Voluntary Surrender of Units
There are examples of individuals and organisations purchasing tradable emission permits and 'retiring' (cancelling) them so they cannot be used by emitters to authorise their emissions. This makes the emissions 'cap' lower and therefore further reduces emissions. In 1992, the National Healthy Air License Exchange was established to pool donations for buying and retiring sulfur allowances under the USA sulfur allowance trading program.
The British organization "Climakind" accepts donations and uses them to buy and cancel European Allowances, the carbon credits traded in the European Union Emission Trading System. It is argued that this removes the credits from the carbon market so they cannot be used to allow the emission of carbon and that this reduces the 'cap' on emissions by reducing the number of credits available to emitters.
The British organisation Sandbag promotes cancelling carbon credits in order to lower emissions trading caps. As of August 2010, Sandbag states that it has cancelled carbon credits equivalent to 2145 tonnes of CO2.
British activist Merrick Godhaven has criticised Sandbag's approach of voluntarily cancelling carbon credits because it would require millions of pounds to be effective and because it signals acceptance of carbon trading, a system designed by polluters. Godhaven considers carbon trading is a flawed response to reducing emissions for several reasons. The caps on emissions are set by industry lobbying, not by science. It is unjust as it seeks out the lowest cost emissions reductions, usually of poorly verified offsets in less developed countries. And the free allocation of permits to EU power and steel companies resulted in windfall profits.
Read more about this topic: Carbon Emission Trading
Famous quotes containing the words voluntary, surrender and/or units:
“Her voluntary fruits, free without fees;”
—Torquato Tasso (1544–1595)
“Frenchmen, we do not accept your surrender. You surrender only to the enemy. If you’re Vichy, fight us. If you’re Frenchmen, join us.”
—Samuel Fuller, U.S. screenwriter. American commander (uncredited)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)