What is carbon trading?
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.
This report describes the different country proposals on the table to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in the lead up to a forest climate agreement to be agreed by the UNFCCC in December 2009. It looks at whether or not these proposals look beyond carbon values in forests and respect local peoples' rights.
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