Gore movie inspires ‘carbon offsets’ sales (Yet Another Inconvenient Truth)

Ecotality ^ | 4/4/07 | Bill Hobbs

[conservative in nyc]

The success of Al Gore’s global warming shockumentary An Inconvenient Truth has created a very convenient truth for companies that sell “carbon offsets,” reports today’s edition of The Tennessean: Rising sales.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the company from which Gore gets his own carbon offsets spends very litle of its revenue on carbon-offsetting projects, according to a recent study by the Tufts University Climate Initiative. More on that in a minute.

And read this whole post - it isn’t just about Gore and his carbon offsets, but about the larger issue of whether carbon offsets are in and of themselves a good thing. We’ll start with part of The Tennessean’s story on how Gore’s movie is pumping up the sales of carbon offsets…

Offsets aren’t a new idea, but they’ve become more popular since release of the film. While green-conscious consumers insist every little bit helps, doubters accuse them of falling prey to scientifically unsound hype.

The paper quotes Kevin Smith, Carbon Trade Watch in London, calling carbon offsets “modern-day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon-conscious public to absolve their climate sins.” Smith and Carbon Trade Watch are not “global warming denialists” or in the pocket of the oil industry. They favor an accountable, effective carbon trading market, not the unproven, unaccountable and unverifiable “carbon offsets” gimmickry that the Gore movie apparently has spurred to greater sales. Smith calls offsets are “marketing gimmicks at a time when ‘collective political action’ is needed to tackle climate change.”

Carbon Trade Watch has released a report, The Carbon Neutral Myth - Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins.

Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice as offset projects are inflicted on them. This report argues that offsets place disproportionate emphasis on individual lifestyles and carbon footprints, distracting attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches involves moving away from the marketing gimmicks, celebrity endorsements, technological quick fixes, and the North/South exploitation that the carbon offsets industry embodies.

You can download the report here in an 80-page PDF file.

As for the movie’s impact on carbon offsets, The Tennessean reports that the makers of An Inconvenient Truth claim it was itself “carbon neutral” because the movie producers purchased offsets through a company called NativeEnergy. And in a nice bit of you-scratch-our-back-we’ll-scratch-yours, NativeEnergy promotes An Inconvenient Truth on its website.

The Tennessean story also contains this bit of info about Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, saying that it “also is involved in offsets, but it doesn’t sell them.” A few months ago, when Gore’s personal energy usage was in the news, a Gore spokesman told the paper that Gore was “carbon neutral” because he purchases carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management.

Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe, she said…

That has turned out not to be true. Instead, Gore’s company buys carbon offsets from CarbonNeutral “in order to offset the carbon that results from its business and staff activities, including commuting and air travel,” The Tennessean now reports. Neither Gore nor the companies’ employees pay for their offsets - they are a part of the employee benefits package, a perk, according to this story from CNS News a few weeks ago.

Gore’s London-based employee-owned company, Generation Investment Management (GIM), purchases — but isn’t a provider of — carbon dioxide (CO2) “offsets,” said spokesman Richard Campbell. GIM is strictly an investment firm that considers how eco-friendly corporations are in assessing long-term sustainability, Campbell told Cybercast News Service by phone from London.“We do not invest in any activity of carbon offset. That’s nonsense. We are a fund management business that does sustainability research,” he added. The confusion, Campbell said, arose because GIM pays to offset the energy use of its operations and the personal emissions of its 23 employees, including Gore. So, the firm will cover the cost to offset the energy use at Gore’s home, or his global jet travel, as it would the offset cost of any other employee, Campbell said.

CarbonNeutral is a target of carbon-offsets critics - and, as I’ll explain more fully later in this report, for good reason.

CO2lonialism? New Scientist recently published a report by science journalist Fred Pearce critical of carbon offsets. Pearce wrote:

Many governments in the developing world worry about the probity of letting rich nations carrying out carbon offsetting in their countries - they call it CO2lonialism. One day soon, countries like India, China and Brazil will probably have to accept their own limits on emissions. At that point, they may discover that the easiest, cheapest offset options have already been used up by western companies.

