fatvegan

It seems that the carbon trading market in Australia finally kicked off today. Prices started at $19/tonne, but that's not really based on anything in particular.

The first trade was between AGL and Westpac for 1 unit of carbon (which is 10,000 tonnes). Australia emits 603 million tonnes a year according to SMH, so those traders were really just doing it for the fun of it. I interested in working out how much more my life would cost if my carbon was offset, or if I chose to buy some share of a fixed amount that we decided was OK for the plant. AGL reckons the price could rise to $50/tonne by 2020, which is a much more interesting number to me. The price will rise because it will get harder and harder to reduce emissions as we take advantage of the cheap technologies and have to start using more expensive ones.

Last year I took two short flights and two long flights. AGL reckons that emitted 4.5 tonnes of carbon, but GreenFleet reckons that total impact on the atmosphere is more like emitting 12 tonnes. Those flights cost about $1200. If I added the cost of buying the rights to emit the carbon I produce it would cost $50 * 12 tonnes = $600. Which is a fair whack. So I'm inclined to conclude that I should probably stop flying. Or perhaps only fly for funerals of nuclear family members perhaps. I think I should commit to offsetting my flight emissions if I do decide to fly.

I'm also happy I ride a bike.

And green power is the bomb. It is so easy and so cheap, and you can reduce your emissions by a heap. If we didn't have green power, the Enmore house's carbon emissions from energy would have walloped my flight emissions. So everyone should get green power.