A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

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120 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon tradingTable 3. ‘Carbon-Effi cient’ and ‘Carbon-Ineffi cient’ NationsCountryCarbon Effi ciency(Tonnes of CO 2Emissions perUS Dollar of GDP)Carbon Effi ciencyRank among 141NationsNamibia 0.00 1Lao PDR 0.14 5Nepal 0.30 18Bangladesh 0.36 23Sweden 0.70 42Brazil 0.71 43Norway 0.74 45Philippines 0.77 47France 0.78 48Italy 0.91 57Spain 1.00 61Japan 1.00 62Denmark 1.08 66Indonesia 1.11 69UK 1.17 74NZ 1.19 75Germany 1.19 76Netherlands 1.23 78Finland 1.28 80India 1.35 85Egypt 1.45 86South Korea 1.51 94Canada 1.69 98US 1.77 100China 2.03 107Australia 2.07 109Czech R. 2.43 115South Africa 2.56 119Saudi Arabia 3.60 129The Carbon Market as EpicycleFrom about the second century onward,the European astronomical model thatplaced the earth at the centre of the universehad to add more and more squigglesand refinements (‘epicycles’) in order to accountfor observations of planetary movements.Only in the 16 th century was thewhole complex model and all its epicyclesfinally abandoned in favour of a simplerand more elegant sun-centred model.The carbon market is like one of the epicyclesadded to the earth-centred modelto preserve it. It helps keeps the obsoletefossil-centred industrial model going at atime when society should already be abandoningit.
lessons unlearned 121No empirical evidence exists that current greenhouse gas tradingprogrammes are functioning as transitional solutions on the way to afossil carbon-free future. In fact, all the available evidence is on theother side. Major oil corporations such as BP and Shell, both enthusiasticinitiators of internal trading schemes, have never voiced anyserious intention to curb their main activities of oil exploration orproduction at any time. Although it has changed its name to ‘BeyondPetroleum’, BP committed itself in 2002 to expand its oil and gas outputby 5.5 per cent per year over the succeeding five years. Its emissionsin 2001 were equivalent to almost two years’ carbon dioxideemissions from the UK. 205 The firm’s investment in renewable energyremains at a mere 1 per cent of the usd 8 billion it spends on fossil fuelexploration and production every year. 206Similarly, the World Bank treats its carbon trading wing as what oneprominent former staff member scathingly refers to as a mere ‘epicycle’208 of an overwhelmingly fossil-oriented approach to energy andtransport.Karl PolanyiEfficiency and hot spotsThere’s another problem with the procedure of creating ‘efficiencies’by spreading emissions cuts around so that the cheapest can be madefirst: it tends to harm the weak and benefit the powerful. That meansthere are going to be political limits – defined by popular resistance,among other things – to the extent that pollution in location A canbe made ‘the same as’ pollution in location B.Similar problems arise with the privatisation of land, privatisation ofhealth care and the privatisation of biodiversity. As the great economichistorian Karl Polanyi pointed out more than 60 years ago, certainvital things such as land, labour, water and medicine are only ‘pseudo -commodities’. 209 They can never become fully tradable without societyas a whole ceasing to exist.I don’t understand.Take land. From a narrowly economic point of view, land is all thesame, wherever it is, just as emissions reductions are said to be thesame wherever they are made. Land creates economic value, whereverit is and whatever it is used for, just as, other things being equal,emissions reductions are good for the climate, no matter where orhow they are made.But suppose land became completely interchangeable with anythingelse, a completely fluid commodity, so that one piece of land could
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PRESS RELEASEContact:Linda Chiavaro
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ContentsEditorial note 2Chapter 1 I
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editorial note 3in Dorset, UK - poi
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6 development dialogue september 20
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Chapter 2‘Made in the USA’A sho
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‘made in the usa’ - a short his
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Chapter 5Ways forwardIn which the c
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ways forward 331‘Tinkering around
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ways forward 333suggests that the
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ways forward 335more stringent than
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ways forward 337Unlike carbon tradi
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ways forward 339hold little appeal
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ways forward 341Waiting their Chanc
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ways forward 343ways - many of whic
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ways forward 345energy - loan benef
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ways forward 347From an Open Letter
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ways forward 349be answered in the
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ways forward 351rogated by Indian v
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ways forward 353argue, they’ve he
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ways forward 355‘The US alone acc
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appendix - the durban declaration o
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appendix - the durban declaration o
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A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

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