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Flashcards in Politics of Carbon Deck (11)
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1
Q

Why is knowing residence times in global carbon cycle critical?

A

Has major implications on how to manage carbon budgets and sequestration efforts

2
Q

Why are there uncertainties in the estimates of residence times of carbon in the global cycle?

A

Components of carbon cycle are difficult to measure and cannot straightforwardly upscale from point to regional an global scales

3
Q

How much carbon was released into the atmosphere from fossil fuel emissions?

A

Of 545 Pg C released to atmosphere from fossil fuel emissions from 1750 to 2011, 240 Pg C accumulated in the atmosphere

4
Q

What are the critiques of CDM?

A
  • Offset credit calculations are prone to exaggerations in the business-as-usual estimate, which means many schemes do meet condition of additionality (i.e. have no effect on CO2 reduction)
  • Under CDM project requires whole new set of government techniques
5
Q

What are the ethics of carbon offset?

A
  • Current markets under-price CO2
  • How much reduction is it ethical to purchase from others?
  • If CDM offsets are premised on paying others to meet obligations, can it be ethical at all?
6
Q

What quote from the Indian Centre for Science and the Environment describes carbon colonialism?

A

“Rush to make profits out of carbon-fixing engenders another kind of colonialism”

Bachram, 2004

7
Q

What is the scientific analysis of CDM process?

A
  • No scientific credibility that practice of soaking up pollution using sequesterian
  • Carbon stored above ground (i.e. in trees) not the same as carbon stored below ground (i.e. fossil fuels)

Bachram (2004)

8
Q

How is the CDM a form of carbon colonialism?

A
  • Kyoto Protocol allows industrialised countries access to a parcel of land roughly the size of one small Southern nation every year for generation of CDM carbon sink credits
  • Responsibility for over consumptive lifestyles of richer nation is pushed on the poor
  • South becomes a carbon dump for the industrialized world

Bachram (2004)

9
Q

How does the Kyoto Protcol not recognise Indigeous people under the CDM program?

A

Carbon sinks under the Kyoto Protocol can only qualify for emission credits if they are managed by those with official status: old-growth rainforest inhabited by Indigenous people does not qualify under these rules as managed and cannot get credits

Bachram (2004)

10
Q

What does the process of commodity fetishism do to payment for ecosystem services?

A
  • Narrowing down complex ecosystem into single services has ethical implications for how we perceive nature
  • Denies multiplicity of values attributed to a service
  • Characterised by power asymmetries that reproduce rather than readdress existing inequalities

Kosoy and Corbera (2008)

11
Q

What does carbon sequestatrion do to the monetary exchange value?

A

Carbon sequestration attributed monetary exchange value and value fluctuates depending on cost of reducing one tonne of CO2 elsewhere and by other means

Kosoy and Corbera (2008)