Madam, - Wednesday's Motors supplement carried an article on how SUV owners can offset their carbon emissions and clear their consciences by funding energy-efficiency projects in the developing world. The accompanying photographs showed three €80,000 Discovery Land Rovers driving through an impoverished town in Uganda to present three new cooking stoves, each no bigger than a pot, to a local school.
It is all too easy to be cynical, but the message here is clear. We in the developed world can continue our energy-intensive lifestyles while people in the developing world adopt a more energy-efficient one. To put it more bluntly, we can continue to pollute so long as somebody else mops up after us.
Even a child can see that this is a cop-out and grossly unfair. The carbon dioxide emissions of the average European are more than 10 times those of the average African. Can we really believe that funding energy-efficient projects overseas will somehow compensate for our business-as-usual approach at home?
Clearly, the deepest cuts need to occur in those countries with the greatest emissions and that means here in Ireland, which has the second highest level per person in the EU. In terms of motoring, and transport in general, this means smaller, cleaner cars, increased use of public transport and less international travel. It is naïve to think that so long as we sign up to a carbon-offset scheme we can clear our consciences and continue on our way.
The fact is that to tackle global warming we must dramatically
reduce our own emissions and fund energy efficiency, conservation
and poverty alleviation projects throughout the developing world
where the consequences of our carbon-intensive lifestyles will be
felt the most severely. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN DILLON,
Callan,
Co Kilkenny.