A cap and trade program will not achieve actual greenhouse gas emissions reductions in time. Period. It’s a charade to continue business as usual. A broad—and now growing—coalition of Environmental Justice advocates have come together to stand in opposition to the use of trading and offsets to address greenhouse gas emissions in California. On Tuesday, we announced the release of the California Environmental Justice Movement's Declaration Against Use of Carbon Trading Schemes to Address Climate Change. The Declaration details the environmental justice movement's opposition to the use of carbon trading and global offsets. For the release of the Declaration, we gathered at 5 locations across California for a teleconference to share our critique of carbon trading and to propose alternatives.

Larry Lohman, from the United Kingdom, is a founder of the international Durban Group and editor of an amazing, detailed study and critique of the Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) established under the Kyoto Protocol called Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power. He’s been visiting the U.S. and Canada to discuss these issues and has been very clear that the experience from Europe’s ETS has been a well-documented disaster. Emissions actually increased, the worst polluters were given massive windfall profits, energy costs for consumers increased, and the use of global ‘offsets’ funded oppressive projects the world over. He is strongly urging us to learn from Europe’s mistakes, not copy them. He has signed onto our Declaration.

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