CARBON TRADING

Hello friends,

Here I take the privilege to introduce Shri Bharath Vaishnov, a 3rd year student ,studying ECE at Amrita School of Engineering,Bangalore as the latest contributor to my, sorry OUR blog.He has presented a nice article on Carbon Trading, which I think is a very impotant topic from both Preliminary and Main Examination point of view and otherwise as well. I sincerely thank Bharath for taking the initiative and encourage others for coming up with such innovative articles.Here it goes.

CARBON TRADING

Bharath Vaishnov

Katrina, Nargis well known pulchritudinous movie stars of Bollywood in India are now better known in the world as the horrendous hurricanes that wreaked havoc in one of the most developed(USA) and under developed regions(Myanmar) respectively .There has been an alarming rise in the GHGs(green house gases) and this has augmented global warming. At this rate snow at the poles will disappear by September 2060 and will submerge all the coastal metropolises.

Come the environment day, all the 24X7 news channels painted green and flashed environment sensuous stories and highlighted the good deeds of the very few Indian environmentalists. Last year, the IIFA selected environment as its theme. The stars were welcomed on to the green carpet replacing the traditional red carpet. But all these superficial acts won’t help save mother nature. What is required is a sincere and dedicated effort.

But a large chunk of world population is self centered. They do acts with the results in mind. Very few people would be ready to do selfless acts. Having realized this, a novel idea was born during world earth summit 1997 at Kyoto , Japan. Ideas like dreams are unbelievably romantic. The idea was “Carbon trading” that lay its foundation on “Earn by giving”.

Unfortunately this idea hasn’t been well received by India. Though this idea was mainly for the developed countries to regulate their GHG emissions, it can help alleviate the problem of poverty in India. Most of you must be wondering how carbon in any way is linked to poverty. Let’s see how carbon trading can be beneficial to India.

First, we need to know what carbon trading is all about. Through carbon trading a firm or individual gets monetary reward for the amount of carbon emissions prevented. Now how can a individual or a firm prevent emissions. It is not something about going about with awareness campaigns and appealing to the public to reduce the usage of automobiles and other things that result in carbon emissions. It’s something that can be done by YOU in your backyard and neighborhood. The best way to prevent carbon emission is plant trees. We all know that it’s the best way but we lack the motivation and dedication to plant and take care of the trees since there is no instant return that one gets for planting a tree. This where carbon trading can play an important role . Carbon trading can provide the motivation for planting trees. As we all know the process of photosynthesis that takes place in plants can absorb certain amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere and give back oxygen. Hence a plant can reduce carbon emissions. So the more you plant trees the more is the carbon emissions prevented the more you get paid. Some NGOs have been authorized for carbon trading. Each tree’s carbon content is transformed into carbon credits by these NGOs. These credits can be traded in the international market by the owner of the trees. The present rate is 15-20$ per ton of sequestered carbon.

Now the question arises that who will be interested in buying these credits? During the World Earth summit , all the industries in developed countries were told to regulate their carbon emissions to a certain decided level , failing which the defaulting company will have to pay a huge penalty. For example say a power generation company generates 100000 tonnes carbon and approved emission standard is 80000 tonnes of carbon then the company buys the remaining 20000 carbon credits from the international market which allows the company to raise the bar to 100000 tonnes. It is a win-win situation for both the buyer and seller.

A hectare of land under forest cover can generate 300000 US$. This can help the tribal organization to be self sufficient. Even a person in urban area can get 200-300 US $ by planting trees. So start planting and earning. Carbon trading can make our country and lives green. The environment ministry should raise to the occasion and start promoting carbon trading in our country.

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