Page 84 - Carbon Frauds and Corruption

Corruption of Bribery

Chapter 6 : Corruption in the “Carbon World”

It is reliably estimated that power companies which gained an estimated €19 billion from
excessive allowances in ETS’s first phase, stand to gain a further €71 billion in phase 2 (2008‐2012)
and a further $4.8 billion for trial running carbon capture and storage projects. In addition
excessive subsidies to energy intensive industries in phase 1 and phase 2 are estimated to exceed
€20 billion. These windfalls were available for distribution to shareholders rather than being used
for environmental investment. Excess allocations to industrial operators yielded at least €7 billion
97
in windfall profits a year. And who picks up the bill, do you ask ?
Given the above background it is not wholly surprising that Public Service Europe describe the
ETS as:

"Like a cargo ship stranded on the beach…. Grounded on the hard economic realities facing Europe. It sits there
looking lonely and pointless thanks to the failure to secure an international deal. Instead of lucky locals picking
over crates of consumer goods, there are big businesses and financiers making handsome profits at the expense of
poor consumers”

But worse still is the hard reality that the massive edifice of the “Carbon World” has
accomplished virtually nothing in reducing European let alone global carbon emissions.

As one commentator said: “Europe did emissions reduction the easy way. It introduced so much red tape its
businesses imploded”

12 OFFSET PROJECTS
12.1 Introduction
World Resource Institute defines “offsets” as:

2e
“A unit of carbon dioxide equivalent CO that is reduced, avoided or sequestered to compensate for emissions
occurring elsewhere”

In the Kyoto context, “carbon credits” are usually generated through Clean Development
Mechanism or Joint Investment projects. The principle is that the price of an offset which is set in
an efficient market is such that it is less expensive than other mitigation options for Kyoto
obligated countries and companies. The voluntary market has created its own methodologies
and verification standards but, in general, they work along CDM lines.

12.2 Project Flow
12.2.1 Overview
The starting point is a commercial and technical proposal – usually consisting of an Approved
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Methodology, Project Design Document and Monitoring Plan by a potential participant in a
CDM, JI project or voluntary project. Typically research will have been completed with

97 We all do. But it’s a “noble cause: innit?”
98 These have to be on a template provided by the UNFCCC

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