Carbon trading has become the central pillar of international agreements aimed at slowing climate change. Proponents of this market-based approach to addressing an environmental crisis argue that carbon trading allows reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the most economical manner. What proponents of this market based-approach do not mention are the hidden consequences of carbon trading - the creation of a new commodity and of private property rights to the atmosphere, the hand-out of tradable pollution rights worth billions of euro to large emitters in industrialised countries free of charge. Through this process of creating a new commodity - carbon - the Earth's ability and capacity to support a climate conducive to life and human societies is now passing into the same corporate hands that are destroying the climate. Carbon trading will thus not contribute to achieving protection of the Earth's climate. It is a false solution which entrenches and magnifies social inequalities in many ways.

The public debate about these consequences of carbon trading has only just begun. The Durban conference on "Commodifying Carbon: Consequences and Strategies" , held in Durban, South Africa, in October 2004, brought together some 30 organizations from more than 15 countries to exchange information, analysis, and strategy ideas concerning the social, environmental and human problems posed by the emerging carbon market.

For further reading:

Analysis challenging the assumptions of the emerging carbon market:

Carbon Trading. Critical Conversations about Climate Change, Privatisation and Power. The Durban Group's comprehensive critique of carbon trading, published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and edited by Larry Lohmann.

Carbon Trade Watch report Hoodwinked in the Hothouse

Carbon Trading - the different trades explained

Lessons from the European Union's flagship Emissions Trading Scheme

Durban Call to Action or to sign the Durban Declaration on Carbon trading.

The Carbon Neutral Myth. Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins'

The Great Green Smokescreen. Carbon offset projects exposed on Channel 4 Dispatches programme. August 2007. To view the report, click here