350 Reasons Carbon Trading Won’t Work

October 19th, 2009

A small island, Tegua in Vanuatu is claimed
to be the first in the world to have to move its community because of rising sea levels.

October 19, 2009 by Stop the Blob at Global Justice Ecology Project

Rising Tide North America and Carbon Trade Watch would like you to join us on the October 24th day of global climate action to spread the word about the biggest financial scam in history – Carbon Trading.

In order to stabilize the climate before billions of people around the world suffer the consequences, it is imperative that carbon-trading schemes are stopped and real, democratically determined solutions are implemented.

We cannot afford to waste any more valuable time and resources relying on such market-driven strategies to deliver science-based goals (such as 350 ppm of CO2) when so many lives and livelihoods are at stake. If we truly wish to protect people and planet, then we must put climate justice before corporate profits.

However, first and foremost, we need to dispel the misguided notion that carbon trading has anything at all to do with climate change mitigation, or the present and future wellbeing of our communities.

We are proud to announce the launch of www.350reasons.org – a website presenting 350 reasons why carbon trading will not serve to stabilize the climate. You can submit your own reasons for opposing carbon trading via a web-form on this site. We will release the full 350 reasons next week.

The 350 reasons pamphlet can also be downloaded starting Monday Oct 19 at www.350reasons.org.

350 Reasons Why Carbon Trading Does Not Work

Here are just a few:

Carbon Trading prevents the world’s largest historical debt from being paid. The world’s major polluting corporations owe this debt to poor, frontline communities around the world – communities that contribute the least to, and suffer the lion’s share of the impacts of climate change.

Carbon Trading creates fraudulent derivative markets that reward the biggest industrial polluters and their financiers with windfall profits, while stealing natural resources such as clean air, clean water, clean soil and clean food from the global commons.

Carbon Trading allows corporations to finance or create carbon dumps in the Developing World while continuing to emit toxic climate pollution in the backyards of working poor, Indigenous and people of color communities in Developed Countries.

Carbon Trading impedes democratic governance by allowing corporate polluters, market managers, and commodity traders to determine whether and where to reduce greenhouse gases and toxic co-pollutants without allowing frontline communities to participate in those decisions.

Carbon Trading perpetuates subsidies and support for major industrial polluters such as big oil and energy companies, and creates new financing for bogus corporate solutions such as clean coal, safe nuclear, bio-fuels and waste incineration – adding more polluting smokestacks in the backyards of already-burdened communities

Carbon Trading keeps much-needed resources from being invested in real solutions and just transition strategies in renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy conservation, waste reduction, economic localization, closed-loop production, healthcare, public education and affordable housing.