Carbon Offsetting

Citeseer

The idea of buying carbon offsets to compensate for one's CO2 emissions has been intensively debated in leaders to editors, statements and reports from environmental organizations. Critics' have claimed that buying carbon offsets is immoral because it allows buyers to pay others to deal with the problem rather than changing their harmful behavior. In this paper, we use rational analysis from moral philosophical theory to analyze moral beliefs about carbon offsetting. We apply the Kantian framework of universalizing maxims and find no support for that CO2 emissions per se are morally impermissible while emissions, exceeding a sustainable level per capita, are morally impermissible. We demonstrate that the individual has a moral duty to buy offsets that are effective on a stock basis (S-effectiveness), for his excess emissions. S-effectiveness is a stronger condition than what carbon offsets available on existing carbon markets fulfill.

Climate Justice and Non-State Actors: Corporations, Regions, Cities, and Individuals (edited by Jeremy Moss and Lachlan Umbers, Routledge), 2020

In this paper, I argue that we are morally required to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions even in the absence of just institutions that oblige us to do so. My argument proceeds from the insight that even if individual emissions frequently fail to make a difference to climate-change related harms, they nevertheless raise the expected disvalue of such harms. While this is not, by itself, sufficient to ground an obligation to reduce one's emissions, I argue that it renders at least those emissions impermis-sible that we could avoid at little or no expected cost to ourselves. As we are not generally able to judge in a fine-grained manner the prudential value of the different options that are available to us, the emissions that we can avoid at little or no expected cost to ourselves are more numerous than one might initially assume.

2017

In this article, we explore the world’s response to the increasing impact of carbon emissions on the sobering threat posed by global warming: the carbon offset market. Though the market is a relatively new one, numerous offset providers have quickly emerged under both regulated and voluntary regimes. Owing to the lack of technical literacy of some stakeholders who participate in the market, no common quality or certification structure has yet emerged for providers. To the contrary, the media warns that a relative ‘‘cowboy’’ atmosphere prevails in the current environment, and that there are ‘‘widespread instances of people and organizations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions’’ (Harvey and Fidler, Financial Times, 2007). At this point in the evolution of the market, only a handful of offset provider-rating schemes exist; and, even these systems leave consumers with few answers when they seek to find a means by which to ensure that the said sy...

Carbon offsets allow individuals, households and firms to cause activities to be taken that mitigate their carbon emissions. A common example is planting trees but purchasing green power whereby your electricity expenditures are targeted for low emissions sources is another. At a first pass, such offsets would seemingly do no harm. Households purchasing them would receive a „warm glow‟ or as I will term here „guilt reduction,‟ emissions would be reduced and welfare increased.

Ethics, Policy & Environment, 2018

[Open access] Donald Trump’s executive order on energy limits the costs and benefits of carbon to domestic sources. The argument for this executive order is that carbon policies should not be singled out from other policies as globally inclusive. Two independent arguments are offered for adopting a global social cost of carbon. The first is based on reinforcing norms in the face of commons tragedies. The second is based on the limitations of consequentialist analyses. We can distinguish consequences for which probabilistic indifference is appropriate. The mechanisms for global effects for carbon are well-understood, whereas most policy effects are primarily domestic. [Published version available open access at https://doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2018.1448038]

Perspectives Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy, 2012

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues, on the relationship between individual emissions and climate change, that "we cannot claim to know that it is morally wrong to drive a gas guzzler just for fun" or engage in other inessential emissionsproducing individual activities. His concern is not uncertainty about the phenomenon of climate change, nor about human contribution to it. Rather, on Sinnott-Armstrong's analysis the claim of individual moral responsibility for emissions must be grounded in a defensible moral principle, yet no principle withstands scrutiny. I argue that the moral significance of individual emissions is obscured by this critique. I offer a moral principle, the threshold-contribution principle, capable of withstanding Sinnott-Armstrong's criticisms while also plausibly explaining what's wrong with gas-guzzling joyrides and other gratuitous emissions-producing individual acts.

The climate change mitigation effort is being translated into several actions and discourses that make collateral benefits and their rationale increasingly relevant for sustainability, in such a way that they are now a constant part of the political agenda. Taking a broader and consensual perspective, co-benefits are considered here to be emerging advantages of implementing measures to lower greenhouse gases. Starting with the analysis of policy documents referring to two European urban transportation strategies, the emergent co-benefits are problematized and discussed to better understand their moral aspect. Further ethical reflection is conducted after an analysis of some unintended consequences of the co-benefits rationale arising from the examples. The discussion focuses primarily on the challenges of an integrative moral justification for co-benefits and also for their role in the climate change mitigation effort. We also discuss the limitations of the current normative models that frame a co-benefits rationale, both from a moral viewpoint and in relation to the overall climate change mitigation strategy. In this article, we propose the concepts of well-being and freedom, as portrayed by the Capability Approach, as possible guiding notions for the moral and social evaluation of goodness of these emergent benefits as well as their rationale. Additionally, some preliminary conclusions are drawn regarding the potential of the presented concepts to support climate change mitigation action. Finally, we outline a scenario where the Capability Approach is the moral guideline for a co-benefits rationale and illustrates its potential in terms of enhancing climate change mitigation strategy.

International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2011

Given that mitigating climate change is a large-scale global issue, what are our obligations to lower our personal carbon emissions? I survey recent suggestions by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Dale Jamieson and offer models for thinking about their respective approaches. I then present a third model based on the notion of structural violence. While the three models are not mutually incompatible, each one suggests a different focus for mitigating climate change. In the end, I agree with Sinnott-Armstrong that we have limited moral obligation to directly lower personal emissions, but I offer different reasons for this conclusion, namely that the structural arrangement of our lives places a limit on how much individuals can restrict their own emissions. Thus, individuals should focus their efforts on changing the systems instead (e.g., the design of cities, laws and regulation, etc.), which will lead to lower emissions on a larger scale.

Etikk i praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics, 2016

The climate change mitigation effort is being translated into several actions and discourses that make collateral benefits and their rationale increasingly relevant for sustainability, in such a way that they are now a constant part of the political agenda. Taking a broader and consensual perspective, co-benefits are considered here to be emerging advantages of implementing measures to lower greenhouse gases. Starting with the analysis of policy documents referring to two European urban transportation strategies, the emergent co-benefits are problematized and discussed to better understand their moral aspect. Further ethical reflection is conducted after an analysis of some unintended consequences of the co-benefits rationale arising from the examples. The discussion focuses primarily on the challenges of an integrative moral justification for co-benefits and also for their role in the climate change mitigation effort. We also discuss the limitations of the current normative models that frame a co-benefits rationale, both from a moral viewpoint and in relation to the overall climate change mitigation strategy. In this article, we propose the concepts of well-being and freedom, as portrayed by the Capability Approach, as possible guiding notions for the moral and social evaluation of goodness of these emergent benefits as well as their rationale. Additionally, some preliminary conclusions are drawn regarding the potential of the presented concepts to support climate change mitigation action. Finally, we outline a scenario where the Capability Approach is the moral guideline for a co-benefits rationale and illustrates its potential in terms of enhancing climate change mitigation strategy.