A carbon offset is a payment for the right to emit one tonne of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases due to a theoretically equivalent emission reduction that occurs elsewhere in the world. The UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is one of several UN-sponsored systems through which governments and polluters looking to meet emission reduction targets fund projects that reduce emissions abroad. Unlike other nations, which have specified maximum percentages of reductions that can be purchased, the Canadian government’s target merely states: “Canada may use international mechanisms to achieve its 2030 target, subject to robust systems that deliver real and verified emissions reductions.”

The problem is that when it comes to international emissions trading, such “robust” mechanisms don’t exist. Plagued by wildly fluctuating prices, incidences of human rights violations, widespread corruption, and insufficient oversight, UNFCCC carbon-crediting mechanisms have largely been a disaster. A recent study in Nature found that from 2008 to 2012, poor oversight and corruption in just one of these transactions resulted in the additional release of 600 million tonnes of carbon – the equivalent of the annual CO2 emissions of the UK. Another study for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that anywhere from 30 to 50 per cent of CDM-funded projects would have happened even without CDM funding, meaning that the actual emissions reduced through offsetting are drastically overstated. The same study found that, before regulatory changes in 2011, half of approved CDM projects were the construction of more energy-efficient coal- and gas-fired plants – investments that, ironically, must be justified by the burning of more coal and natural gas.

Because CDM projects are only as valuable as the quantity of emissions they can claim to reduce, regardless of the actual utility of the project, carbon offset mechanisms disincentivize funding efforts for projects that do not have easily quantifiable emission reductions or for projects that work over long timescales. However, these are the types of multi-faceted projects that are often the most valuable in addressing the diverse root causes of environmental degradation. On the flip side, carbon offset mechanisms promote “cost-effective” projects such as large-scale forest plantations, with the logic that more trees will simply absorb more CO2. One recent CDM-accredited project, the development of a large-scale forest plantation in Uganda, resulted in the displacement of upwards of 8,000 people in order to establish fenced-off forest plantations, denying the evicted inhabitants access to traditional grazing lands, farmland, and sites of worship. In order to ensure emission reduction targets were met, the company hired armed guards to defend the forest plantations from newly displaced ‘trespassers.’ The company also relied on heavy chemical use that polluted surrounding rivers and resulted in the death of local wildlife.

In other reforestation projects, offset financing has promoted tree plantation as most “efficient” in sequestering carbon emissions, even through the inclusion of fast-growing invasive species, which degrade natural biodiversity. These types of projects are considered successes in the eyes of carbon-offset mechanisms, but the need to guard forest plantations is a manifestation of the utter failure to address the intersections between poverty, insecure tenancy, food shortages, and environmental degradation. Though politicians repeatedly describe projects funded through offset mechanisms as the “low-hanging fruit” of global emissions reductions, this claim is a stretch. The structure of these mechanisms actually disincentivizes funding sustainable, long-term emissions-reducing projects, and the fruit of the projects they do incentivize is far beyond the reach of poorer countries.

Even if the UN were to perfect the design, structure, and monitoring of international carbon-offset mechanisms, the entire scheme maintains the balance of power between “developed” and “developing” countries. As nations such as Canada seek to “extract” the maximum amount of emission reductions from the Global South, they export the economic, social, and environmental burden of actually producing these emissions reductions. The drive to forcefully evict populations to construct dams or plant monocrop forests is an extension of global power dynamics – a new and “greener” neocolonialism. Mechanisms like the CDM do not primarily aim to produce a more sustainable world, but rather to extend the timeframe over which wealthy nations can continue to live, and profit from, dangerously unsustainable lifestyles.

In 2011, the Canadian government withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that it would cost the government $14 billion in carbon credits to meet its emissions target. While the Conservative government at the time blamed the previous Liberal government for its inaction, and the recently elected Liberal government will certainly pin blame on the Harper regime, they both misrepresent the nature of this failure to address the climate crisis. The ability for any government to rely on the amorphous purchase of carbon credits will always provide an attractive alternative to the difficult and necessary labour of drastically restructuring the Canadian energy system, economy, and standard of living.

It’s no wonder that the Canadian climate plan mentions no cap on credit purchases. A large-scale movement toward a carbon market is nothing more than a means to pass responsibility for the production and reduction of emissions abroad, and this will only exacerbate existing power inequities. It will absolve rich nations of full responsibility for their increasingly destructive lifestyles and burden those populations most vulnerable to – and least responsible for – climate change with the task of cleaning up the mess.

Ella Belfer is a U3 Economics and Environmental Studies student. To reach her, ella.belfer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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The past two years have also marked a new era in sustainability at McGill with the launch of Vision 2020, a long-term sustainability strategy for McGill. The project, sponsored by the McGill Office of Sustainability, brought over 1000 stakeholders together to draft long-term goals and concrete actions for promoting sustainability in McGill’s research, governance, administration, connectivity, operations, and education.

Following the widespread expression of community interest in ethical investments by groups such as Divest McGill and the McGill Office of Sustainability, the Board of Governors’ (BoG) Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR) – responsible for assessing the “social injury” caused by McGill’s investments – undertook a BoG Terms of Reference review with community consultation for the first time. As a result, the Terms of Reference were amended to include “grave environmental damage” as one of the criteria to consider in proposing changes to McGill’s financial holdings. Bowing to unprecedented interest from the community, CAMSR revised its role, acknowledging it ought to be more proactive. Before, it would simply make recommendations regarding petitions without conducting meaningful research.

