Carbon credits turn out to be bogus.

Well, so were the indulgences that the Church sold, that went and got Luther's tonsure all in a knot. It's just one more indication that this is about moralizing and religion, rather than science. In theory, though, you'd think that carbon credits would be more confirmable. I mean, you don't have to wait until you're dead to find out whether you got your money's worth...

As I noted some time ago (link not allowed by your spam filter), it was long ago predicted that CO2 emissions trading would be unworkable on a global scale.

As I read it, that link merely states that the Kyoto Treaty failed to provide for tools to monitor compliance with the treaty nor means to enforce the conditions of the treaty. Still it does strike me that there's no effective means at this time of preventing massive fraud at the national level since the treaty system doesn't provide that many effective tools for enforcement of treaties (namely, each treaty needs its own enforcement provisions) and changes are of course, piecemeal.

All I can say about the buying and selling of carbon credits NOT doing any global good is, DUH!

Kyoto also is such that if I buy bogus carbon credits from another country, I'm off the hook. It's the responsibility of the seller, not the buyer, to ensure the CO2 reductions actually happen. Penalties for the seller, if any, were supposed to be imposed in the follow-on treaty. The rational action of countries gaming the system would be to sign on for K1, cheat and sell bogus credits, then not sign on for K2.

So if I succesfully reduce my bogus footprint am I entitled to sell bogus credits?