function hide_user_promo_bubble_second_stage() { var bubble = $("user_promo_bubble"); bubble.style.display = "none"; } function hide_user_promo_bubble() { var bubble = $("user_promo_bubble"); var myAnim = new YAHOO.util.Anim(bubble, { opacity: { to: 0 } }, 1, YAHOO.util.Easing.easeOut); myAnim.animate(); setTimeout("hide_user_promo_bubble_second_stage()", 1100); } function handle_promo_username(params) { var bubble = $("user_promo_bubble"); var img = $("user_promo_bubble_image"); var anchor = $("user_promo_bubble_link"); if (params.has_photo == "true") { img.src = "http://images.huffingtonpost.com/profiles/" + params.user_id + "-tiny.png"; } else { img.style.display = "none"; Dom.addClass(anchor, "wide"); } anchor.innerHTML = "Shared by " + params.user_name; anchor.href = "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/" + params.user_name; bubble.style.display = "block"; var myAnim = new YAHOO.util.Anim(bubble, { opacity: { to: 1 } }, 2, YAHOO.util.Easing.easeOut); myAnim.animate(); } if (HuffPoUtil.getUrlVar("user_promo")) { YAHOO.util.Event.onDOMReady(function() { var parts = document.location.hash.split(","), shared_by = "", badge = "", i; if (parts.length < 2) return; for (i = 0; i < parts.length; i++) { if (parts[i].indexOf("sb=") !== -1) { shared_by = parts[i]; } if (parts[i].indexOf("b=") !== -1) { badge = parts[i]; } } if (shared_by == "" || badge == "") return; var bubble = $("user_promo_bubble"); if (!bubble) return; var entry_id = HuffPoUtil.GetEntryID(); if (!entry_id) return; var user_id = parseInt(shared_by.substr(shared_by.indexOf("sb=") + 3)); if (!user_id) return; var badge_type = badge.substr(badge.indexOf("b=") + 2); if (!badge_type) return; script = document.createElement("script"); script.setAttribute("type", "text/javascript"); bubble.appendChild(script); script.setAttribute("src", "/include/share_track.php?a=view&eid=" + entry_id + "&uid=" + user_id + "&b=" + badge_type + "&cb=handle_promo_username"); }); } Polluters Are Buying Their Way Out Of Carbon Cuts In The EU

BRUSSELS — Major European polluters are buying their way out of making big cuts to greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon offsets that pay for environmental programs in developing nations, a nonprofit group said Friday.

To avoid the high cost of becoming greener, power companies and steel makers are using offsets to meet emissions-reduction requirements, and thus undermining the EU's cap-and-trade program that would otherwise punish them financially for not cleaning up their operations, the group Sandbag said.

Businesses and regulators should be "striving for the highest environmental standards, rather than the minimum level of compliance," said the British-based nonprofit organization, which campaigns for stricter cap-and-trade rules to require companies to make bigger cuts.

Sandbag says European polluters are becoming heavily dependent on buying U.N.-monitored offsets, which pay for solar panels in India or environmental cleanup in China, in exchange for canceling out part of the company's emissions. As a result, the company can avoid buying pollution permits from the EU's cap-and-trade program.

Spanish energy company Endesa SA bought offsets worth a quarter of its total emissions, Sandbag said, while German steel maker ThyssenKrupp AG offset 29.6 percent of its emissions and Italian power firm Enel SpA purchased offsets for 12.4 percent of its carbon output.

The group said its data came from a European Union database, but it did not say how much money the companies had spent on the offsets.

Sandbag urged the EU executive to tighten its cap-and-trade program, saying more needs to be done to make sure offsets are not a "replacement for domestic action."

Offsets are supposed to help pay for projects in poor nations that would help them reduce future carbon emissions.

But Sandbag says most of the offset money from wealthy European companies bypasses needy African nations and goes to wealthier, developing countries such as China, India and Brazil.

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China dominates the offset scene, with some 41 percent of all projects. India has 31 percent, South Korea has 15 percent and Brazil 8 percent.