Pearce later says this:

What does seem fair criticism is that efforts to portray offsets as simple, quick fixes pose serious questions of both commercial and ecological legitimacy. Sceptics argue there is no substitute for cutting emissions. For them, “dump, burn and offset” is the worst possible outcome. In February a radical group called London Rising Tide occupied the office of CarbonNeutral, accusing the company of creating a “smokescreen” behind which corporations will be able to keep increasing emissions. That is a political judgement rather than a scientific one - as far as the climate is concerned, a tonne of CO2 pulled out of the atmosphere is as good as a tonne of CO2 that never entered it - but the group still has a point. Buying an offset implies a degree of certainty that we do not have.

James Hrynyshyn, a freelance science journalist in western North Carolina with degrees in marine biology and journalism, who writes the science blog Island of Doubt, has more on Pearce’s report here.

According to a widely-distributed recent Associated Press article, NativeEnergy did not get high marks from researchers at the Tufts University Climate Initiative, which recently investigated several carbon-offsets marketers. The Tufts report, online here, asserts that “voluntary carbon offsets do have their place in spurring innovation and financing carbon-reducing projects that would otherwise not have happened,” but …

As is to be expected with new business opportunities, the quality and standards of voluntary offset companies vary widely - or as one of our reviewers put it: “It’s the Wild West!” Some offset companies are run by very seasoned carbon trading experts who are well versed in all the issues that surround carbon trading, others are much less experienced and are either using carbon offset to further promote their environmental or humanitarian missions or see the emerging market as a financial opportunity. Neither of these objectives is inherently bad, if the offsets that are sold meet high standards, yet unfortunately that is not always the case.

CarbonNeutral - the company through with Gore’s company buys carbon offsets as an employee perk - is apparently not one of the better carbon-offsets companies. The for-profit company only invests about 23 percent of its sales revenue in carbon-offsetting projects, the Tufts researchers said - the lowest percentage of any of the carbon-offsets sellers it investigated which provided financial data. Here’s the Tufts chart:



For a company that claims to specialize in “sustainability research,” Gore’s Generation Investmentment Management picked a lousy source for its carbon offsets - on average, less than a quarter of the money GIM spends on carbon offsets from CarbonNeutral actually get spent on projects that reduce or soak up carbon emissions.

More mutual back-scratching: At the upcoming Green Marketing conference April 25-27 in London, an event chaired by CarbonNeutral Company CEO Jonathan Shopley where attendees will “explore how to successfully communicate a credible green message to stakeholders.”

Shopley will be speaking at the Green Marketing conference about the business of climate change, brand and marketing strategy, and what it means to become CarbonNeutral. And he and The CarbonNeutral Company “will host a private screening of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, together with after film panel discussion on the links between brands, climate change and business growth,” according to an events listing on CarbonNeutral’s website.

What about the links between carbon offsets and actually, you know, reducing carbon emissions?

Not on the agenda. CarbonNeutral is a for-profit business in the business of selling carbon offsets based on concern over climate change. And rising concern - fueled in part by An Inconvenient Truth - translates into rising sales, and rising profits for Carbon Neutral. You don’t think the other 77 percent is all overhead, do you?

So, if CarbonNeutral isn’t all that hot, who is?

The AP report on the Tufts study says Tufts evaluated the carbon offsets sellers “on the quality of the offsets they offer, transparency, the price of a ton of carbon offsets and the accuracy of their carbon calculators,” and gave German-based Atmosfair, Australia-based Climate Friendly and Sustainable Travel International of Boulder, Colo., its highest rankings.”

The AP story also mentions the December 2006 report from Clean Air Cool Planet, which evaluated 30 offset providers and concluded “there is considerable room for improvement, even among the top providers.” Clean Air Cool Planet also gave high rankings to Atmosfair, Climate Friendly and Sustainable Travel International, and to U.S.-based NativeEnergy LLC and The Climate Trust.

The AP reports says that “some environmentalists still question whether even the best carbon offset scheme is a real solution to climate change,” and notes that while the Tufts University Climate Initiative ranked carbon offset programs, “it made a decision not to purchase offsets.”