After a year in office, Fortier says, in an article in the McGill Reporter, she has begun to “crystallize the hopes, the goals, and the ambitions of this community.” Yet the University’s ever closer ties with industrial interests suggest otherwise.

In the words of Fortier herself, “Sustainability is a priority at McGill.” It is tempting to link these two phenomena; a new principal, determined to base her platform on the community’s needs, and a new wave of sustainability at McGill. Accepting this narrative, the increasing ‘green-ness’ of our campus seems inevitable. To many students, it seemed that the cogs of the bureaucratic machine were turning at last.

But a shift in language is only as valuable as a corresponding shift in action. Many students interpreted Fortier’s ‘community-driven’ platform as a promise not just to listen, but to act on the demands voiced by the students at McGill, the voices least represented at the governance table. Students would welcome such a platform, in a school where the average student is unable to even speak or ask questions at BoG meetings (held in a room with extremely limited capacity for audience attendance), and where student engagement with the administration is limited to one of three options: send an email (or ten) and await an unlikely reply; hope that the two student voices on a board of 25 will bring up the issue; or protest, hoping to create enough pressure so administrators can no longer ignore the issue.

Even when student voices are heard, and their initiatives are considered, the administration is very reluctant to implement them fully. For instance, Vision 2020 originally began as a truly collective grassroots vision, before facing significant barriers from the administration. The McGill Office of Sustainability was forced to substantially reduce the ambition of the document before the BoG would approve it.

Sustainability initiatives at McGill have all followed the same process: dedicated students do the labour-intensive research, campaigning, and legwork, often mobilizing student funds in the process, at which point the University green-lights a less ambitious incarnation of the project, co-opting it as yet another example of how sustainable McGill really is.

A shift in language is only as valuable as a corresponding shift in action. Many students interpreted Fortier’s ‘community-driven’ platform as a promise not just to listen, but to act on the demands voiced by the students at McGill.

It’s important to remain critical of just who is actually being consulted as Fortier’s ‘community.’ When members of Divest McGill met for the first time with Fortier this summer, presenting a vision of a university that does not invest in corporations directly responsible for causing social injury and the destruction of the planet, and asking about the Principal’s stance on fossil fuel divestment, Fortier refused to even put forward a presentation in front of the BoG or a meeting with the Investment Committee. Given the chance to prioritize the voices of students, and to address demands being made by members of the McGill community, Fortier refused to promote open dialogue between students and relevant decision makers.

The McGill administration historically has had trouble defining ‘community.’ Take the most recent joint BoG-Senate meeting, closed to the public, whose theme of “community engagement through research and innovation” was no more than a presentation of how industry might best leverage our community to maximize its profit. Last year, a conference was hosted by the Institute of Canadian Studies, purporting to discuss whether Canada is a petroleum economy. Although it was promoted as a balanced discussion by relevant experts, the conference featured a presentation from the vice president of Canadian oil company Cenovus Energy, John Brannan, and an appallingly racist and sexist speech by media personality Ezra Levant, while leaving little time for voices from frontline communities.

Both Fortier and the McGill administration have a history of prioritizing corporate interests over student voices, with the replacement of Tim Hortons with Prèmiere Moisson as a recent example. Not to demonize all such decisions, but one has to ask: whose voices are truly being heard?

Even when student voices are heard, and their initiatives are considered, the administration is very reluctant to implement them fully.

The fossil fuel industry has done everything in its power to dominate the conversation on sustainability. From the involvement of Suncor and Syncrude in the redesign of Alberta’s kindergarten-to-third-grade curriculum to the success of oil and gas corporations in lobbying Ottawa against greenhouse gas regulations, corporations are using their financial clout to leverage national politics. At McGill, one of the major partners of the Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design (TISED) is Total E&P, a company dedicated to promoting the “sustainable development” of the tar sands. According to a study published just this week, at a very conservative estimate, no more than 15 per cent of Canadian oil reserves can be used by 2050 if we have any chance of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, assuming technology develops to make tar sands extraction cleaner than it is at present. The study also emphasized the limited impact of carbon capture and storage technologies, which are at present just becoming commercially viable but remain both energy-intensive and expensive.

Students campaigning for sustainability initiatives face hurdle after hurdle at multiple levels of the administration. Time and time again, student activists are told, “Be patient, change takes time.” Asked by campus media on November 12 how McGill’s investment choices will mirror community opinion as widespread support grows for fossil fuel divestment, Fortier responded, “You start getting there into the zone of evaluation of what is the impact and at what point is it important to take serious action, it’s not a simple thing.” Which raises the question, important to whom?

The science is clear, and the call for serious action has been made time and time again. McGill, as an institution for higher learning, has an instrumental role to play in fostering a new culture of sustainability. The McGill community – students, staff, faculty, alumni – has made clear time and time again the importance of sustainability. While Fortier presents a new image of McGill’s administration, the underlying attitudes, structures, and barriers remain unchanged. The goals of McGill’s sustainability community, largely elucidated in Vision 2020, are truly a “collective vision” of what McGill could, and ought to be. Now, it’s up to Fortier to honour her commitment to reflect our vision.

Ella Belfer is a U2 Joint Honours Economics and Environmental Studies tudent and a member of Divest McGill. To contact her, email ella.belfer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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