The world is going to fry – unless there is change soon. There is weakening political will to make national and international targets for carbon reduction stick, no strong business and financial coalition prepared to lead and a weakening groundswell of public opinion prepared to foot the bill.

Instead, the international consensus of 25 years ago – that the world must act to challenge climate change – is dissolving. Individual countries are trying to steal a march on each other in a race to the bottom, dropping whatever scant penalties there have been for burning fossil fuels.

This new political geography has been obvious ever since the Copenhagen talks collapsed in 2009, but last week the speed with which ground is being lost became sickeningly obvious. The European parliament refused to back a stop-gap measure to save the European carbon emissions trading scheme. This allows EU companies economising on carbon to sell an allowance to those who are less efficient.

The theory is that the higher the price, the greater the incentive to economise on carbon use and the greater the value in being carbon efficient. But overloaded with sellers and too few buyers, because policing the use of carbon is completely ineffective, the European carbon price has collapsed. The European Commission proposed to clear away the backlog of sellers with a one-off buyout of the overhang of carbon permits and so support the price, but parliament was not prepared to back the cost. The scheme is as good as dead.

What's more, a new report, Unburnable Carbon 2013, showed that stock markets worldwide are cumulatively valuing coal, oil and energy companies' huge reserves of fossil fuels as if they will all be burned, even though, at best, only 40% could ever be used if the world is to cap the increase in global temperatures by 2C this century. Further, in 2012, the top 200 energy companies spent $674bn on finding new reserves, reinforcing the collective absurdity. In other words, there is either a carbon bubble with investors and companies wildly over-speculating on the value of owning fuel reserves that can never be burned, or nobody believes there is the remotest chance that the world will stick to the limits on fossil fuel use congruent with containing global warming.

The report's authors, the Carbon Tracker Initiative and the LSE's Grantham Research Institute, gamely assume the former and thus warn that the world stands on the verge of another financial crisis. The world's top 200 fossil fuel companies are currently valued at $4trn, with $1.5trn of debt. But that implies they would burn all their carbon reserves, increasing global temperatures by at least 6C, with untold consequences for life on Earth. As that is too awful to contemplate, there is a rapidly approaching moment of reckoning for world stock markets as the realisation grows that valuations and business strategies are self-defeatingly irrational – and $4trn of value could be suddenly halved.

The markets are only reflecting the political and cultural reality. A decade-long fierce fight-back by the conservative right, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world against what it sees as environmental socialism, has struck a near-fatal blow to the climate change case. Climate change deniers insist that the volatility in world weather patterns and the rise in temperatures evident in the rapidly melting Arctic are most likely natural phenomena and the science is wrong. Or, even if it is right, the better option is to adapt to climate change rather than give in to "socialism" to prevent it.

It is a case history of how today's political economy works, with the US the heartland of a dysfunctionality that has spread across the west. It is impossible to muster a congressional majority for what the right depicts as policies that are anti-American, anti-liberty and – given the shale gas revolution – unnecessary.....

UnevenSurface

21 April 2013 12:49am

- I haven't yet seen anything credible to show that there is any practical way (aside from scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere in a gigantic scale) of preventing this being a disaster anyway, whatever changes we make now. Atmospheric CO2 at 395ppm is a death sentence (to the climate and our current civilisation, probably not the species) already. While we chat, it's increasing at 2.7ppm/year. Action now could at best start to reduce the increase a little, which a) isn't going to happen thanks to fossil fuel addiction, and b) isn't going to make enough difference anyway.

Whats required is a resource based economy and complete abandonment of the monetary paradigm.

Feel free to elaborate on how either of these objectives will be achieved...

Voluntary vs. mandatory carbon credits
Carbon credits are a highly regulated medium of exchange used to 'offset', or neutralize, carbon dioxide emissions. A single carbon credit generally represents the right to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent mass of another greenhouse gas.

In the voluntary carbon offset market, individuals and businesses purchase carbon credits on a voluntary basis in order to lower their carbon footprint, or the total amount of carbon emissions that result from their activities. Carbon offsets can mitigate the environmental damage caused by emissions-producing activities like using electricity, driving a car or traveling by air. They are often offered as an add-on fee when purchasing flights, rental cars, hotel rooms and tickets to special events.

Larger companies, governments and other entities may be required by law to purchase carbon credits in order to emit greenhouse gases. This 'compliance market' of carbon offsets is based on the cap and trade principle, which sets a limit on the amount of pollution a company is allowed to emit within a period of time. If the company stays under the limit, it can sell the remainder of its carbon credits to other companies.

How carbon credits mitigate emissions
When companies or individuals purchase carbon credits, where does the money go? In the voluntary market, carbon offsets are used to fund projects which absorb or eliminate an amount of carbon dioxide gas that is equal to the amount emitted. When consumers purchase carbon credits from reputable carbon offset providers, the money is used for specified projects like planting forests, which absorb carbon naturally, or diverting methane gas from livestock farms for conversion into electricity at a power plant.

