The Idea Of Carbon Trading
Emily Roberts | December 10, 2009Carbon trading is a concept we may or may not be familiar with. Those who have heard of it might not know what it is about & how it works to reduce the carbons being emitted into our air.
The carbon emissions trading scheme can be explained pretty easily. A government basically figures out how much carbon emissions are sent into the air by every company. It then lowers the total percentage to meet their international responsibilities. Each industry has to then meet the lowered target or pay a fine based on how much they have exceeded. When a company lowers its emissions below the level, it can sell their unused amount to other companies who may need more carbon credits to avoid fees.
So how are these companies suddenly lowering their carbon emissions? How are these reduced emissions enough to observe the government’s requirements and still be enough to allow the industry to sell to other companies as carbon trades? You’d think if it is possible now, it is most likely possible before. The thing here is, industries are more likely to be more sensitive to these issues when there are fines imposed.
There is 1 poor defect however-carbon trading can & most likely will affect the masses. Because industries might suffer from big fines arising from carbon trading, these companies can charge the people so they can still pay fines without affecting their profit. There is still space for betterment, of course, because carbon trading is still a new idea not many people know of.
The good thing about carbon trading however, is that even if it is not a perfected process, it has already helped the environment a lot. According to the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit, 374 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) were exchanged via projects in 2005. It signifies a 240% increase comparative to 2004 (110 tCO2e) which was itself already a 41% increase comparative to 2003 (78 tCO2e).
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