UN Carbon Trading Scheme: $2.7 Billion Market Could Be 'Biggest Environmental Scandal In History'

[Canuckistanian]

UNITED NATIONS — An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases has agreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S. environmentalists are calling a huge scam.

At a meeting this week that ended Friday, the executive board of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism said that five chemical plants in China would no longer qualify for funding as so-called carbon offset credits until the environmentalists' claims can be further investigated.

~snip

The chemical makers are paid as much as $100,000 or more for every ton they destroy of a potent greenhouse gas, HFC-23. The price for destroying it is based on its being 11,700 times more powerful as a climate-warming gas than carbon dioxide.

~snip

"The evidence is overwhelming that manufacturers are creating excess HFC-23 simply to destroy it and earn carbon credits," said Mark Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a research and advocacy group. "This is the biggest environmental scandal in history and makes an absolute mockery of international efforts to combat climate change.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/un-carbon-trading-scheme-_n_690958.html

[aquart]

1. What's an appropriate punishment for murdering a planet?

[hugo_from_TN]

2. Wow. Who could have seen this coming?

:sarcasm: :rofl:

[Kringle]

3. good news, the scam ends on 12/31/2012 .nt

[Canuckistanian]

4. That is, assuming the Mayans used a January 1st-based Calender

In which case.... we all die earlier.

[Kringle]

5. the Kyoto treaty expires that day .nt

[Canuckistanian]

6. Ah.

For all the good it's done, it's a date that will pass unmentioned.

[Nihil]

7. Terry Pratchett could have saved them a lot of money ...

Rats had featured largely in the history of Ankh‑Morpork.
Shortly before the Patrician came to power there was a terrible plague of rats.
The city council countered it by offering twenty pence for every rat tail.
This did, for a week or two, reduce the number of rats ‑ and then people were
suddenly queuing up with tails, the city treasury was being drained, and no‑one
seemed to be doing much work. And there still seemed to be a lot of rats around.

Lord Vetinari had listened carefully while the problem was explained, and had
solved the thing with one memorable phrase which said a lot about him, about
the folly of bounty offers, and about the natural instinct of Ankh-­Morporkians
in any situation involving money: 'Tax the rat farms.'