Carbon trading has problems

Carbon trading has been the focus of nine On Line Opinion articles since December 2005, setting out facts and arguments, pro and con, that policy makers could keep in mind.

Carbon trading benefits farmers who are paid to plant or to protect “offsets” and overseas countries likewise. It also benefits big polluters who can pay to continue polluting; many beneficiaries who gain jobs and profits (“Here's How To Get Your Piece of the Profits in the Early Going”) in brokering, administering and financing schemes; and governments who need to appear to be doing something, with all the Byzantine planning needed to get a carbon trading scheme in place by - when is it? 2010? 2020?

But faith in global carbon trading might, perhaps, be as misled as our recent belief that financiers knew what they were doing. Governments are urging consumption and “jobs” regardless, to prevent “economic suicide” now threatened largely as a result of financiers’ bungling.