Carbon Credits for the Climate Conference

How can 461 tons of carbon emissions become a plus for the global environment?

According to the United Nations, it's easy. Just buy offsets.

According to an article in The New York Times, the environmental cost of transporting hundreds of dignitaries -- by plane, limo and motorcade -- to the international Climate Conference was a bit of an embarrassment. After all, if the U.N. couldn't manage its own emissions, how could they ask others to go green?

To resolve the problem, they "offset those emissions by directing money to a power project in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, through which agricultural leftovers like rice husks and sunflower stalks are turned into electricity for the local grid." By financing green projects, the U.N. figured, they'd get rid of as much CO2 as they'd generated.

The recent Climate Conference wasn't the U.N.'s first foray into purchasing CO2 offsets. Two years ago, they did their best to manage their environmental damage by purchasing offsets -- but the whole idea of carbon offset purchases was in its infancy.

Now, it's more like buying stocks. According to The New York Times: "Officials chose an offset project certified by the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations for carbon credits. The project is on track to receive the Gold Standard -- the highest reliability ranking for carbon credits, much like an A rating for bonds."

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