Exerpts -
“A special investigative report by London’s Financial Times revealed that, ‘Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on carbon credit projects that yield few, if any, environmental benefits. Some organizations are paying for emissions reductions that don’t take place. Others are making big profits from carbon trading … for cleanups that would have happened anyway.’
The findings included murky brokers selling carbon offsets for fictitious or highly questionable projects, industrial corporations being paid for Third World cleanup projects they were required to do and ‘carbon cowboy’ brokers selling the same credits several times over. Examples include unverifiable tree planting projects in the remotest corners of the world and a solar power project in South Africa that was never built.”
Nevertheless, there was criticism of “Al [Gore]’s monster house, he conveniently purchased ‘carbon offsets’ to fend off criticism that could have cost him the Nobel Prize. Hillary Clinton claims to be using some of her campaign donations to offset emissions from her big campaign jet. And good old Tinsel Town is making a big production out of plans to purchase carbon offsets for this year’s Oscar presentations, even though every other day of the year the average celebrity’s lifestyle yields emissions a hundred times higher than us mere mortals.”
“Football fans may be happy that the CFL purchased carbon offsets for last year’s Grey Cup. Air Canada has made arrangements for [passengers] to proffer up extra cash to buy carbon offsets for that vacation. And, if you’re in the market for a new vehicle, even an SUV, there is salvation for you. New Land Rovers come ‘fully CO{-2} offset’ for the first 72,000 kilometres, and Volkswagen will offset your new Toureg’s emissions for the first year. If [Canadians] want to spend some of [their] big Canadian dollars south of the border, Vail ski resort in Colorado will purchase wind energy credits so [they] can be carbon neutral while being lifted to the top of the mountain. These are but a few examples of the growing number of companies green washing their brands with carbon neutral advertising.”
“The shares of international carbon offsets brokers like Climate Change PPLC are going up.” “In Canada, the TSX is looking to get in on the action by partnering with the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and the Chicago Climate Exchange.”