“We are spending our effort on reducing our own direct emissions,” said Sarah Creighton, director of the Climate Initiative. “We feel that’s a prudent use of our resources. It’s taking care of our own house and not paying someone to do it for us.”

Inconvenient? Sure. But it’s a lot closer to the truth.

[conservative in nyc]

More on the First Goracle of Al: Feeding the multitude of climate change gurus by heating His outdoor pool.

[Names Ash Housewares]

[conservative in nyc]

Ping!

[panthermom]

I don’t know what the heck a carbon offset is, and I really don’t care to. I do not believe in all this stupid global warming hysteria. If the freaking waters rise an inch or so and the earths temperature rises a degree or so in the next few hundred years I DON’T CARE, I’LL BE DEAD. So in the mean time, I’m gonna drive my SUV, I’m gonna burn electricity, and I’m gonna build a great big fire in my fireplace during the winter with real wood. Global warming, give me a freaking break.

[honolulugal]

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

FReepmail me to get on or off

New!!: Dr. John Ray’s
GREENIE WATCH

Please ping me if you find one I’ve missed.
OKSooner & I are filling in for xcamel
while he is on vacation.

---

[Dallas59]

Screw Al Gore and carbon tax.....

I am proud of my carbon!

[I see my hands]

[I see my hands]

[PGalt]

Great graphic. Profit, Al Gore, and his manuscript manufactured crisis.

[Bush gal in LA]

Gore IS an inconvenient truth!

[conservative in nyc]

Excellent!

[conservative in nyc]

Please click on the link to FReep the article’s rating, if you have a chance. Some Goreites have spiked the rating downward.

[quietolong]

>>> I don’t know what the heck a carbon offset <<<<

It’s very simple...... It’s nothing more that a smoke screen!

It’s how people (who think) there liberal elitist can tell you how to live your life. Without having to take there own advice.

They can jet from place to place for photo op’s have there limos, yachts & big houses.

But when us peon’s flag them on there hypocrisy. They will tell how much smarter they are and point to all the carbon offset they have purchased.(tax deductible) And there doing so much more than you.

But they’ll be from some smoke & mirror co. With a few smoke & mirror projects that really don’t do anything. But they’ll feel better! And when it comes time to donate
for the next election..... Were do you think the money will go?

[agere_contra]

Smith and Carbon Trade Watch are not “global warming denialists”

Once again the Lefties try to move the discussion onto how Carbon trading should work, becuase, you see, the science is settled. However - Anthropogenic Global Warming is a myth.

[listenhillary]

Find later

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Here's all you have to know about the hypocrite, Al Gore.

When he was Vice-President, he would fly a four-engine jet from Wash. D.C. to Nashville. He would tie up traffic in the city with his motorcade, causing thousands of vehicles to idle unnecessarily. Those tie-ups would waste hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel and pollute the atmosphere. His motorcade would travel I-40 westbound for an hour and cause delays all the way to his destination in Smith County TN. Shortly after arriving in Smith County, Gore would depart and repeat the same trip on his return to Nashville, usually at rush hour so even more traffic could be tied up. Then, he'd get back on that fuel-guzzling jet and return to Washington DC.

ALL OF THIS WAS SO GORE COULD VOTE IN PERSON ON ELECTION DAY!

The arrogant blowhard could have saved the planet if he had just mailed an absentee ballot instead!

We peons are supposed to chew our lawn grass with our teeth to avoid the pollution of a gas lawn mower while royalty (Al Gore) can cause enormous cost, waste and endless pollution, living like a king.

[Beckwith]

And every time a carbon offset gets sold — Gore makes a tidy commission — neat, huh?

[pookie18]

Purchase Carbon Offsets From Rush (audio)

[Puppage]

I don’t know what the heck a carbon offset is

The selling of NOTHING

[Sybeck1]

Now available on Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Carbon-Offset-Carbon-Offsets-certificates_W0QQitemZ270106362530QQihZ017QQcategoryZ88433QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem