Skip to Content

You are here

Home » Campaigns » Carbon Trading »

What is carbon trading?

Carbon trading is currently the central pillar of the Kyoto Protocol and other international agreements aimed at slowing climate change.

Carbon trading has both proponents and critics but is increasingly coming in for criticism, not least because CO2 emissions in industrialised countries have continued to rise rather than drastically drop as a result of energy infrastructure changes. The mechaniscs of carbon trading along with responses to the most commonly cited arguments for carbon trading are described in 'Trading Carbon. How it works and why it's controversial', FERN’s beginners guide to carbon trading. For links to many academic and activist articles on why carbon trading is not the answer if avoiding runaway climate change is the challenge, check out the CornerHouse website. 

FERN believes that carbon trading is a dangerous distraction from the important task of ending industrial use of fossil fuel and moving to a low carbon future. FERN focuses its campaigns on highlighting actions that the EU must take at home to ensure its carbon footprint is drastically reduced and it achieves its stated aim of keeping climate change below 2C.

FERN also believes that carbon trading becomes even more dangerous when it involves carbon offset projects - as is currently the case for all existing and planned carbon trading or 'cap-and-trade' schemes. For more information on carbon offset proejcts that involve tree planting please see SinksWatch.

 

 

Campaigns: 
Carbon Trading

Most recent publications

Why carbon markets will not deliver for Southern governments, forests and people

November 29, 2011

Many governments believe that carbon trading will provide substantial funding to protect or sustainably manage forests in their countries via proposed schemes to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). This briefing, signed on to by 28 organisations explains why carbon markets will not deliver for Southern governments, forests and peoples.
DocumentSize
carbonleaflet_25nov.pdf326.76 KB

An end to forest offsets

October 24, 2011

This manual was put together by the partners of the Grundtvig Learning Partnership “Forests and climate protection – merging topics in environmental education”. It provides background information for developing new approaches in environmental education focusing on the intricate relation of forests and climate. For fully footnoted and referenced information about the problems with carbon trading and offsets please see Designed to fail.

DocumentSize
An-end-to-forest-offsets-final.pdf355.36 KB

Submission to the UK climate change committee enquiry into the EU ETS

September 6, 2011

This submission to the "EU Emissions Trading System: New Inquiry" shows that fundamental flaws in the design of the EU ETS have been exposed by (a) a series of fraud and cybercrime incidents; (b) the excessive use of carbon offsets by companies hoarding higher-value EU ETS permits received free of charge; and (c) the lack of a functioning regulatory possibility to adjust thesupply of EU ETS emission permits to a sharp economic downturn, and theresulting drop in emissions far below projected levels that were used to calculate permit allocation.

DocumentSize
FERN submission on the EU ETS to the energy and climate change committee.pdf372.59 KB

Submission to UN consultation on new market-based mechanisms to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and promote, mitigation actions

February 24, 2011

This submission concludes that the EU ETS and the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon trading schemes have been designed to fail: they assume the contribution of carbon permits and offset credits to limiting greenhouse gas emissions to a verifiable target to be the same, when in reality they are not because calculation of offsets depends on unverifiable hypothetical baselines from which offset volumes are calculated.

DocumentSize
UN Markets submission_FERN_FOE-US.pdf245.95 KB

FERN submission to a commodity futures trading commission study

December 21, 2010

FERN’s input into the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and interagency working group’s forthcoming study on the oversight of existing and prospective carbon markets. It concludes that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon trading schemes have been designed to fail and that it is difficult to see how subsequent regulation could remedy a situation where the challenge is not to remedy design flaws but where the design is the flaw.  

DocumentSize
2010 12 17 FERN Submission to CFTC on carbon markets.pdf52.94 KB

ForestWatch Issue 155 December 2010

December 15, 2010
  • Social criteria are permissible in timber procurement policy
  • Questions remain about Cancun forests agreement
  • A bold move: the EP votes to address ECA flaws
  • The future of CAP: opinions welcome
  • Agrofuel plans drive destruction

DocumentSize
FW 155 December 2010.pdf217.33 KB

Pages