Johann Hari is disgusted by carbon reduction sleights of hand. One example:
The nations of the world were allocated permits to release greenhouse gases back in 1990, when the Soviet Union was still a vast industrial power so it was given a huge allocation. But the following year, it collapsed, and its industrial base went into freefall along with its carbon emissions. It was never going to release those gases after all. But Russia and the eastern European countries have held on to them in all negotiations as "theirs".
Now, they are selling them to rich countries who want to purchase "cuts". Under the current system, the US can buy them from Romania and say they have cut emissions even though they are nothing but a legal fiction. We aren't talking about climatic small change. This hot air represents 10 gigatonnes of CO2. By comparison, if the entire developed world cuts its emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, that will only take six gigatonnes out of the atmosphere.