http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2232427/liverpool-airport-co2-power

Looks as though this British Airport is leading the way, effecting change and securing extra passenger numbers by being a green thinker………

The cost of a verified US carbon credit is $3.38 per ton. Refer to: http://www.rggi.org/. This is all reckoned with metric tons = 2,200 pounds.

$3.38 / 2,200 pounds = 0.001536 cents per pound of carbon credits

3degreesinc.com is selling credits for $4.14 per 728 pounds effectively 0.005686 cents per pound of carbon credits

See their site: http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/12/24/mn_ecofriendly_graphic.jpg

This means a price of final price of $12.50 per ton of carbon credits.

This means a profit margin of over 370%

Carbon credits and markets can work. The fundamental mechanics though lack any sense of transparency. Look at the Chicago Climate Exchange where the same single carbon unit can be sold as BOTH a REC and carbon credit.

Companies like 3degreesinc.com do nothing but perpetuate a flawed system with marginal transparency and their sole interest is making money. These companies don’t care about saving the planet… they want to make money to the detriment of the very system they exploit.

The UN created a system based on flawed compromises driven by lumber and forestry interests, coal-fired power plants need for opacity. How come avoided deforestation is not counted as a carbon sink or credit? Perhaps because indigenous peoples who have no voice live in them? No, the real reason is forest lobbies have no interest in the preservation of forests. The lumber companies want to cut trees, plant commercial species like teak and palm oil which in turn destroy biodiversity.

Ask where carbon credits come from and you get blank stares from Terrapass.com and 3degreesinc.com. They’ll show a list of projects that have been audited by CPAs or some other auditors (who take a 1-week course) once a year!!! They might as well have a homeless person from SF do the “certification”.

If the UN, the US and the bazillions of “carbon companies” like 3degrees and terrapass want to bring credibility to carbon markets, they need full transparency.

Kyoto and Poland were exercises in compromise and merely forums for industrial and forest/pulp/paper interests and lobbies. If we want to do the right thing, we can do it. If you just want to make money, send your resume to 3degreesinc.com or terrapass.com or join the pulp and paper or cattle ranching lobbies.

1) SF is in a horrendous budget deficit. To spend $163,000 for kiosks (approximately $2K I bet minimum), power and internet access for power hungry desktop PC/kiosks is wrong. It pits environmental movement against profound human needs such as the need to help the poor in SF or maybe hire more public safety or health care folks.

2) While there is merit in CO2 credits, “verified credits” of methane expelling Brazilian cow manure that cannot be verified or tracked by the buyer of the credits, SF or even 3Degreesinc.com itself makes this entire exercise a joke.

3) The cost of US carbon credits is +/- $3.30 as per the last RGGI auction. And even those are currently hard or impossible to verify. Consider that they do not even publish the source of the credits nor the buyer of the credits and those are US credits. Will these kiosks offset 50,000 tons of CO2/year?

4) It’s a scam to offer “verified credits” and a manipulation of marketing jargon. Why don’t they publish who and where the credits come from?

The Brazilian carbon trade is rife with double selling, even triple selling of the same credits over and over again. I know… I am from Brazil.

5) If SF and 3degreesinc.com want to do this, then the entire transaction should be subject to the fullest implementation of SF sunshine ordinance.

6) There is apparently a lack of business judgement from both SF and 3degreesinc. The public interest matters. How this business decision affects the overall perception of carbon markets matters. This was poor judgement.