Carbon Offsetting: UgandaLand Rover owners can soon feel a little less guilty about their choice of vehicles thanks to an innovative project. Paddy Comyntravelled to Uganda to find out
If it wasn't bad enough being an SUV owner, what with all that guilt and finger waving from environmentalists, last week Brian Cowen and John Gormley added to your misery by amending the VRT system and the road tax system to one that will mean that, in many cases, it will be even more expensive to own such a vehicle.
But of course, none of these changes will come into effect until the middle of next year, so it is likely that there will be quite a rush this January for SUVs, as owners avoid the increased charges that are coming.
You would be thinking, therefore, that owners of Land Rovers, vehicles that have previously incurred the wrath of the most staunch tree embracers, would be increasingly fleeing to the hills with shame, but it would appear that this need not be the case.
I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when I got the call asking me to fly all the way to Uganda to see how Land Rover were doing their bit to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions created by both the manufacturing and driving of their vehicles. Even an American would understand that sort of irony.
The car industry is just one of a number of industries that has been forced to get its act together under the Kyoto Agreement. The bare basics of it are that the more fuel a car uses, the higher its CO2 output is likely to be. And this means that Land Rovers tend to use more fuel than small runabouts. However, they are doing their bit to minimise this - 90 per cent of their sales are diesel powered vehicles and in 2009 they will introduce a stop-start system that will cut the CO2 emissions of its Freelander by over 7 per cent.
But the reason why we are in Uganda is because when Land Rover make a car they offset the CO2 created by its production through a company called Climate Care and, for UK customers, they offset the CO2 of the first 45,000 miles (72,414km) of driving too.
This means that although you might be coughing up some bad stuff at one end, you are saving it somewhere else. And Uganda is one such place where this happens.
Climate Care's CO2 offset projects across the world avoid or reduce emissions by ensuring that the amount saved balances the original emissions produced by Land Rover operations.
Climate Care will therefore look for suitable projects around the world where CO2 emissions can be saved, thus making the owning and driving of a Land Rover as carbon neutral as possible.
Uganda is not a country I knew much about, apart from the whole Idi Amin thing, but within minutes of arriving in Entebbe Airport and heading towards Kampala, you spot that this is a city that is poor, sprawling and despite their best attempts to clean it up for the recent royal visit, is frankly a bit of a mess.
Life is tough, and looking after the environment is somewhere down the list after looking after yourself and your family.
Cooking for the average Ugandan family takes place on a stove which is fired with charcoal. Charcoal is popular because it is light enough to transport and is cheap enough to buy, but it plays havoc with the surroundings.
The manufacture of charcoal, both legally and illegally, has shrunk the forestry cover from 45 per cent of the total land area to just over 20 per cent. We witnessed the illegal production of charcoal at first-hand.
The end result, compared to the devastation needed to make it, is startling.
The money that comes from Land Rover, via Climate Care, has funded the manufacture of a new type of stove which reduces charcoal consumption by an average of 37 per cent, saving the average household $130 (€88.40) over three years. When you consider the average income of local householders is about $1 (€0.68) a day, then the savings are significant. Put another way, two of these new stoves save the same amount of CO2 as one Discovery uses over three years.
Our visit allowed us to distribute some of these new stoves to families and schools.
Rolling up to these impoverished towns and villages to the grateful recipients of the stoves in an €80,000 V8 Discovery, all in the name of climate change, didn't sit all that well with me, but the intention was good and the sentiments real.
You would be a robot if you were not moved by the sincerity of the Ugandan people and their gratitude for any little bit of help they receive.
Managing director of Land Rover Ireland, David Harpur told us that they will be introducing the carbon offset programme to Ireland.
"We are just doing the figures on it at the moment and finalising the details, but we will have an announcement in the first quarter of next year," he said.
The difficulty may be that SUV owners, who with the changes in VRT and the taxation system, will be paying more for their vehicles than before, all in the name of the environment.
Will they be prepared to pay that little bit more on top of this to fund projects such as the ones we saw in Uganda, despite their obvious benefits?
Up until then, Irish owners of SUVs and indeed any other car owner can pay to have their emissions offset through Climate Care and fund such projects.
By visiting www.climatecare.co.uk you can offset your motoring or indeed your flights. It should be noted that Land Rover now offsets all its manufacturing and flights with Climate Care.
It costs about €50 to offset a Freelander for 15,000 miles, and up to €100 for a petrol Range Rover for the same distance.
This can go some way towards offsetting your guilt, as well as offsetting CO2. And it makes a great dinner party conversation. Land Rover also, through the charity Born Free, supports Ngamba Island, which is a chimpanzee sanctuary on the north edge of Lake Victoria in Uganda. The island is home to 42 chimpanzees, all of whom have been rescued from the illegal bushmeat or pet trades. One hundred years ago, as many as two million chimpanzees flourished in the African forests and bush. Today, fewer than 200,000 of the primates are left in their native habitat and the numbers are diminishing. Every year, 5,000 chimpanzees are killed by poachers. Here, the rescued animals are given safe and long-term care.
It is an incredible place to visit, where you can learn all about these fascinating creatures and even interact with them on a forest walk.
Visit www.ngambaisland.org for more.