should while the time to reverse this crisis goes by. Carbon offsetting should be considered as one option amongst a portfolio of actions that each of us should take to reduce our emissions and not the only one to make us feel good.

Please ask yourself these two questions and think about them.

Are we becoming frogs in slowly increasing boiling water? Or are we waiting for a big natural disaster to make us jump out of it and act as a result?

And please check the carbon offsetting guidelines for responsible consumers and make your own decisions in case you decide to offset your emissions:

http://www.carbonsms.com

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