Change gear into carbon neutral and cut CO²

Whenever we take a holiday flight, drive the car, heat and light our homes, prepare our food or purchase goods and services, we have an impact on climate change through the carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere. Did you know that you can help to balance out the climate change effects by reducing carbon elsewhere?

For example, you might like to try planting a tree, buying high efficiency light bulbs, paying for micro hydro-electricity units in the Himalayas to replace the use of kerosene stoves, capturing and treating emissions from a landfill gas from a tip in Brazil or farm slurry in the USA, or buying green emission allowance certificates from a dedicated scheme.

If you are serious about offsetting your carbon emissions, the government has recently proposed a voluntary standard and commented that only four of the 59 schemes that they looked at, currently comply with this standard. Details can be found at

• http://www.puretrust.org.uk/
• http://www.global-cool.com/
• http://www.ebico.co.uk/en/open/pages/equiclimateen.php
• http://www.carbon-offsets.com/

Meanwhile, the second phase of the European Union's 2005 emissions trading scheme is due to come in next year. Emissions trading covers countries and industries. It is attractive in concept because it involves setting a cap on emissions of carbon dioxide that can be progressively lowered.

'Licences to pollute' are allocated and traded, enabling efficient industries to be rewarded forreducing their impact. Commenting on the schemes, the Ven Michael Fox, Archdeacon of West Ham, has said: "Carbon offsetting is certainly worth looking into, and efforts to trade carbon emissions are also laudable in their way. But no scheme is a substitute for avoiding and cutting emissions in the first place. Reducing emissions to a realistic minimum must always be the first step if we are to stand any chance of combating climate change.

"For each of us personally the question is why are we looking at carbon offsets? Is it part of a planned response to climate change or is it simply a way of trying to salve our consciences without changing our lifestyle?

"Sue and I are going to try living without a car in retirement. That should cut our carbon footprint. What about yours?"

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