Sorry, I went from writing up my blog post on Belgium's pollution into the New York Times, where they are running an incredible story of ... well read for yourself.
In 2005, the European Union, the major market for Gazprom, introduced a cap-and-trade scheme that allows polluters to buy credits that allow them to pollute and nonpolluters to sell pollution credits that they won’t use. That system is now being closely watched as Congress considers a similar mechanism in the United States.
So the big boys want to continue to burn known pollutants by burning the polluting credits of countries that don't create as much pollution ... making places in Europe even more polluted.
And we voted for these people. I can see why, they're so clever, getting around the Kyoto Protocol. I guess working on alternative fuels and etc is simply impossible.
Russia's Gazprom came up with the idea: The company is already testing the market for an innovative combination sale of fuel-and-emissions credits in countries that have undertaken to limit the release of gases that scientists say are warming the earth.
Is this really what the Kyoto Protocol was all about ... Companies in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe are among the world’s big producers of greenhouse gases. But they also stand to benefit under the climate treaty by selling their rights to release carbon dioxide into the air, if they invest in greater efficiencies.
Doesn't it make you think that the political and commercial food chain's all back-to-front?
ReplyDeleteAnd what are the chances that when China overtakes the US as the world's biggest polluter, as it is predicted to do next year, that the USA points the finger and condemns the Chinese?
This is RIDICULOUS.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying hard to believe there are people in power SOMEWHERE who do the right thing for the right reason.
Obviously, allowing massive polluters to buy credits that allow them to pollute and non-polluters to sell pollution credits that they won’t use is an absurd concept. But that's the way the system was conceived..
ReplyDeleteSo when someone tries to convince me that my modest car is a "polluter" or that it might be wise to use my bike in Belgium (and get killed in the process), I laugh out loud:
the large nations/polluters like China, Japan and the US are busy "shifting huge pollution credits", as if the air stops at the borders.
"Climate change control" has turned into a travesty, it's about time we treat it that way.
I can't comment because I'm still recovering from what I read. I deleted my post on Belgian pollution as I ran into the fact is indeed a taboo subject ...
ReplyDeleteBelgium has so much going for it but it also has this horrendous pollution created by supplying the rest of Europe with various products and roadways on a very small landmass.
I don't know ... today it was all too depressing.