Carbon Trading a False Hope

> Letter to the Editor
> Financial Times
> London
> letter.editor@ft.com
> 15 October 2004
>
>
>
>
> Dear Sir,
>
The recent boom in the carbon market may be exciting for the financial services industry and the International Petroleum Exchange (Fiona Harvey, "Carbon trading in Europe triples since Russian move on Kyoto", 11 October), but it isn't good news either for the climate or for poorer communities in the firing line of global warming.

Averting climate crisis means, above all else, reducing investment in and use of fossil fuels. Carbon trading is designed to do just the opposite: to allow big fossil users to delay reductions by buying their way out of trouble or by building new dumps (such as tree plantations) to park their carbon in temporarily.
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The losers include not only the climate and the communities threatened most by sea level rises and other effects of global warming. They also include the communities that have to absorb the worst pollution from the hydrocarbon industry, whether near drilling sites in the Niger Delta, refinery areas such as Durban, power plant clusters in poor North American neighbourhoods, or elsewhere. Other losers include communities affected by new carbon "dump" projects, such as the peasants and indigenous peoples currently opposing carbon finance for land-gobbling eucalyptus plantations in Brazil.

"Giving carbon a price" will not prove to be any more effective, democratic, or conducive to human welfare, than giving genes, forests, biodiversity or clean rivers a price. There is no point in governments, export credit agencies, corporations and international financial institutions constructing a carbon market with one hand while, with the other, continuing to finance fossil fuel developments and forest destruction and dedicating only token sums to renewable energy.
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> Signed
>
> Michael K. Dorsey
> Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies
> Dartmouth College
> Hanover, NH
> Former Director, Sierra Club National Board
> US
> Michael.K.Dorsey@dartmouth.edu
> +1 734 945 6424
>
> Soumitra Ghosh
> National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers >
Siliguri
> West Bengal
> India
> nespon@sancharnet.in
> +91 353 266 1915
>
> Jutta Kill
> Sinks Watch
> Moreton-in-Marsh
> Gloucestershire
> UK
> jutta@fern.org
> 07931 576538
>
> Larry Lohmann
> The Corner House
> Sturminster Newton
> Dorset
> UK
> larrylohmann@gn.apc.org
> 01258 473795
>
> Daphne Wysham
> Institute for Policy Studies
> Washington, DC
> US
> dwysham@seen.org
> +1 202 234 9382
>
>
Note: Four of the signatories were participants in the international conference on "Carbon Trading: Consequences and Strategies" held in Durban, South Africa, 4-7 October. The conference�s final declaration will be released shortly.