emmission trading
The Bad and the Good: Oil Companies
When it comes to climate change, there are the Do-Gooders who categorize typically between the good and the bad. The Good, the NGOs and politic who are committed to environmental protection and the Bad primarily the neo-liberal businesses and multinational corporations, – and very evil they oil companies. These are now trying to improve their image, and ten (10) of them support the global climate agreement: global warming of max. 2 degrees Celsius. These ten oil companies campaign for a global CO2 trading system. The immediate actions would be the application of (innovative) technologies, such as “Carbon Capture and Storage”. And the restriction of gas flaring at oil fields, – blasting around 300 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, corresponding to the driving of 77 million cars a year (total of 1.2 billion cars worldwide). Greenpeace – an environmental organization – views this critically: the initiative has no concrete objectives. US oil companies which are not involved in this project assert that there are (innovations, state of the art) technologies available to solve this problem in short-medium term.
According to recent studies there will be up to 2.7 billion cars on the Earth in the year 2050; and therefore, 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide are projected to be discharged annually. Whether by then so many fossil fuels will still be present is questionable.
Roland Leithenmayr VfV
Weblinks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
http://www.oilandgasclimateinitiative.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emission_Trading_Scheme
Emmission Trading versus Indulgence of the Roman Catholic Church
Resembles the current Emissions Certificate the Indulgence-Grant of the Roman Catholic Church which had been issued until 1570? Indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence, Martin Luther found the sale of indulgences by the Pope as a widespread abuse, unjustly and morally reprehensible and it caused the schism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading
In fact, the current Emissions Certificate shows similarities with the papal indulgence; however, by the Emission Certificate, it is not about God but the climate. From the perspective of the proponents of the emission allowances, it is not about to act morally but to achieve a positive effect for the climate-change. There are negative reports indicating that emission trading is exploited fraudulently; therefore, they require that the Emission Trading needs to be reformed.
Roland Leithenmayr, VfV
NGO Committee on Sustainable Development Vienna 