Carbon credits are essentially perfect in theory, if they're sold at auction worldwide and governments are compliant with them. They also seem to be perfect even if implemented within a single country.
What this article seems to be arguing is that credits are:
1) misallocated initially, presumably because they're allocated as opposed to being auctioned, and therefore there are too many,
2) not enforced or monitored well enough (if you sell credits promising to plant a forest and then don't plant it, or you cut it down later), and
3) particularly not enforced across international boundaries (because who's gonna check?).
The first two seem politically solvable within countries. The third, I think, is a decent argument as to why cross-border carbon credit selling should be disallowed, or allowed only between countries that can prove compliance (e.g. between countries like France and Germany). Rather, international treaties should set each country's overall permitted carbon output by year.
If the article is trying to suggest that carbon credits are a failure and shouldn't be pursued further, I think it's tremendously wrong, especially since it doesn't provide a better alternative. But if it's trying to point out implementation pitfalls so we can avoid them and create carbon credits that work, then I support that 1,000%.
So it's tricky because it's unclear to me what the author's actual agenda is.
Carbon credits are essentially perfect in theory, if they're sold at auction worldwide and governments are compliant with them. They also seem to be perfect even if implemented within a single country.
What this article seems to be arguing is that credits are:
1) misallocated initially, presumably because they're allocated as opposed to being auctioned, and therefore there are too many,
2) not enforced or monitored well enough (if you sell credits promising to plant a forest and then don't plant it, or you cut it down later), and
3) particularly not enforced across international boundaries (because who's gonna check?).
The first two seem politically solvable within countries. The third, I think, is a decent argument as to why cross-border carbon credit selling should be disallowed, or allowed only between countries that can prove compliance (e.g. between countries like France and Germany). Rather, international treaties should set each country's overall permitted carbon output by year.
If the article is trying to suggest that carbon credits are a failure and shouldn't be pursued further, I think it's tremendously wrong, especially since it doesn't provide a better alternative. But if it's trying to point out implementation pitfalls so we can avoid them and create carbon credits that work, then I support that 1,000%.
So it's tricky because it's unclear to me what the author's actual agenda is.