Why Trading and Offset Use Are the Wrong Way to Address Green House Gas Emissions in California

But don’t be fooled. We, collectively, decide what is politically viable—not polluters, bankers, and deal-makers. (see my blog post for more on that). The fact of the matter is The Congressional Budget Office, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times , and conservative economists at the American Enterprise Institute favor a carbon tax. The Wall Street Journal opined “[t]he emerging alliance of business and environmental special interests may well prove powerful enough to give us cap-and-trade in CO2… it would make money for some very large corporations. But don't believe for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming.” Tom Redburn, of the New York Times, supports a carbon tax as does New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who is actively advocating for a carbon tax saying, “I think it’s time we stopped listening to the skeptics who say, ‘But for the politics,’ and start being honest about costs and benefits.”

Al Gore supported a carbon tax in his Oslo speech when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, saying “[a]nd most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people” I could go on and on with this list, but the point is these are NOT hot-headed, wild-eyed, unreasonable, community activists. The clear and well known—but unacknowledged—fact is the Kyoto Accord trading scheme hasn’t addressed emissions in the EU. We don’t have the time to hope, against hope, that we can make it work here. We intend to put the facts in everyone’s hands and in their faces. Our communities have too much at stake for us to sit by.

Further, pollution trading programs will suppress the technological innovation needed for a genuine transition to clean energy sources. Companies will sit on the sidelines speculating about the future price of carbon instead of making the investments needed to fundamentally change how we produce and use energy. See, for example, a 2007 article in The Economist that pointed out that the market in Europe has “not encourage[d] much of the innovation that carbon trading had been expected to spawn.”

Fundamentally, pollution trading is wrong. It treats clean air and public health as a private commodity to be traded, speculated against, and profited from—and we are going to fight it. We are at a cross-roads. We can invest in a clean energy future, OR we can condemn the planet by staying chained to a hopeless fossil fuel future.

Our Coalition calls, instead, for policies that directly and significantly reduce emissions and focus on moving the state away from the fossil fuel infrastructure because such fuels are the overwhelming contributor to climate change and have devastating impacts on the poor and communities of color in California and around the world. Our people are sick and dying from the refineries, the power plants, the diesel exhaust from trucks and cars on the freeways that slice through our communities. We want the fossil fuel problem to be addressed head on—that is how we, collectively, will be able to protect the planet and protect our communities.

We’re urging others to join the Environmental Justice movement in demanding that California reject the fundamentally flawed trading and offsets approach, and instead adopt energy efficiency policies, promote zero-carbon cars, and calls on the Legislature to adopt and the Governor to sign an aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard bill. We also support the use of consistent carbon pricing mechanisms, such as a mitigating effects carbon fee, to achieve actual reductions and a genuine transition to a clean energy economy. Such a transition could bring numerous opportunities; economic benefits, green job creation, and healthier communities in the fight against climate change. Instead of wasting incredible amounts of time and resources trying to re-design a failed carbon trading system.

To download the full text of the Declaration, sign onto the Declaration, and for other information about the failures of pollution trading, offset use, and need for carbon fees, visit the our new website at http://www.ejmatters.org

Ms. Angela Johnson Meszaros serves as Director of Policy and General Counsel for the California Environmental Rights Alliance (CERA). She also serves as a Special Advisor to South Coast Air Quality Management District Governing Board Member Joseph K. Lyou. Meszaros has 15 years of experience working with communities and organizations on environmental justice issues in the Los Angeles region. CERA is a public interest organization dedicated to achieving environmental justice and improving community health in California through the prevention, reduction, and elimination of pollution in California’s most heavily burdened communities.