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Paying the climate price - 30 April 2007

As if it isn’t difficult enough to reconcile travelling by air several times a year, new accusations coming from one of the biggest players in the airline industry have emerged, claiming that carbon offsetting companies are determined to make excessive profits from green-minded passengers.

EasyJet has warned that some carbon offsetting companies are trying to cash in on the conscience of their customers by charging excessive fees to handle their payments, and as a result has delayed the introduction of an offsetting scheme for customers.

According to a report in the Guardian, the company now plans to buy UN-backed carbon credits on the open market, and sell them on to passengers. Toby Nichol, easyJet’s communications director said “It gets rid of the expensive middleman and it addresses the valid concern about whether it will make any difference to carbon emissions.”

He added that the company had been shocked by the fact that some carbon brokers are charging up to 30 per cent of every contribution as administration costs, and that the cost of funding that was “simply too expensive”. Although the fledgling carbon credits industry currently has no regulations, some companies are now members of the voluntary carbon standard, as introduced by the International Emissions Trading Association, the Climate Group, and the World Economic Forum.

On top of this come worries that the efficiency of some of the carbon offsetting schemes can be questioned. Scientists have said that any trees planted to combat the emission of carbon into the atmosphere should be sited within the tropics, so as to avoid them trapping heat and absorbing carbon, thus exacerbating the damage caused by greenhouse emissions.

Other airlines are using similar carbon offsetting schemes, and none have reported excessive costs associated with them so far. The carbon offsetting companies have also come up with some ingenious ways to make up for the impact of their lifestyle. One involves donating treadle irrigation pumps to farmers in developing nations as a much better and less-polluting replacement for their old diesel pumps.

If you have the opportunity to do so, try to travel with an airline that offers you the opportunity to offset the environmental cost of your journey.

 

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