11 4 2011 Debate 2 Carbon Emissions In the last several decades the scientific community has made it abundantly clear that the average temperature of the globe is rising and a large contributor to the problem is the release of greenhouse gases by humans into the atmosphere Among these carbon dioxide is the most prevalent and causes the most harm In an effort to curb the release of excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere several carbon trading institutions have been set up around the globe However carbon trading systems such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Chicago Climate exchange are ineffective at reducing carbon emissions because they play into a Capitalist system that is directly responsible for the rampant increase in carbon emissions Several flaws in this market based approach to emission reduction are that companies are forced to increase consumption and minimize cost that the beneficiaries of carbon waste are not the ones who bear the costs and that those who have the power to change the market are the ones who benefit from it the most To begin creating a market based solution to the emission crisis is paradoxical since the conditions that make capitalism function are a driving factor in carbon dioxide production In order to increase capital business owners have to either increase consumption of their goods or decrease the cost of making these goods In the case of companies that create large amounts of pollution either scenario results in harm in the environment As a result companies are going to do all in their power to ignore abuse or otherwise work around any restrictions imposed by a cap and trade system or carbon market This is because any method of reducing emissions is a drain on efficiency and profits Polborn 27 Furthermore regulating a carbon market would be nearly impossible It is extremely difficult to track where pollution came from and it would require a massive bureaucracy to track and legitimize all carbon transactions Additionally inequity in wealth and power prevents those who bear the costs of environmental degradation from doing anything to prevent it Under an ideal carbon market corporations that can reduce emissions more efficiently can sell their emission rights to less efficient ones and people can offset their carbon production by paying others to perform ecofriendly activities such as planting trees However under these conditions the only people who have the power to curb pollution are the same people who accrue benefits from producing it Bohm and Dabbi 223 Corporations and people in industrialized nations have little incentive to reduce carbon emissions since they are not being as directly influenced by climate change as others Since developing nations have little economic and political power compared to industrialized ones market based approaches to the problem of carbon emissions are inherently unfair to poorer nations One example of this is a case where a Norwegian company paid the Ugandan government to plant trees to offset their carbon footprint The result of this venture was that it provided far lower real carbon sequestration results than anticipated on paper although the value of those assets is on the order of 10 million Robbins Hintz and Moore 157 As a result the Ugandan government got less ecological value for the promised trees and less monetary value as the Norwegian company managed to profit form the situation As the previous examples show a carbon trading system will not reduce carbon emissions efficiently and is inherently unfair to those who will suffer the consequences of climate change The Capitalist approach is by its very nature predisposed towards accumulating wealth and power in the hands of the few As a result those in poorer nations would be at the mercy of those with the most capital in a carbon market system Bibliography Bohm Steffen and Siddharta Dabhi Upsetting the Offset The Political Economy of Carbon Markets London MayFlyBooks 2009 200 247 eBook http mayflybooks org wpcontent uploads 2010 07 9781906948078UpsettingtheOffset pdf Polborn Sarah The Political Economy of Carbon Securities and Environmental Policy 2011 Web 4 Nov 2011 http crifes psu edu papers Polborn Carbon Securities pdf Robbins Paul John Hintz and Sarah Moore Environment and Society Critical Introductions to Geography Chichester UK John Wiley Sons 2010 64 78 Print
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