Is carbon off setting just a guilt tax?

What is carbon offsetting and is it effective in helping to combat climate change, or is it a "guilt tax" for people who want a painless way of reducing their environmental burden?

A quick search on the internet will reveal a number of different companies that offer people a way of calculating their carbon emissions.

These calculations will arrive at a cash equivalent for the amount of pollution that your activity produces, whether it be your daily drive to work, cooking the Christmas turkey or flying to your holiday destination.

For instance, a flight from London to Sydney will produce an average carbon emission of, say four tonnes, per passenger.

When you purchase your ticket, you can also pay a fee to a carbon-offsetting scheme that will invest this into projects that help to remove this amount of carbon from the atmosphere.

Projects may include reforestation schemes, renewable energy schemes or funding energy efficiency schemes.

Sounds quite a good way of tackling climate change, doesn't it?

However, critics of carbon offsetting suggest that it is merely a way for the well-off, who produce more than their fair share of carbon emissions, to buy off their responsibility.

The inherent problem with all carbon offsetting schemes is that they don't require a change of lifestyle.

When Tony Blair recently announced that he was going to offset all the carbon from his foreign holidays, this was a sudden reversal of his previous admission that it "was not practical" to curtail such trips.

Presumably he is going to continue the same number of foreign flights each year, but will pay extra as a "carbon tax".

It would have set a better example if he were to cut down on the number of flights, as reducing demand for flights is a better way of reducing carbon emissions.

Carbon offsetting is not yet a regulated activity, so how can you be sure that by paying to offset your carbon you are actually doing some good? Planting mono-culture crops of trees is not particularly environmentally-friendly, especially if they replace mixed woodlands.

Given the amount of carbon that is emitted each year, planting trees alone will not be enough.

An area the size of Dorset would need to be planted each year to offset the amount of carbon emitted by the United Kingdom.

There is a similar capacity issue relating to renewable and energy efficiency projects.

Perhaps more alarmingly, some carbon offsetting companies are alleged to cream off so much profit that there is insufficient funding for offsetting projects.

All of these issues and more give credence to the criticism that carbon offsetting receives.

Learn more about carbon offsetting at www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk or calculate your own carbon footprint at www.carbonfootprint.com.