Carbon offsetting and renewable energy development

New carbon crediting and offsetting mechanisms are being developed under the Paris Agreement. Polluters can meet their emission reduction targets by acquiring and retiring carbon offset credits. Globally, most of these credits come from renewable energy sources. However, their additionality is increasingly questionable. Global renewable electricity capacity continues to grow. Greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power generation are starting to fall, as governments and organisations pledge to curtail emissions, more capital is mobilised for energy transition, and renewable energy technologies become commercially competitive. The opportunity to earn carbon offset credits is becoming less indispensable to renewable energy development. Aggregate emissions could rise above the baseline level when polluters increase their emission budgets by using carbon credits generated from a renewable energy installation that is part of the baseline scenario. To safeguard environmental integrity, the conditions for including renewable energy in carbon crediting and offsetting schemes should be reconsidered.     

The Last Stand of Colonialism? The Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils and the Sino-British Negotiations Over Hong Kong, 1982–1984

ABSTRACT

As influential leaders in Hong Kong, the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Council (UMELCO) were arguably the only group of Hong Kong people permitted to take part in the Sino-British negotiations that defined the future of Hong Kong. But almost no studies have explored the broader significance of their participation in the negotiations. Using recently declassified British documents, this article argues that, in the wider history of decolonisation, UMELCO’s petition for British administration belonged to the less noticed voices that called for alternatives to independence. UMELCO’s participation also reveals how the negotiations challenged Hong Kong’s autonomy. Although governors at times advocated Hong Kong’s interests vis-a-vis London, the governor’s autonomy during the negotiations was restricted, so the appeal of UMELCO was further weakened. Although UMELCO wanted to preserve the existing system, their actions inadvertently boosted the rise of ‘Hong Kong people’ as an idea and encouraged local people to demand more democracy. The structure of ExCo, LegCo and the government was mostly inherited by post-1997 Hong Kong, while some of UMELCO shifted to the Chinese side, suggesting the irony that a supposedly anti-colonial China lived with a state that came largely from colonial rule.