Rich ‘can pay poor to cut carbon,’ says Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The jist of the article is that instead of making up our share of emissions reductions to meet international guidelines on time, wealthy nations could buy carbon offsets from developing nations instead.

Yvo’s blurb has a lot of environmentalists up in arms, calling it yet another way for us Westerners to pass the buck on sustainable development. There’s a lot of controversy about carbon offsetting, and while I agree that for the most part it’s a dangerously shortsighted policy that perpetuates the status quo (and often is improperly counted in the first place), I think that in this case there may be legitimate potential for good.

De Boer’s suggestion may initially sound offensive, but he does have a valid point when he says “The atmosphere does not care where emissions are reduced as long as they are reduced.” While in the long term it is of paramount importance that Western nations significantly cut their emissions, a dollar spent now in China, India, or Nigeria to improve efficiency and clean up infrastructure will buy more carbon than that same dollar spent in the US. In this case, it’s a win/win situation - Western nations can still reduce the net emission of carbon, while developing nations get subsidies for developing modern, sustainable infrastructure that could also improve quality of life.

While it all sound very good on paper, the perilous part of the arrangement is that it may ultimately push us past the threshold of no return if improvements aren’t made to Western infrastructure in the meantime. Should this scheme go forward, I’m not sure if there will ever be the political will here to force the inevitable ‘big squeeze’ in per capita emissions needed in order to achieve carbon parity with the rest of the world.

Thoughts?