Personal carbon offsetting 2020

This year is (almost) the same as last year: Australian Gold Standard Verified Emissions Reductions from the Carbon Neutral Charitable Fund (CNCF).

The difference to last year is that demand for GS VERs was so great the CNCF removed them from their web shop – however, they are still selling (at reduced volumes) over the phone. Individuals offsetting their personal emissions shouldn’t encounter any problems.

CNCF’s phone number is 1300 857 970 or +61 8 9420 7214.

I purchased offsets for 20 tCO₂-e at $25 each. Now that I have an electric car and live in an all-electric household with 100% GreenPower, offsetting 20 tCO₂-e is excessive! But I haven’t done the work to calculate my new emissions profile, so I’ll keep putting $10/week aside for the moment. If I decide to purchase fewer offsets next year I can always put the rest toward rego for the EV.

COVID-19 lockdowns don't show the limits of individual climate action

I’ve seen the following argument go around a bit this week:

“So we accidently ran an experiment where we did the most any individual can do to reduce carbon emissions and it’s not enough.” (Tweet)

It’s wrong. Individual actions are not enough, but they are absolutely necessary.

Institutional/structural changes are absolutely necessary – but also not enough.

We need everything.

Treating a three-month lockdown as a proxy for what can be achieved through individual action both reduces individual agency to consumption choices and misunderstands the nature of structural changes.

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Personal carbon offsetting 2019

I have discovered that individual purchases of carbon offsets from registered charities (i.e. not for a business nor from a business) are tax deductible. As such, while the South Pole Group (from whom I last purchased) is still around, I have switched to buying Gold Standard Voluntary Emission Reductions from the Carbon Neutral Charitable Fund. They sell offsets from Australia’s first (and, as far as I can tell, only) GS VER project.

Otherwise, my post from 2017 is still pretty current.

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Personal carbon offsetting 2017

TL;DR

I’m buying Gold Standard offsets from South Pole Group now. If you want to offset your own emissions, try estimating them using the EPA’s Australian Greenhouse Calculator. Then use the South Pole Group website to buy credits – ideally Gold Standard, but Verified Carbon Standard are probably also fine.

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The CCA's implicit social cost of carbon

Australia’s Climate Change Authority (CCA), in its 2014 Targets and Progress Review, recommended that Australia pursue a minimum reduction in GHG emissions of 19% by 2020 (vs. 2000). In modelling that target, the CCA estimated that it would involve carbon prices of up to $30/tCO₂-e in 2020, in real terms. (See p. 135)

The CCA used the damage costs of carbon (i.e. the social costs) in making its recommendations. While not explicitly stated, the CCA’s preparedness to recommend an abatement target that imposes costs of $30/tCO₂-e in 2020, in real terms, implies the CCA regards the social costs of carbon as ≥$30/tCO₂-e.

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Additionality in the VEET

When I reviewed energy efficiency trading schemes a few years ago,* the VEET was the only scheme we considered to address additionality. The section of the VEET Act 2007 we referred to was Division 2 (Prescribed Activities), §15 (2):

An activity may be prescribed to be a prescribed activity if the activity will result in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that would not otherwise have occurred if the activity was not undertaken.

However! I think we (I) referred to the wrong section – I think Division 2 (Prescribed Activities), §19 (2) is the appropriate one:

Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), the discount factors are to take into account any uncertainty associated with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that would eventuate from a specified prescribed activity or specified class of prescribed activities but for the existence of the VEET scheme.

* Betz, R., Jones, M.C., MacGill, I.M., and Passey, R. (2013). Trading in energy efficiency in Australia: What are the lessons learnt so far? [PDF]

Climate Change and Health: Speech to the MDSC

I was honoured to today sit on a panel at the University of Melbourne MD Student Conference with Professor David Griggs, Associate Professor Marion Carey, and Senator Richard di Natale. Our panel topic was Climate Change and Health: The Greatest Moral, Economic and Social Challenge of Our Time.

Professor Griggs spoke on the sciene of climate change, I spoke on the economics of climate change, A/Prof. Carey spoke on the health effects of climate change, and Senator di Natale – who was busy and missed most of our speeches – spoke across all three topics.

The text of my speech is below.

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States of decay: Complementing the federal carbon policy

Updated on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 23:10 by MCJ

With the centrepiece of Australia’s climate policy not even a year old, most Australians are sick of it, or sick of hearing about it – fewer than 13% trust what politicians say about major public issues like climate change. And in the shadow of the Clean Energy Future package (CEF), state and federal governments are quietly letting other climate policies slip.

This “abdication of climate policy”, as Tristan Edis calls it, wouldn’t be so bad if Australia’s climate policy were perfect. But it isn’t; no policy is. The carbon price, while worth having, is a broad, blunt tool that covers but two-thirds of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The rest of the CEF fills in some gaps, but there is ample room for further complementary climate policy at a state and federal level.

I wrote last year on this topic, giving reasons why state (or other federal) climate policies could still be worthwhile under the CEF. This would mean innovative approaches:

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Why Drop the Price Floor? Taking a Gamble on the EU

Updated on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 14:28 by MCJ

Updated on Thursday, August 30, 2012 at 16:27 by MCJ

I couldn’t make much at first of today’s announcement by Greg Combet, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, that Australia was going to link its ETS with the EU ETS, and oh, by the way, we’re dropping the price floor.

That Australia and the EU will link their schemes good news, but it’s an expected development. Dropping the price floor, on the hand, had been speculated about (notably by the AFR; well done, Marcus Priest), wasn’t really part of the original plan.

As I wrote back in May, a price floor has some good things going for it, despite being technically challenging, and as it’s only regulation the government has the numbers to pass it even with Rob Oakeshott’s opposition. So my initial reaction was that the floor price had been put in the “too hard” basket and the ETS linkage was just used to hide the announcement somewhat.

I’ve since heard, however, that dropping the price floor was a condition of the EU agreeing to link the schemes. This makes more sense.

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Laggard to Leader: a Review

Updated on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 16:41 by MCJ

Beyond Zero Emissions, the non-for-profit climate change group, yesterday released the latest in their series of plans to get Australia to a state of zero emissions (or below): Laggard to Leader; How Australia can lead the world to zero carbon prosperity.

The report springs from the observation, also reported by e.g. Crikey on Friday, that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is failing to achieve the actions required to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change. It then goes beyond this to suggest new means of addressing the problem, in which Australia leads the world to a zero carbon future.

Sound utopian? It’s actually reasonably well argued, by and large, even if it’s difficult to see our current crop of politicians implementing many of the report’s suggestions.

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