How eco-conscious are the Bali delegates?

It is an irony lost on no one who is jetting off to the tropical island of Bali that international climate-change conferences can leave a heavy carbon footprint.

One option for the eco-conscious traveller is carbon offsetting, ie, buying credits from an emissions reduction scheme that prevents or removes an amount of carbon equivalent to that used in the flight.

Some governments already have an official policy on carbon offsetting, for instance the UK government offsets all ministerial and official travel. But the EU institutions do not have a central policy and are struggling to agree on one.

Offsetting schemes are controversial. First, the quality of carbon-offsetting schemes is mixed, not all result in reducing emissions. Second, many green-minded people object to them as they seem to offer a licence to fly. They do not stop people from avoiding flights in the first place.

The Commission’s environment department (DG Environment) is carrying out a feasibility study into different types of carbon offsetting and the rest of the Commission is awaiting the results. A Commission source said that the "risk of fraud" attached to some carbon-offsetting schemes mean "there are a lot of reasons for proceeding with a bit of caution and seeing what all the options are". It is not yet clear when the feasibility study will be ready. But within DG Environment there is already a split on the issue. One source at DG Environment says "the divide is over what is really hypocritical - is it hypocritical to offset or not to offset...some would prefer keeping flights to a minimum, restricting travel and doing more videoconferencing".

Carbon offsetting has also been keenly discussed by the temporary committee on climate change within the European Parliament. MEPs have decided that political groups and MEPs should choose to pay for offsetting themselves, rather than a centrally organised scheme funded by the taxpayer. Some MEPs are making their own arrangements. Anders Wijkman, a Swedish centre-right MEP, says he has paid for twenty tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) this year and will buy another five tonnes of CO2 to cover his trip to Bali.

It is an irony lost on no one who is jetting off to the tropical island of Bali that international climate-change conferences can leave a heavy carbon footprint.