Ecology

The market for carbon offsets is growing exponentially but remains filled with dodgy projects that do little for the environment. Sceptics say it’s time to do away with the voluntary carbon markets altogether and take real action through carbon taxes and emissions caps. But by focusing on the imperfections of carbon offsets, they are dismissing a viable approach to climate action that should be used alongside a broader transition towards lower carbon emissions. Read more to find out why carbon credits shouldn’t be dismissed just yet and how technology is improving the integrity of the carbon market.

Policy makers tend to push for “precision” digital technologies, in particular robots, drones and sensors, to address the challenges in biodiversity, the environment and even climate change. The dangerous drawback is, by minimizing human judgment, traditional knowledge and lived experiences, these technology systems tend to undermine people’s ability to nurture ecosystems.

Politicians and billionaires are advocating geoengineering approaches as quick fixes on challenges of climate, biodiversity and environment. Many of these technologies are too dangerous to be deployed or even experimented with in the real world.

Bhutan couldn’t achieve its goal of becoming a 100% organic country by 2020 despite the best of intention, strong political will and government support. What challenges have prevented Bhutan from achieving its goal and does it still or ever have the chance of achieving the goal?

Sri Lanka is in the midst of arguably the worst economic crisis during its 74-year post-independence era, with its political and social stability strained to almost breaking point. One facet of this crisis is shown in the Sri Lankan agriculture sector, which is trying to recover from the self-inflicted wounds of a misguided policy of overnight conversion to exclusively organic agriculture (EOA). The author analyzes the background that led to such an ambitious, but unrealistic, venture and describes its wide-ranging repercussions, which have put the country’s food security and farmer livelihoods under serious threat.

What are the impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on human labour and the environment? How do legislative proposals for regulating AI in Europe and Brazil respond to these impacts beyond discussions on surveillance and automated decision-making bias?

The ETC group reviews the process of technology assessment (TA) – an inclusive corrective to policymaking on new and emerging technologies. It involves people’s informed views on long-term common good, to replace top-down and opaque decision-making processes by power players.