Neutrality is not easy

Stuart Matthews, Senior Group Editor.

I am not carbon neutral. For a start, I come from a long way away and rack up flying time measured in days, not hours. I drive gas guzzling vehicles with a heavy right foot and take ready advantage of cheap petrol.

I may have district cooling at home - lauded as environmentally friendly, but murderous on the wallet – but I waste it because I have to pay a high fixed charge, regardless of how much I use.

Economists would suggest that there should be an incentive to encourage me to use less. They’re right. But apparently not right enough to have local developers pay any attention.

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Economists, however, have also come up with other clever incentive schemes to aid carbon neutrality.

Carbon credits are an artificial economic device layered over the real economy, allowing companies to buy their green credentials and off-set any carbon they spew into the atmosphere, through the purchase of ‘credits’, essentially theoretical trees.

Online businesses are flourishing, selling peace of mind to the carbon guilty, after helping them calculate just how bad they are. Airlines like this too. Some include it as an option when you buy a ticket: ‘would you like to off-set your carbon?’ No thanks.

Carbon credits are nonsense. The point of trying to be carbon neutral is to stop wrecking the planet’s atmosphere. This should be a genuine effort, not an economic sleight of hand. Buy enough carbon credits and you can off-set anything. Anyone fancy a carbon-neutral coal-fired power station? Or perhaps plant a tree with your next six-litre V8? Pointless.

Real change can only come after genuine effort. Yes people, if you want something, you have to work for it. And if it is a new idea, you may have to be the first to try. This is the position the developers of Masdar City find themselves in.

They are trying something new in developing a zero carbon city and learning as they go. It will not be easy, but the experiment they are engaged in may produce useful lessons for everyone.

Regardless of what you think of the project and its progress, they should be applauded for trying.