Photo Essay

Self-styled eco-capitalists have created a new commodity to take advantage of people’s desire to offset their carbon guilt. This new market in carbon offsets is predicted to be worth almost £2 billion by 2010, by selling an imaginary commodity to consumers who feel the need to do-the-right thing for the climate. This market delays the necessary changes from happening in northern countries, while implementing a new system of ‘carbon colonialism’ by shifting the responsibility onto communities in the South who are forced to endure the consequences of these so-called ‘green’ projects.

The act of commodification at the heart of offset schemes assigns a financial value to the impetus that someone may want to take climate action, and neatly transforms this potential to bring about change into another market transaction. There is then no urgent need for people to question the underlying assumptions about the nature of the social and economic structures that brought about climate change in the first place. One just has to click and pay the assigned price to get 'experts' to take action. Not only is it ineffective and based on half-baked guessing games and dubious science, it is also very disempowering for the participants.

The single most effective - and incontrovertible - way of dealing with climate change is drastically to limit the quantity of fossil fuels being extracted. Providing support for communities who are resisting the efforts of the industries to extract and burn ever-increasing quantities, therefore, is one of the most important strategies in dealing with climate change. Yet it is the least encouraged because, unlike carbon offsets, it involves posing a critical challenge to the established systems of corporate power and societal organisation.