Carbon offsetting might be just as ineffectual as hugging trees.

Carbon offsetting might be just as ineffectual as hugging trees.

As I stare out the window of my Thai Airways International flight to Bali, I am extremely self-conscious about the amount of carbon I am putting into the atmosphere.

Published on December 10, 2007

The aircraft's 250 passengers will each be responsible for about 400 kilograms on the four-hour journey over the Indian Ocean.

Worse still, many of us are on our way to the United Nations' 13th climate change summit, where it is estimated that 75,000 tonnes of carbon will be released into the atmosphere by the 15,000 attendees during the two-week conference. That is equivalent to the amount of carbon Thai-land's 200 power plants generate in 8.5 hours.

Well aware of this apparent hypocrisy, United Nations organisers and the Indonesian government have planned to plant 4.5 million trees that, once mature, are supposed to absorb 900,000 tonnes of carbon annually. This is what is known as carbon offset: compensating for our continued contribution to global warming by supporting activities designed to reduce carbon emissions.

On paper, this looks like a win-win situation. For two weeks of carbon emissions, the world gets 12 times that amount in carbon reduction each year for the life of the trees. But campaigners and scientists warn us that such gains may be vastly overstated.

Moreover, it is feared that such logic, which now lies at the heart of much of the international negotiations in Bali, misses the main point. It is not enough to focus on measures to manage greenhouse gas emissions once they have been released; we must reduce the amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere from the start in case these offsets fail to provide their promised benefits - a likely scenario with these tree-planting schemes.

In addition to carbon dioxide, nutrients from the soil and sunlight, trees also require a lot of water. This lost water may no longer be available for other plants and carbon-consuming organisms downstream, thus cutting into the forecast carbon-absorbing benefits.

Secondly, the trees eventually die and rot, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere, or are harvested, causing products to be released into the waste stream and releasing carbon.

There may be ethical issues as well. Tree-planting projects may take away valuable agricultural land from rural people who lack the political power to retain their holdings. In some instances, these communities may still be transitioning from having their land originally stripped by intensive logging. While some of these programmes may occur under the banner of reforestation, the reality is that many projects involve establishing monoculture plantations, which will absorb but a fraction of the carbon of the native ecosystem.

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that all these trees will actually get planted. Three years ago, the World Conservation Union brought 3,000 of its members to Bangkok for its World Congress. Tree planting and other projects were supposed to be undertaken in Thailand to offset the estimated 8,000 tonnes of carbon their delegates were responsible for producing during their stay. Such projects have not been fully realised. Who will make sure the same thing does not happen when the United Nations packs its bags and leaves Bali?

These tree-planting offsets have now become big business. Hundreds of private companies have emerged to take money from you to offset your airline flights, automobile use or the energy you use in your home or office.

Many airlines, including Qantas, Air Canada, SAS, Virgin and Singapore Airlines, offer passengers the choice to pay extra for carbon-offset programmes being undertaken by the airlines in partnership with these companies. Thai Airways is considering introducing the same thing.

Critics of carbon-offset programmes say they fail to change people's consumption patterns and encourage consumers to continue polluting the environment, as long as they make a financial contribution.

And where does that money really go? Do trees really get planted? At best, you are probably paying someone Bt1,000 who will pay someone else Bt100, who may or may not get around to planting any trees.

It is precisely this lack of accountability and accounting that lies at the heart of concerns for the large carbon-trading schemes being put on the table in Bali. But even if the efficiency and integrity concerns surrounding these carbon-offset programmes could be guaranteed, they do not solve the main problem: ensuring global carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.

A United Nations panel of scientists has stated that we must attempt to keep the global average temperature from rising an additional 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst effects of global warming, such as rising sea levels, extreme weather, floods, drought and desertification. This will require global carbon dioxide emissions to be on the decline by 2015 and cut in half by 2050. So far, there is absolutely no global plan for how such a target can be achieved.

Certainly reforestation, done in a way that works to restore native ecosystems in consultation with affected communities, should be supported, but it is time to cease the practice of marketing tree planting as a major solution to global warming when, in the long-run, it could actually accomplish very little.

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The Nation