BUTLER/CUNNINGHAM

This page provides information on carbon credits.

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LEVEL 3

2003 CONFERENCE

CARBON CREDITS

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"Carbon credits" are a way to pay people to plant trees so as to help stop problems of pollution and of changes in the weather. They allow people and countries to buy and sell "the right to pollute". In some ways they are a good idea but they also can allow people and countries to evade responsibility for pollution and they can allow other problems as well.

Many industrial processes give off various carbon compounds into the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide. Old-fashioned, low-intensity farming captures carbon from the atmosphere but modern, high-intensity farming actually gives off more carbon than it captures. In addition, the cutting of forests and filling in of wetlands, for residences and to create modern farms, has lessened the amount of vegetation that converts carbon in the air to carbon in plants and eventually to carbon compounds in the soil.

[Carbon release exceeds carbon capture in modern farming because: (1) the carbon compounds emitted from the use of petrochemicals exceed the carbon captured by any cultivated plants; and (2) monocrops (for example, fields of only rice or only wheat) capture little carbon compared to meadows, wetlands, complex gardens, and forests.]

Therefore, carbon compounds have built up in the atmosphere. The build-up is expected to increase in the near future unless something is done to reverse the trend. The increased amount of carbon compounds in the atmosphere has had many effects, some of them beneficial but most of them harmful.

The most prominent beneficial effect of carbon dioxide accumulation is to encourage some forms of plant growth. When carbon dioxide is available in the air, plants can grow faster. Faster growing plants mean that plants remove carbon more quickly from the air, but, even so, plants have not been able to remove enough carbon to reverse the general trend of carbon accumulation or even to slow it much. Too many forests have been cut and too much wetland drained.

Perhaps the best known detrimental effect of carbon accumulation is called "the greenhouse effect". Carbon gases in the atmosphere trap heat, so that the balance of heat coming into the earth (from the sun) with heat going out of the earth (radiated into space) changes. The earth gets hotter, just as a greenhouse gets hot and stays hot from the sun's energy even in the winter. This "global warming" possibly has impacted the weather. Some people claim that it has influenced both the recent drought and flooding in the U.S.

Even the greenhouse effect and global warming can have a good side. People in Minneapolis have been able to go inline skating, instead of ice skating, in February. People in Canada and in Siberia anticipate longer growing seasons and bumper crops. But because most of the world lives near the equator, and most agriculture is closer to the equator than the poles, on the whole the greenhouse effect has been detrimental.

One way to counteract the greenhouse effect is to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Since plants do just that, it make sense to promote the growth of plants, such as trees, that would remove carbon from the air, rather than to cut them down. This idea has been around since the 1980s. Governments have begun programs to promote replanting of trees and other plants that would help remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in plant tissue or in organic matter in the soil.

Ideally, countries should aim to emit no more carbon compounds in the future than they did around 1990. Any emissions above 1990 levels are called "surplus emissions".

However, if any country does emit surplus carbon dioxide, it might be able to counteract the effects by planting trees. Assuming we can figure out how much carbon is removed by so many trees, planting so many trees would in effect erase a certain amount of surplus emissions. The new trees "count against" the surplus emissions so that, on the whole, the country could still be in balance. This is the idea behind "carbon credits". The trees serve as a credit so that the country can emit surplus carbon compounds and still not change from carbon balance.

Some countries have begun to pay people not to cut forests, to replant forests that have been cut, and to plant forests where once were grown such crops as wheat. By doing so, the countries can increase industrial or utility production (such as factories and electrical generating plants) if they wish and still not impact the total carbon balance.

So far, the U.S. has not officially adopted the idea of carbon credits because it has not adopted the international agreements on which the idea is based. Neither the federal government nor any state officially offers any funds for carbon credits. However, the U.S. tends to favor solutions that allow buying-and-selling ("free market" solutions). The buying and selling of carbon credits and other anti-pollution measures is sometimes called the buying and selling of "rights to pollute". In anticipation that the federal government eventually will allow carbon credits, already some states have begun research and some institutions are doing a business in carbon credits.

The story gets somewhat more complicated. Suppose that country A wishes to increase its carbon emissions but has trouble finding a way to compensate within its own borders by planting its own trees. It might be able to pay someone in country B to lower emissions there instead. Those credits would count toward the emission levels in country A rather than in country B because country A pays for it. Although this practice is not widespread yet, in anticipation, some institutions have begun buying and selling international carbon credits.

The international buying and selling of carbon credits might allow previously under-developed countries to develop more if they can find someone to compensate for their increased carbon emissions. It might mean that industrial and utility procesess move to the areas of the world that are most efficient and so can pay more for the "right to pollute".

However, the international buying and selling of carbon credits might also mean that some countries never have to act responsibly about their emissions. They can just buy off the problem or move it to other countries. It might mean that some countries never develop but instead stay rural by being locked into contracts to provide carbon credits for developed countries. There are basic problems as well. For example, it is odd to pay to plant trees that people would have planted anyway or should have planted anyway for other reasons. How densely must trees be planted? How long must trees be maintained before being cut so as to count as a carbon credit? What is to prevent lumber companies from planting and cutting trees on their land as they would have anyway and getting a carbon credit for it as well as their usual profits? Carbon credits are somewhat like a subsidy for polluting, and most governments now realize what problems are inherent in long-term subsidies.

Many sources on the internet provide information on the greenhouse effect, global warming and carbon credits. The following is only an introductory sample.

Australia seems to have already moved rapidly into carbon credits. The Australian Academy of Science has summarized the issues and provided some examples of the resultant programs. They also provide a good list of references in journals. Their article is available at:

http://www.science.org.au/nova/054/054print.htm

An already established program in New South Wales is described at:

http://www.forest.nsw.gov.au/publication/forest_facts/growing_trees/?print=1

A program in Brazil, that includes international buying and selling, is briefly described at:

http://www.ieta.org/Library_Links/IETAEnvNews/Aug5_Brazil.htm

Emagazine describes current issues for the internet:

http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2001/0101curr_carbon.html

The Carbon Fund is an institution devoted to promoting carbon credits. Its information includes programs in the U.S. Southeast. The home page is:

http://www.thecarbonfund.org

Their explanation specifically of these issues is at:

http://www.thecarbonfund.org/primer.shtml

The Alabama Forest Owners recently participated at a conference in which some of the speakers discussed these issues. See summaries at:

http://alabamaforestowners.com/CILive/CI03423.htm

The Sierra Club takes a global perspective and sounds a cautionary note. On the whole, it does not favor the international buying and selling of any rights to pollute:

http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/articles/jifact.asp