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On The Net:

Sandbag offset report: http://sandbag.org.uk/offsetmap

Know something we don't? E-mail us at [e-mail]

Comments

[econ1]

This is the whole point of cap and trade. Whether you emit a CO2 molecule in Europe or India doesn't matter.

If it is more efficient to up grade a steel plant in China than eke out a tiny improvement in a pretty clean one in Germany, you should do the one in China first.

[lightningbolt]

This is exactly why cap and trade is not a solution to climate change. Governments need to invest directly into clean renewable technology, electric cars and railroads and tax fossil fuels to pay for it. Once this infrastructure is in place and we have enough energy to power everything, fossil fuels should be made illegal for large scale use and transportation.

[Hieroglyph83]

Isn't this the point of cap and trade...

[research]

Cap and TAX!

transfer all subsides from fossil and nukes to green energy.

Green energy: solar wind and Bio Fuels can supply all the world energy, electricity, and fuel needs, cleanly cheaply safely and forever.

see my profile for links and proof.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

[LMPE]

These people try to buy their way into heaven...although these actions are destining them for hell.

[Agentlady007]

I am about to post an email I received from Al Gore today. Of course his emails are impersonal now, and I am only " Dear Friend", of course it may be because I no longer had the original email, but who has time to over analyse these days?
Anyway, Europe is news? What happened to making America the example? We are producing more plastic and excreetining more emmission unfiltered by passing plants to " Keep America Strong" in the corporate world, and yet we are responsible for cancer in the sky. We are not the Daisy country to the Rose Europe. We are going to obviously have to cure ourselves before any other country followsa us.

[NWBrunette]

Well of course they are. That's why they fought so hard to have the deal structured the way it is. So they could buy there way out of doing anything. Check out the issue of Harpers a month or two ago for a full story on the incredible fraud.

[Jesse Taylor]

Why not just nationalize the most heavily polluting industries, such as energy, mineral extraction/production, auto makers, etc.? If heavy industry is nationalized, it then becomes a *democratic* institution, which answers directly to the citizens of the United States -- we control who makes decisions, which decisions get made, and how the profits get spent. The profits can then go directly into public programs that benefit everyone. Private oil corporations, on the other hand, are plutocratic institutions -- they answer only to the wealthy investors who hold large shares of oil company stock -- they make the decisions, and the profits go directly to their personal bank accounts.

The whole point of cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes is to exert indirect control over oil corporations and hope that they don't find a loophole around it and continue business as usual. What's so unreasonable about exerting direct, democratic control over them and *ensuring* that they change, AND giving U.S. citizens billions of dollars in public funding that could be spent on education, health care, etc. instead of purchasing yachts and country club memberships for oil company executives?

The corporate media and PR spin masters have made "nationalization" into just as much of a boogeyman as "socialism" (i.e. spreading wealth somewhat equally throughout society, instead of putting it all into the hands of a few). But other than oil company executives and investors, who exactly benefits from the industry in private hands?

[cintirich]

So companies buy carbon ofsets to comply with the Cap and Trade scheme...which was EXACTLY the point of cap and trade. Not to reduce emmisions, which obviously won't happen, but to redistribute wealth. And yet there are still complaints.

Working as the intended scam that it is, I'd say.

[AldotheApache]

Thats the whole point of a

fraudulent, extortion, shake down.

Get entities with money to pay you off.

What is so hard to understand?

[PlayTOE]

If polluters have to buy offsets *(which will rise in cost due to competition), then at some point the clean up is cheaper.

[LeLoup]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSNQzSjb38g

In this video, two EPA lawyers with 40+ years of combined experience explain why cap and trade is a monstrous scam, whereas fee and benefits is much more adequate system to really decrease greenhouse gases.

[John Mainstream]

In the United States, cap & trade would only apply to energy producers that aren't politically connected. A more fair approach would be to require that everyone meet the same standards, with plenty of time to transition to cleaner energy as new technologies become available.