Ethical travel company drops carbon offsetting
Critics say the scheme merely permits people to continue polluting
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Independent Minds
One of Britain's leading ethical travel operators has launched a scathing attack on the carbon offset industry and has decided to stop offering offsets to its customers as a way of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Justin Francis, the founder of responsibletravel.com, said he had decided to abandon offsets because he believes they have become a "medieval pardon that allows people to continue polluting".
In 2002 his company became one of the first British travel operators to begin offering customers the opportunity to buy into an offsetting scheme. By paying money to a third party operator that ran carbon-reducing projects in the developing world, holidaymakers could jump on board flights supposedly happy in the knowledge that any carbon dioxide released during their journey would eventually be reduced by the equivalent amount somewhere else.
Supporters of the scheme, which has now become a multibillion pound industry, say it is a vital way of quickly reducing the world's carbon emissions and combating climate change. But a growing number of critics say it is simply a way for people and businesses in the developed world to buy their way out of a problem without actually committing themselves to reductions in their own emissions. After years of falling into the former camp, Mr Francis has now joined the growing number of offset critics.
"Carbon offsetting is an ingenious way to avoid genuinely reducing your carbon emissions," he said yesterday. "It's a very attractive idea – that you can go on living exactly as you did before when there's a magic pill or medieval pardon out there that allows people to continue polluting."
As some of the top polluters, the aviation and travel industries have been keen to promote carbon offsetting to their customers. Until a fortnight ago responsibletravel.com used Climate Care, a major offsetting company which was recently acquired by the investment bank JP Morgan. But Mr Francis said he became increasingly uneasy about the way the travel industry was using carbon offsets and pulled his company out of the scheme.
He added: "It was not an easy decision. It would have been much easier for me to go on blithely offering offsets, keeping my head below the parapet. But ultimately we need to reduce our carbon emissions. We can do this by flying less – travelling by train or taking holidays closer to home for example, and by making carbon reductions in other areas of our lifestyles too." His decision, however, has been criticised by carbon offset companies who are adamant that buying carbon credits does lead to a tangible reduction in greenhouse gases.
Climate Care did not comment yesterday but James Ramsay, the commercial director of another offsetting firm, Carbon Clear, said: "If you are going to take the view that offsets don't work then presumably you just stop there. But the trajectory that we've got to achieve for climate change doesn't give us the luxury of time. Waiting for, say, the aviation or travel industry to reduce its emissions leaves us way behind the trajectory of achieving 80 percent cuts in global carbon emissions by 2050."
Carbon offsetting is something that has always divided the environmental movement. It was quickly transformed from a minor experimental idea into a multimillion-pound carbon market. Europe's carbon market alone is now worth £81bn and is expected to account for at least half of the European Union's carbon reductions to 2020.
Responsibletravel.com say they will now attach "carbon warnings" to their holiday packages detailing the damage done to the environment by a flight, just as cigarette packets warn of the hazards of smoking. "What we have to do is offer holidays that are the most beneficial to the environment," Mr Francis said. "What we have to tell people is: 'Fly less and when you do fly, make it count'."
A multibillion-pound industry: The cost of a clear conscience
What do some of the major offset companies charge for offsetting a return
flight from London to Sydney for two people?
*Climate Care: 11.23 tonnes of CO2 which costs £98.03 to offset.
*Carbon Clear: 2.82 tonnes of CO2 which costs £21.15 to offset
*The Carbon Neutral Company: 6.1 tonnes of CO2 which costs between £52 and
£122 to offset depending on which project you choose
*Offset Carbon: 8 tonnes of CO2 at £76
*What do you get? Carbon Neutral Company offers a number of options to offset a return flight to Sydney. The cheapest, costing £51.85, goes towards capturing methane gas from a landfill in China, the most expensive (£122) invests in a dam in India.
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Comments
It's like going to the swimming pool, pissing in the pool, and then buying fairtrade biscuits in the cafeteria to say sorry.
Sophie Tanner
governments think we are. Pitiful.
Toolan
i can't help feeling the Independent has fallen for a PR con.
Sounds to me like a piece of outrageous eco-holier-than-thou-hypocrisy.
I can't help feeling that the Independent has fallen for a PR scam.
You will see that the total USA + EU CO2 emissions between 1970 and 2006 have risen from 1.8 GT to around 2.2 GT; hardly any real rise. However the global total has risen from 4.0 GT to around 8.2 GT and shows no sign of even flattening. In other words the USA + EU emissions have gone from around one half to around a quarter. So even if we and the US accept drastic cuts it will make absolutely no real difference to the total.
If you really believe all the hype about catastrophic manmade global warming you had better hope that the developing world will cut drastically its emissions. As this is most unlikely you had better hope we will be able to adapt to higher temperarures.
When will our politicians stop and think rather than panic about what is clearly becoming a non problem?
http://internationalthinking.blogspot.c
At last someone has said what many have been suspecting: that the carbon offset industry is just a PR exercise that allows the polluters to carry on regardless, the politicians to claim to be cutting emissions, and the carbon traders to fill their pockets.
And it has taken him how long to recognise that?
But lo! It is official. Globalwarmism is religion where philosophical belief replaces science - even Pope Gore says so..
The consensus of free thinkers has always know this.
but only by burying the stuff or hiding it from use do you decrease CO2 in the atmosphere.
It is better no better than burning more oil.
Only a sequestation program where you harvest the biofuel (product of photosynthesis)
and store it without use are you removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Its a move by the oil industry to keep us on an oil burning path.
It is a simple cure for global warming if wee put the political will to it.
Energy would have to come from another source whether renewables or nuclear.
Tough love but true.
Ah! So can you tell me what the single simple individual thing is that is the answer? Or can we get over the typical UK/USA thinking of "if something isn't the answer then it's totally useless" at which point we can realise that biofuels can be part of the answer ...
(1) The author chose the wrong "Sydney" from the Carbon Clear calculator. He calculated the footprint for a flight to Sydney, Canada instead of Sydney, Australia. So the comparison with the other offset providers is not like for like.
(2) The main difference between the calculated footprints is in how each company treats the so-called Radiative Forcing Index. This is an estimate of how much additional warming is caused by high altitude flights. The UK Government notes that there is currently no scientific consensus on this issue, so providers will use different scientifically informed estimates ranging from 1.0 to 4.0, and then publicly disclose what multiplier they are using. So again, the comparison is not exactly like for like.
Best regards,
Jamal
Carbon Clear Limited