The Upset About International Offsets

• Pages: 48-49

Page 48 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2010

THE FORUM

e Upset About

International Of‌fsets

The notion of of‌fsets for global warming

pollutants is a perfect win-win for the en-

vironment, or so it seems at f‌irst glance.

Of‌fsets enable emitters who face reduc-

tion mandates and concomitant costs to

pay other emitters who can reduce more cheaply to

do so, resulting in the same cutback but at a lower

price. An early version occurred in Central Europe

after the downfall of communism, when western

plants and facilities along the border realized that

there was low-hanging fruit in the former con-

trolled economies. ere, because the government

owned the capital it had been lenient on pollution,

which af‌fected countries in the West.

Beyond the problem of transboundary pollu-

tion is the global warming context. Of‌fsets were

enshrined in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the U.N.

Framework Convention on Climate Change as the

Clean Development Mechanism. e CDM allows

emitters in the rich countries, which face manda-

tory reductions in greenhouse gasses, to f‌inance

projects in the developing world, which has no re-

quired cutbacks.

But early on analysts pointed out that a key need

is to prove that the reduction would not have oc-

curred in a business-as-usual context. Another

problem is to monitor the of‌fsets to ensure that

they continue over time, which particularly af‌fects

forestry-based projects. And some have criticized

the practice at a basic level, accusing developed

countries of evading reductions at their facilities

and thus undermining a global movement to phase

out carbon-based fuels and other pollutants that

contribute to climate change.