Another type of offset, called renewable energy credits (RECs), supports renewable energy efforts like wind or solar power. While carbon offsets reduce a verifiable amount of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, RECs supply a certain amount of renewable energy power to the market, subsidizing the cost of developing these technologies.

In the case of mandatory carbon credits, the goal of placing a value on carbon emissions is to induce carbon credit purchases to choose less carbon-intensive activities. Companies that emit less enjoy higher profits by selling their rights to produce carbon dioxide emissions. This way, emissions become just as integral a cost of doing business as materials or labor.

Carbon credit controversy: does it work?
Essentially, carbon offsets work by allowing polluters to pay others to make their carbon reductions for them. Some critics of the carbon credit system argue that this method reduces personal responsibility for controlling greenhouse gas emissions, allowing purchasers to use excessive electricity at home or drive a fuel-intensive vehicle without guilt. Companies with a larger profit margin could use carbon credits as a license to pollute freely.

There are also issues with the validity of the carbon reductions promised by some carbon offset providers. Some companies claim to provide carbon offset services by funding tree-planting schemes that are not verified or regulated, so that concrete carbon reduction numbers aren't available. Those wishing to purchase carbon offsets voluntarily should seek out providers like TerraPass and Carbon Fund, where emissions reductions are verified by independent third parties.

Of course, the mandatory carbon credit market and cap and trade system has its own complex set of pros and cons, frequently debated by governments, corporations, environmental experts and the public. There is significant disagreement on whether cap and trade is superior to a carbon tax, which would be levied on the use of fossil fuels, and whether carbon trading schemes should be managed internationally or within individual nations.

he Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 as an international and legally binding agreement that established rules for 37 industrialized countries and the European community to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (note that the U.S. signed the Treaty, but did not Ratify it in the Senate, and is therefore not an active party to the Treaty). The Kyoto Protocol introduced three market-based mechanisms, thereby creating what is now known as the first compliance “carbon market.” Kyoto mechanisms are: Emissions Trading, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and Joint Implementation (JI). These mechanisms are established to: 1) stimulate sustainable development through technology transfer and investment; 2) help countries with Kyoto commitments to meet their targets by reducing emissions or removing carbon from the atmosphere in other countries in a cost-effective way; and 3) encourage the private sector and developing countries to contribute to emission reduction efforts. Most of these reductions occur through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and fuel switching projects. While mitigation activity may occur in developed countries, the CDM is designed to encourage mitigation in developing nations through the transfer of improved technology. The primary focus of the CDM is to promote clean development in developing countries where environmental regulation is generally weaker than it is in developed countries. It is widely thought that there is greater potential for developing countries to reduce their emissions than developed countries.[....]
What is the disagreement surrounding carbon credits?

Carbon offsets are sometimes critiqued as a way for wealthy nations or corporations to easily (and cheaply) pay for their pollution rather than actually changing the way they do business. This is sometimes compared to buying papal indulgences, or argued against in even stronger terms (see www.carbontradewatch.org for a look at these criticisms).

In most cases, these are honest arguments that boil down to a central idea: if CO2 offsets are used irresponsibly without simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ending our global addiction to fossil-fuel consumption, and correcting the injustices in our systems of production and resource extraction, then they might actually do more harm than good.

At ClearSky Climate Solutions, we sincerely agree with this concept. We do need to re-engineer our energy generation systems around the globe and commit to leaving fossil fuels in the ground, in combination with a sincere and effective approach to reducing demand – through reducing consumption and increasing efficiency of the energy we do use. ClearSky also believes that we need to be attentive to past and current injustices that harm the livelihoods of human and natural communities.[......]

State governments are charging ahead of the federal government to adopt binding agreements for greenhouse gas reduction (see the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, the Western Climate Initiative, and the California Climate Action Reserve, among other sites).
The USA formally submitted a voluntary climate action pledge, in accordance with the Copenhagen Accord provisions agreed upon in December 2009. Currently, the USA’s stated goal is to reduce emissions 17% from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83% by 2050. You can keep track of all of the national pledges at the Climate Action Tracker website.
The USA broke records by installing more than 10,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity in 2009, boosting our nation’s overall wind capacity to more than 35,000 megawatts. See more figures from the US Department of Energy.
Numerous attempts at climate change legislation have been drafted and presented in the Senate and House of Representatives. There currently appears to be little hope of any comprehensive legislation passing, but there is good potential for portions of a climate change legislative package to be split off and passed.

Am i wrong to not really be concerned at all about climate change?

I understand pollution is bad...

Am i wrong to not really be concerned at all about climate change?

I understand pollution is bad...

I would worry about climate before the economy.

I was talking about being a worry to me. You might worry about mad max but not me.

i-baster wrote:
Not really no....if it goes all mad max then you'll be worried about hordes raping and plundering their way through cities, mass disease, famine, powercuts, no fresh water supplies, no fuel pumped and generally hell in a handbasket long before we even see 1 degree celsius increase let alone 0.4.

So no I really fail to see how the climate is relevant compared to that. If you can show that the world will boil in 2 years then by all means do so.

andyh wrote:
I completely agree with this