We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

False Solutions: Pitfalls of Emissions Trading / Risks of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Geo-Engineering

Click here to access a 17:46 video and transcript of a panel discussion in English from Kontext (Germany).

I had difficulty playing the video on this site. You can also access it at this link, and from TNI (I used right click to operate video).
The emission trading scheme has failed as an instrument to curb global warming. The reason for the failure is that there has never been a global cap on carbon emissions. In the end loopholes have caused stagnating or even rising emissions, says Alice Bows-Larkin. Additionally problematic mega-dams have been pushed as green projects. To include forests and soils in the emission trading like it is done with the program REED+ in the Paris agreement would follow a “perverse logic”, says former chief climate negotiator of Bolivia Pablo Solón. Only those who reduce deforestation get carbon credits as a kind of reward. Troubling is also that scientists and politicians rely on carbon capture and storage and geo-engeneering to reduce our emissions in the future. Instead of following these kind of dangerous solutions politics should rather stop the pollution by reducing the extraction of oil, gas and coal in the first place.
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