It is increasingly a global imperative that humanity successfully overcome the challenges posed by climate change.  Voluntary, and legislated, ‘carbon markets’ provide an avenue to assist in mitigating the risks posed by rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, and an increase in the level of atmospheric carbon levels.  Carbon offsets are pretty simple: every person, company, car, cow and coke® bottle is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.  

These ‘liabilities’ can be measured and valued, and as a result, systems can be developed to buy, sell, and trade in the creation/reduction of these greenhouse gas emissions.  For example, as outlined in ‘The Sustainable Enterprise Report ’ published by Kyoto Planet®, if you were to just stand still for a year and breathe, you will emit around 350kg of carbon dioxide.  The cost of your carbon emissions resulting from breathing, if carbon dioxide is valued at lets say $7 per tonne, would be about $2.45.  So if you want to assist in neutralising your carbon emissions resulting from breathing, you would pay a carbon offset organisation the $2.45 to offset your emissions through carbon abatement measures. 

For example, plugging your money into more greenhouse friendly electricity production through renewable technologies (i.e. wind and solar farms).  It should be noted that the author prefers to encourage people to reduce their emissions prior to offsetting. However, in the above-mentioned example would suggest that you continue to maintain a healthy breathing routine and look for other, less potentially dangerous, alternatives!

So, how do you navigate Australia’s growing carbon industry without becoming lost in the maze of emerging legislation, schemes, and public offerings?  Well, the author has tried to provide a ‘guiding hand through the carbon market maze’ via the five (5) criteria for picking an offset program/provider found below.

1. Look for an organisation that provides real tested and measured actions.  A tree must have been planted, carbon emissions captured and stored, or a greenhouse inefficient technology replaced with a more carbon friendly alternative (e.g. replacement of incandescent bulbs with energy efficient fluro bulbs);
2. The offset must be beyond what is considered ‘business as usual’.  The concept of additionality is required to show that a more greenhouse friendly project has been undertaken above and beyond what would have happened anyways.  If money is being spent and credits are being given for activities that would have happened anyways, then the money spent on offsets is being wasted as it didn’t exclude any additional greenhouse gases from being emitted;
3. It isn’t enough for a project to simply reduce greenhouse gases.  It must be counted and measured to exemplify the benefits being generated.  There is a requirement involved in, mainly, international carbon abatement programs that offsets be quantified and reported upon so that they can be independently verified. Which leads us to number four;
4. Verification.  The quantity of reductions or removals of greenhouse gases are required to be audited by a third party in order to objectively measure and report upon the effectiveness of the greenhouse gas emission projects being undertaken; and,
5. The benefits of any greenhouse gas abatement project and/or provider must be in the permanence of the actions being taken.  The duration of the project to offset greenhouse gas must be such that the world is a little closer to mitigating the impacts of climate change.  If it isn’t permanent, then it needs to show that it will be around for a specified amount of time and be able to back this up with hard data.

The key is for such markets to be designed to generate actions that provide genuine global benefits.  We need to reduce, first and foremost, greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60 percent (%) over the coming decades.  For this to occur we need a portfolio of approaches and a concentrated effort to stimulate, for example, the alternative energy sector and dig deep to the roots of those systems and technologies most responsible for high energy consumption.

One of which is the internet and communications (ICT) industry in which there is an expanding opportunity for providers of ICT-based technology and services to lead the way in developing and designing more energy and resource efficient ‘widgets’.  With ingenuity and innovation the ICT industry, through leading initiatives such as GreenICT, will lead the way in measuring, reducing, and offsetting carbon emissions and, therefore, creating a better future for ‘tomorrows child’.

Submitted by Mike Duggan

Four Walls and a Roof