COMMENTARY: Emissions trading for dummies
By Jaakko Kangasluoma
“Right, so what you're saying is, basically, poor people don’t have the right to be able to get around?”
I’ve deleted a few choice expletives, but this was the gist of what one colleague said to me when I grumbled about the Tata Nano and its price-tag of 1,700 euros.
Yeah, yeah, I’m going to explain. The Tata Nano is the world’s most affordable car, introduced recently at the New Delhi Motor Show in India.
If the Nano is not a complete flop, millions of people living in the developing world may soon be gadding about in a contraption that resembles a fishing-tackle box in more ways than just its price.
And this troubles me, since for all its diminutive size, the Nano consumes as much as a Western compact car, and has an emissions footprint to match.
The Nano news, coupled with my colleague’s warm and endearing observations about my insufferable selfishness, got me convinced that I am on the right path.
I am, you see, about to embark on emissions trading.
Now I’m not talking here about "emissions trading", that international web of agreements that sets up complicated ways of acquiring rights to belch bad stuff out into the atmosphere.
My emissions trading regime is quite simple and has only one party to the agreement - me.
It goes like this:
I own a car, through force of circumstance.
Owing to a chronic state of my being fiscally challenged, the car is an elderly one.
And thanks to my princess-like love of creature comforts, it is also a large vehicle.
This is of course at least an environmental misdemeanour or worse, for which I feel due guilt and remorse. Or at least I did, until I discovered emissions trading.
I recently came across a calculation that claimed that a vacation trip to Asia by a family of four generates as much by way of emissions (on the flights there and back) as eight years of their driving the family car.
Applying this useful equation, I reached a ground-breaking emissions trading deal with myself.
When I elect not to fly off on the winter holiday to the sun I had already planned, I can instead drive for five years, if not with a good conscience then at least with my conscience somewhat less bruised.
In this way I restored my environmental loading back to the level prior to my using the car to get around.
Unfortunately, even this level is rather high. Hence I shall have to continue in my trading activities.
The easiest thing would be to rule out flying entirely. The savings for the planet would be so great that I could buy tons of Chinese coal and burn it on a picnic stove straight up into the stratosphere - and I would still come out ahead.
However, since I am not yet ready to abandon long-haul travel altogether, alternative means will have to be sought.
I am extraordinarily bad at giving anything up voluntarily.
Hence I am devising a series of penalty mechanisms for my emissions trading.
Something like this:
If I pick up some flown-in Spanish tomatoes from the supermarket, I will have to pay for the additional environmental loading and carbon footprint by stretching out the washing rotation cycle of the clothing I am currently standing up in.
If I take a taxi home from the boozer, then I will have to ride my bike to work for the next couple of days - or if the weather conditions rule out cycling, then I have to take a bus that runs on natural gas.
Every so often I find it necessary at home to switch on an electric blow-heater. The windows at my place are in such a state that I would not be at all surprised to see a flock of sparrows come through the gaps in the insulation along with the icy draft.
I will punish myself for the blow-heater emissions transgressions by trying to spend days at home that week without using the PC printer.
And I’ll cook something cold.
Alright, alright, I’ll admit that this system of mine is not going to win me any export innovation prizes straight out of the box. There are some obvious shortcomings to the emissions trading mechanisms, at least as far as the compatibility of measurements is concerned.
But let’s face it, it is pretty seldom that a project on a massive scale like this finds its ideal shape immediately.
I am quite sure that over time I will be able to bring a measure of sense to the proceedings.
I have a long way to go, certainly, as I'm sure those of you who have read this far will wholeheatedly agree.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print19.1.2008
JAAKKO KANGASLUOMA / Helsingin Sanomat
jaakko.kangasluoma@hs.fi
