[Terrapreta] Carbon Credit Creation and Trading

[Duane Pendergast]

Kevin

 

I think your skepticism is well founded.

 

My website has Google ads and the right words re credit trading and carbon
dioxide management to attract a lot of ads from organizations eager to sell
credits. Most of them include some rather loosely defined promise to invest
in wind power, buy credits from some sink project etc, etc. I think one
would be wise to consider corporate credentials quite closely before buying
them. If you want to look at the ads be my guest. My website is
www.computare.org <http://www.computare.org/> . You might transfer a little
of the advertisers cash to Google and me.

 

I like your astute comment about the "swipe cards" to charge carbon credits.
A related scheme was studied by Canada's National Climate Change Process a
few years ago (1999). It was rejected as too complex. Frankly, I can't think
of anything much simpler. Governments in cahoots with gasoline sellers and
credit card companies could do it quite easily. Gasoline pumps and credit
cards collect all the data needed to measure individual emissions from cars.
They could mandate gasoline purchases only by credit card - eliminating the
need for another "swipe" card. Setting the cap for individuals might prove a
difficult proposition.

 

I did remind Canada's federal government, somewhat facetiously of course,
that such a scheme might be workable. A passage from my formal submission is
quoted below. Politicians do have an eye on bottom line votes though so I
had no expectation my suggestion would be taken seriously. I was just trying
to twist the tiger's tail a bit. It includes a link to the above mentioned
study of carbon credit trading at the mobile source level.

"I noted at the stakeholder meeting that Eric Reguly, a writer for the Globe
and Mail, had defined, as an example, a capped permit allowance  and trading
system imposed on  personal automobiles. This would be based on providing
permits for a capped level of emissions. I suggested, somewhat tongue in
cheek, that such a system would allow Canadians to put their money directly
into fighting climate change. They would have the option of buying more
permits to operate highly emitting vehicles - or investing in lower emitting
vehicles  and perhaps selling their permits to others. The Panel noted that
such a scheme had been considered and was rejected as being too complex to
administer with so many participants.  

Perusal of the Transportation Issue Table background reports reveals that a
study
<http://www.tc.gc.ca/programs/environment/climatechange/subgroups1/Emissions
_Trading/study1/Final_Report/Final_Report.htm>   of such a scheme was
undertaken.  It does not seem to have been considered very seriously in the
Transportation Table Options Report.    Perhaps a personal transport permit
allocation and trading scheme should be reconsidered in view of the apparent
disinterest in a broader scheme imposed on large firms?  Such a scheme would
focus public attention on a most important economic sector that is
responsible for substantial emissions. It seems it would avoid most of the
regional inequities as all regions depend on a substantial component of
personal transportation. Personal vehicles have a relatively short life
compared with other capital stock making the transition to lower emission
technology in transport more fitting to the Kyoto first period timeline. Low
emission vehicles are now available. Governments and the public will need
experience with capping emissions in the long run and application to the
personal transport sector would provide learning and experience base for
broader applications. Finally, such a scheme could possibly raise some
funding for other measures depending on whether consumers choose to reduce
their emissions or just pay for more permits."

This is getting a long way from basic terra preta issues so I changed the
subject name. To me the intriguing feature of terra preta is its direct
potential for enhancing soil. That might be more important than the
atmospheric carbon dioxide removal aspect in the long run.

 

Duane 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20070605/0b14f917/attachment.html