A load of hot air
Posted by Paul 16 February 2007This morning the front page of The Australian newspaper has an article on how you can buy a carbon credit to offset your cat’s flatulence creating greenhouse gases.
(http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au).
The world has gone completely mad.
Let me say from the outset that I absolutely believe that we have to respond to climate change by reducing our emissions. I also believe that in many cases the wrong question is being asked. The right question is “can we create a strong viable economy with more regional jobs that is less carbon based”. If the answer to that question is yes then we should stop arguing about climate change numbers and get on with the job.
Having got that out of the way lets go back to cats and farting. While this makes a good media story it is actually going against where we need to go. A while ago I did some work for a major environmental group. During that process I expressed a view that the supply of green energy to consumers who wanted it was a good idea. I was aghast to be strongly attacked for this statement but on reflection they were exactly right. Their response was “when are we going to get to a system where the people who do the wrong thing are going to pay more, instead of the people who are trying to do the right thing paying more”.
This has always stuck in my head and informs my thinking on what we need to do. I strongly believe that for many problems markets can produce the most efficient outcome (anybody who wants a simple explanation of how this works should read The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford) but the most efficient outcome is not necessarily the most effective.
What we need is a comprehensive carbon trading market that is directed towards the problems of climate change. Then the market will find the most efficient way of delivering emission reduction because as Paul Keating was fond of saying “always bet on self interest, it is always trying”. In all likelihood middle class individuals assuaging their guilt by buying carbon offset credits will still be part of the results of such a system but I can tolerate that if we have a trading process that delivers real change.
People being able to buy carbon offset credits for cat farts in this way reduces political pressure to get on with the job and create a real carbon trading system that will deal with the problem, lets get on with that.