Friends of the Earth: Carbon off-sets 'add to climate change'

Joanna Sugden, Times Online 2 Jun 09;

Carbon off-setting will do nothing to prevent climate change and is increasing rather than reducing carbon emissions, a leading environmental charity warns today.

The Government’s scheme to buy carbon quotas from developing countries in order to reduce global emissions should be scrapped and developed countries made to cut their own carbon output, a report by Friends of the Earth says.

“Offsetting is a having a disastrous impact on the prospects for averting catastrophic climate change,” Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth said.

The Government will lobby other nations to increase the use of carbon off-setting at UN Climate Change talks in Bonn next week.

But campaigners say the practice is a dangerous distraction that allows rich nations to disguise rising greenhouse gas production.

“Because offset cuts are created against a hypothetical business-as-usual baseline, it is impossible to ensure that offset credits guarantee carbon cuts. Not only can it not guarantee carbon cuts, in some cases it can increase them,” the report says.

The authors argue that the practice is unjust and ineffectual, and not based on scientific evidence, which they say points towards the need for developing and developed countries to slash their emissions if climate change is to be reversed.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment and Climate Change said: “Offsetting has a role to play in cutting emissions and can bring finance and other benefits to developing countries. The central issues are getting the safeguards right, making it as transparent and eventually moving to a more holistic approach to cutting emissions as part of a global carbon market.