In the fight against greenhouse gases, carbon trading is the rage. A company that wants to avoid the cost of curbing its own emissions puts money into a fund that goes to reducing a like amount of GHG emissions in the Third World. It's a form of pollution control on the cheap but it's also an emissions neutral practice and a bargain at that.
Why should we measure the offset this way? Why not set a figure somewhat higher, since it's so cheap anyway?
We could tell our polluters that they could resort to carbon trading on a 2:1 basis. For every credit they wished to buy they would have to pay for twice the excessive carbon output they wish to maintain. I'll bet it'd still be a bargain and it would result in a meaningful carbon reduction to boot.
Alternately we could assess the "opportunity cost" of avoiding the cleanup (why should conscientious competitors be put at a disadvantage?) and fix a figure, say of 2/3rds to fund carbon reduction projects elsewhere.
As George Monbiot writes, the 1:1 ratio in carbon trading is akin to moving your food around on your plate. Simple offsets are not nearly enough and we're doing ourselves a real disservice by embracing that mentality.
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