Buying Low, Flying High: Carbon Offsets and Partial Compliance
| Author | Kai Spiekermann |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.12044 |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Buying Low, Flying High: Carbon Offsets and
Partial Compliance
Kai Spiekermann
London School of Economics and Political Science
Many companies offer their customers voluntary carbon ‘offset’ certificates to compensate for greenhouse gas
emissions. Voluntar y offset certificates are cheap because the demand for them is low, allowing consumers to
compensate for their emissions without significant sacrifices. Regarding the distribution of emission reduction
responsibilities I argue that excess emissions are permissible if they are offset properly. However, if individuals buy
offsets only because they are cheap,they fail to be robustly motivated to choose a permissible course of action. This
suspected lack of robust motivation raises both pragmatic questions about the functioning of offsetting schemes and
moral questions about the worth of such unstable motives.The analysis provided here also has wider implications for
the normative analysis of partial compliance and ‘many hands’problems, especially for those cases where compliance
levels and costs interact.
Keywords: carbon offsetting; partial compliance; climate change; voluntary emission
reduction; responsibility
Recently I flew from London to Hamburg. My airline offered ‘carbon offsetting’ for my
flight. For £2.31 I was invited to offset 175 kg of CO2emissions ‘through UN certified
emission reduction projects’ (Easyjet, 2012).In my case, I was informed, the money would
be used to build a hydroelectric power plant in Ecuador to replace fossil fuel electricity
generation. Combining flight and offsetting,my actions would allegedly have been ‘carbon
neutral’. Some companies even actively adver tise their emission-causing products by selling
them bundled with offsets. Land Rover, for instance,‘enables customers to offset their first
45,000 miles/72,000 km of driving in their new vehicle’ (Land Rover, 2012). One can
hardly avoid the impression that offsetting is not only used to reduce emissions, but to
market particularly carbon-intensive products.This impression is reinforced by the fact that
current voluntary offsetting schemes are so cheap that the costs are barely noticeable.
Offsetting is even used to compensate for the emissions caused by academic conferences,
confronting us all with the question of whether we want to participate in such schemes
(Anderson, 2012).
The current practice of offsetting raises two questions. Fir st, how are we to determine
individual emission control obligations when people buy offsets? Second, how are we to
evaluate the motives for offsetting if people only buy these products when they are cheap?
More generally, the case of carbon offsetting also brings to light issues about the normative
and institutional implications of partial compliance settings, especially when the level of
compliance interacts with the compliance costs. I provide a more general outlook regarding
these issues in the last section.
In recent years, the market for voluntary emission offsetting schemes has grown rapidly.
This market must not be confused with wholesale markets for emission permits between
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doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12044
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2014 VOL 62, 913–929
© 2013The Author.Political Studies © 2013 Political Studies Association
states or major industrial emitters (such as the UN Clean Development Mechanism or the
EU Emission Trading System). In this article, I focus exclusively on voluntary solutions for
consumers to offset their emissions.
For a first take on the problem,consider the example of F the frequent flier: F flies around
the world to visit friends and family and causes a large quantity of greenhouse gas
(henceforth GHG) emissions. However, he buys voluntary emission offsets. Assume that
these offsets are genuine offsets, causing true emission reductions equal to or greater than
the emissions of F’s flying. The offsets F buys are very cheap because very few people
participate in the voluntary offsetting market. Has F met his obligation to keep emissions
at a sustainable level? And does it matter that his offsets were so cheap that he can easily
afford to offset his air travel emissions without significant sacrifices?
I have already hinted that the issue requires two distinct perspectives.First, I ask how the
responsibility for keeping the total emissions at a sustainable level should be distributed. I
will argue for an individual limit principle, such that (under suitable ceteris paribus assumptions)
individuals are only required to look after their own emissions and that offsets can (at least
in principle) be used to stay within one’s own permissible limit.With this argument I will
reject more demanding claims that individuals should buy the socially optimal level of
offsets. Second,however, I will argue that the current offsetting practice rests on motivations
that are very likely unstable. In particular, it is likely that the current offsetting practice is
only functional because just a small minority of people participate in it, and that it would
collapse under full compliance because individuals are unlikely to pay the (much higher)
full compliance market price.
The argument proceeds in six steps. In the first section I explain the function of
voluntary carbon offsets, and the standards they must meet.The second section sketches the
market for voluntary carbon offsets and introduces the problem of undemandingness due
to partial compliance. This raises the question of how obligations for emission reduction
ought to be distributed under the condition of partial compliance. The third section
discusses two competing principles: utilitarian optimising and Liam Murphy’s compliance
condition. The fourth section compares these two approaches with the less demanding
individual limit principle. In the fifth section,I test the robustness of motivations to offset and
show that the problem with cheap voluntary carbon offsets is not that they are too cheap
– the problem is rather that many customers probably buy cheap offsets for the wrong
reasons.The last section draws conclusions and discusses wider implications.
Voluntar y Carbon Offsetting
A virtual consensus exists that the current level of GHG emissions is unsustainable, and is
very likely to have bad if not disastrous effects on the ear th’s climate. The best available
climate models show that a stabilisation of GHG emissions at a low level could lead to a
significant but manageable climate change, while business-as-usual scenarios predict severe
changes that could possibly spin out of control (see,among many,IPCC, 2007; Stern, 2007).
Thus, despite many uncertainties, most experts recommend reducing the level of emissions
and stabilising them at a sustainable level to avoid potentially disastrous consequences.
The voluntary offsetting market has been developed by non-governmental organisations
and private companies. Consumers can buy voluntar y emission reductions (VER, not to be
914 KAI SPIEKERMANN
© 2013The Author.Political Studies © 2013 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2014, 62(4)
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