Pumping furiously on a foot treadle in the afternoon heat, six-year-old Sarju
Ram is irrigating her impoverished family’s field, improving the crop and –
without knowing it – helping environmentally sensitive holiday-makers
assuage their guilt over long-haul flights to dream destinations.
But Sarju and her four brothers and sisters working flat out in a clump of
trees that provide scant shelter from the sun illustrate a growing argument
over claims that British environmentalists’ efforts to curb greenhouse
emissions are inadvertently fuelling an increase in child labour.
Sarju’s family is a beneficiary of Climate Care, an organisation that helps
some of Britain’s leading public figures and companies to offset their
carbon dioxide emissions by funding sustainable energy projects.
The Prince of Wales turned to Climate Care after his environmental adviser,
Jonathon Porritt, worked out the prince’s carbon footprint.
Customers of British Airways are among those who have been encouraged to log
on to Climate Care’s website and calculate how many tonnes of greenhouse
gases their flights will generate, and how much it will cost to neutralise
the impact on the atmosphere. A flight to Barbados for a family of four, for
example, generates 7.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which will cost them
£56.64 to offset.
Climate Care uses the money to help persuade families such as Sarju’s to give
up labour-saving diesel pumps and buy human-powered treadles instead. It
claims that by using the treadle, a family will save money on diesel and
hire charges, earn more from increased crops and cut the carbon emissions
that would have been produced by the pump.
Last week Indian experts criticised the scheme, saying it was promoting child
labour and forcing poor farmers to work harder so that wealthy air
travellers could enjoy exotic holidays without worrying about the
environment.
“The problem is the number of times child labour is involved,” claimed
Ashutosh Pandey of Emergent Ventures India, which advises companies on clean
technology.
“It’s not being monitored properly. It’s not reducing emissions. People are
selling their diesel pumps to others who are using them.”
Sunita Narain, an environmentalist at the Centre for Science and Environment,
a Delhi think tank, said: “It won’t help global warming if people take more
flights to the Seychelles.”
Michael Buick, a spokesman for the Oxford-based Climate Care, confirmed that
children were working the pumps it promotes, but said that people had to
focus on the benefits to the whole family.
He said his group was proud of its scheme, which had led to more than half a
million foot treadles being sold, and had won several awards. Four reports
had identified major benefits.
According to Buick, critics are mistaken in claiming that diesel pumps are
better than human-powered alternatives, because they are costly to run. The
treadles meant farmers could rely on increased crops.
Buick said that by “all mucking in” families were able to increase yields and
earn more to pay for children to go to school. The extra income also meant
fathers could stay with their families rather than leaving them to look for
work in the cities.
“If mum is planting and harvesting, the daughters help out. It’s just a
different way of life. The phrase ‘child labour’ is emotive. It implies
factories, but these are family farms where everyone gets stuck in, watering
the crops and taking a turn on the treadle pump,” he said.
Last week in Pairapur village, Sarju and her family took turns on the pump, 30
minutes for each child and an hour for each parent. They are growing more
corn, aubergines, and papayas, they said.
They had been paying £1 an hour to hire a diesel pump, said Sarju’s father
Hari Ram, and had fallen into debt. They have now repaid a £900 loan and for
the first time are saving money. “Our life has improved a lot,” he added.
But Sunita Narain said the rich needed to cut their own emissions by 50%
rather than relying on offsets. “An increase in manual labour is an ethical
issue,” she said.
More info about the the manual water pump - and watch
a video of the pump being used by an Indian farmer in Utter Pradesh
This story exemplifies the many problems with offsetting. Of course carbon reduction is crucial but it is indicative of the mindset of offsetting that it can be thought legimate to offset the leisure activities of wealthy westerners with the manual labour of children in the third world. It may well be the case that there are ancilliary benefits to manual powered pumps, such as reduced costs for impoversihed families. This is an argument for sustainable development, not for profit making companies in the west to make money out of schemes criticised by environmental and development workers in the countries that those schemes are located, as is the case here.
I have previously called carbon offsets "an imaginary commodity created by deducting what you hope happens from what you guess would have happened." In this case the commodity, is, incredibly, conjured out of child labour, while yet again local experts question whether the scheme achieves any net reduction in green house gasses.
Dan Welch, Manchester,
I wonder how Climate Care's route to reducing carbon emissions would be received if it involved child labour in this country? How about children operating tred mills to generate electricity, or why not replace that fossil fuel powered vehicle with a sedan chair carried by children? Sick? Disgraceful? Doesn't that just show our double standards. It's all too easy to say "but it's different over there." We in the rich West enjoy a life largely free of repetitive manual labour precisely becuase we live energy intensive, global warming producing lifestyles. Isn't it time we got our own house in order before trading the pollution produced by our lifestyles for the manual labour of those in the third world?
Donny Debarr, London,
I feel that this strongly worded article, along with other anti-offsetting stories does far more damage than realised.
It is important for carbon offset projects to be questioned and their claims verified. However it is always important to remember that carbon offsetting projects are not all the same. There are a range of projects that can be funded by carbon offset finance: a lot of them truly beneficial to the community and environment, and many that would not be able to occur without this funding. We at Blue Ventures Carbon Offset (www.bvco.org.uk) are running such projects, in addition to other groups including Climate Care (mentioned in this article).
As we try to help developing countries find ways to adapt to climate change and to become less dependent on fossil fuels, it is surely beneficial that carbon offsetting is helping to provide the finance for projects to achieve this. The carbon reduction should be seen as an additional benefit.
Ellie La Trobe-Bateman, London,
To offset the carbon emissions from the airline flights, the travelers should stay home and the flight be canceled. No vacation, no problem. To further impoverish others so one can play is a moral and ethical outrage.
J. DeG, Portland,
So does this mean that if the family of four pays £56 that the 7.5 tons of CO2 is automatically scrubbed from the atmosphere?
Or are they paying someone in India NOT to produce the 7.5 tons that the Indian Labourer WOULD have produced?
Does Manual labour produce CO2? and does the Indian Labourer offset HIS carbon footprint?
It's all too complex for me; I'm going to write to AL GORE and ask him to use his limpid English to simplify it!
elixelx, elx, spain