by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Commenting on the Environmental Audit Committee's report on carbon trading, published on Monday, February 8, 2010, Friends of the Earth's International Climate Campaigner Sarah-Jayne Clifton said: "This report is yet another nail in the coffin for the Government's deeply flawed reliance on carbon trading to tackle climate change.
"The committee has rightly identified that the European emissions trading scheme has barely cut emissions and the major weaknesses of future plans, and its calls for bigger UK carbon cuts without offsetting and tougher pollution standards for the power sector must be heeded.
"Not only is trading failing to drive down emissions, banks are growing fat developing ever more complex trading systems – and this risks another financial crash similar to that caused by sub-prime mortgages.
"The Government must abandon its obsession with the carbon trading con and meet its legally-binding UK carbon budgets without offsetting.
"This means making real cuts in emissions by investing in green power and energy efficiency and introducing stronger regulations and carbon taxes to rein in the biggest industrial polluters."
As far as I am concerned there cannot be enough nails in the coffin of carbon trading as carbon offsets, carbon credits and the trading with the same are nothing more than modern-day indulgences giving the countries of the developed world and the companies based basically a permit to go on with “business as usual” on the backs of the poorer countries. This cannot and must not be permitted to be.
© 2010
