Think before you offset . . .

So the Co-Op, in its latest quest to be seen and heard to do the right thing, is to become the first high street travel agent to offer travellers the chance to offset their CO2 emissions by way of a green surcharge .

For those unfamiliar with the concept, this method allows companies or activities to continue emitting CO2 as long as they invest in Carbon reduction technologies elsewhere. It also happens when companies buy in carbon credits from emissions trading schemes.

(For those unfamiliar with THAT concept, this is where nations or supranational organisations agree to cap emissions at a certain level in any given year. Individual sites are given allowances for how much C they can emit in a year. If they fall short of this they can sell their entitlement to the ones who have failed to meet their limit. Once this trading has been done, the overall limit is reduced for the next year so all have a financial incentive to be continually reducing their emissions).

As a solution to the catastrophic disaster that is irreversible climate change, this is nonsense. We need to cut emissions. This means some alterations in our lifestyles and a permanent move away from fossil fuels. We can’t all pay someone else to do something about the problem! Aviation taxation is nonsense too – tax the ears of flights and aviation fuel; result, the rich keep flying.

And on the Carbon trading thing – it depends on countries in the EU actually agreeing to an overall cut in their emissions. I refer you to someone wiser than me:

“National targets for 2008 set by Austria, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain are out of line with their Kyoto obligations, as are Estonia, France. Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. Poland has proposed a hugely extravagant plan that permits 70 million tonnes more CO2 than it emitted last year. Overall, 130 million tonnes of carbon need to be cut from the national plans so far submitted.”

See – it doesn’t work. I think the only way you get the level of change we need is through personal carbon limits and personal carbon trading. To quote George Monbiot, we got into this through millions of seemingly innocuous infinitesimal actions. So we need the same number of small actions to avert the coming crisis.