Reference: Cleaning up our act, Bangkok Post, September 28, 2009

Programs like the CDM, cleverly worded Orwell style with the D standing for development, allow the North to get the South to run carbon offset programs and sell the offsets to the North (Cleaning up our act, Bangkok Post, September 28, 2009). In the end it is the South that carries out the emission reduction but it is the North that claims them as "offsets" in order to meet their emission reduction targets. They have the money and they mean to continue their high energy consumption and high standard of living to which they have become accustomed. The rich get richer by continuing to consume immense amounts of energy per capita. The poor get poorer by selling them their energy resources as they have been doing all along, and now, by also selling them their carbon offsets. The carbon trading scheme and perhaps the whole global warming thing could very well turn out to be an elaborate mechanism to ensure continued flow of energy to the North in the face of limited non-renewable resources and increasing energy demand from a rapidly developing South.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand