The
European Union set up an Emissions Trading Scheme as a market solution to deal
with pollution. Pollution is of course, overwhelmingly generated by big
business (‘market’) activities. Now the scheme has turned around to bite them.
As a result
of the crisis, polluting companies have found themselves strapped for cash. So
they’ve cashed in their carbon credits for short term readies.
Mark Lewis,
carbon analyst at Deutsche Bank, explains: “(The ETS )was not designed to give corporate
cheap short-term funding options in the face of a credit crunch meltdown where
banks are not lending, but that appears to be what’s happening.”
The ETS scheme
is ridiculous, and has been shown to be so. Business pollutes the planet, and
contributes to global warming through carbon emissions, because it doesn’t cost
them a penny. We pay for their noxious emissions, through our ill health and
our deteriorating quality of life.
What should
happen is that big business ought to be taken over and run in the interests of
the working class. We would put a stop to emissions that threaten human life on
the planet. Instead the EU gives polluting firms a permit. It accepts that they
can carry on polluting. Firms can sell these firms to one another, so if a
capitalist cuts emissions from his factory, he gets a reward. But of course the
firm that buys the permit has the right to keep gushing out smoke. That is what
they pay for.
Oscar
Reyes, researcher with Carbon Trade Watch, adds: “The ETS has bowed to
corporate self-interest at every stage of its design and implementation, so
there is no surprise that it is now being used as a cash cow to see firms
through a difficult financial phase.”
Cash
strapped firms are dumping their permits just to claim the money. The result is
that the ‘price’ of carbon emissions is collapsing, so it’s now cheaper for
other firms to pollute.
There have
been plenty of scandals in the past when credits have been given away and firms
have been given credits that they did not need as a pure windfall. But the whole
system is flawed, as everyone can now see.
The ‘market’
(capitalism) is not the solution to environmental degradation. It is the
problem.
