Carbon Trading - A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power

The main cause of global warming is rapidly increasing carbon dioxide emissions primarily the result of burning fossil fuels despite international agreements to reduce such emissions. The trouble is that despite being aware of the serious situation, very few decision-makers are ready to tackle the problem at its roots. Instead of reducing the extraction of fossil fuels and searching for other solutions, current carbon-trading policies, in practice, favour the further exploitation of these fuels. Furthermore, new tree plantations, which are claimed as a means of mitigating the consequences of increased carbon dioxide pollution, often drive people out of their traditional living grounds and destroy biological diversity. This special report forms part of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation s What Next project. It focuses on carbon trading and is intended to influence current climate politics. In the debate on the Kyoto Protocol few actors have expressed a critical view. It is high time, for the purposes of debate and policy-making, to put the spotlight on the core problem fossil fuel extraction and consumption. This publication, therefore, takes a broad look at several dimensions of carbon trading. It analyses the problems arising from the emerging global carbon market pertaining to the environment, social justice and human rights, and investigates climate mitigation alternatives. It provides a short history of carbon trading and discusses a number of lessons unlearned . Nine case studies from diff erent parts of the world provide examples of the outcomes on the ground of various carbon off set schemes.