Most of the schemes actually benefit us all by raising awareness as well. The more wind turbines, solar panels etc. that people see, the more they will accept them as "normal" and then the benefits of established technology and mass production will reduce the impact of new units (cross fingers!)
Buying carbon credits will only really work if companies and countries start having to cut back on things because they've run out of credits ... at the moment I don't see that happening, so all you've got is a happy piece of paper :-( it's a bit like demanding that your home electricity is provided by renewable sources. At the moment (picking totally random numbers from thin air!) let's say 5% of the UK's electricity comes from renewable/low-carbon sources (because the government have mandated a percentage). If you select "environmentally friendly" electricity you may have to pay 10% more on your electricity bill (the money theoretically being used to pay for the more expensive friendly electricity) ... however at the moment less than that mythical 5% of electricity is being bought at that higher rate, which means two things 1) even if you don't pay the extra for friendly electricity, you will be getting some anyway 2) if the electricity company could get me to sign up tomorrow, then they'd be getting more money from me without having to spend that extra cash on *anything*!
One of the biggest problems in the next years is not going to be how much we use, but how much more the developing world will be using (e.g. the growth of China, greater prosperity and industrialisation in 3rd world countries etc.) and I've heard of organisations that will take your money and use it to provide better/cleaner technology to third world countries so they start off on the right foot ... so organisations like Climate Care (http://www.climatecare.org/) spend part of the money on things like reforestation in Uganda, and cooking stoves that use local agricultural waste rather than fossil fuels, part on things like the low energy bulbs, and part on CO2 education so that people will learn to switch off those bulbs.
No
Most of the schemes actually benefit us all by raising awareness as well. The more wind turbines, solar panels etc. that people see, the more they will accept them as "normal" and then the benefits of established technology and mass production will reduce the impact of new units (cross fingers!)
Buying carbon credits will only really work if companies and countries start having to cut back on things because they've run out of credits ... at the moment I don't see that happening, so all you've got is a happy piece of paper :-( it's a bit like demanding that your home electricity is provided by renewable sources. At the moment (picking totally random numbers from thin air!) let's say 5% of the UK's electricity comes from renewable/low-carbon sources (because the government have mandated a percentage). If you select "environmentally friendly" electricity you may have to pay 10% more on your electricity bill (the money theoretically being used to pay for the more expensive friendly electricity) ... however at the moment less than that mythical 5% of electricity is being bought at that higher rate, which means two things
1) even if you don't pay the extra for friendly electricity, you will be getting some anyway
2) if the electricity company could get me to sign up tomorrow, then they'd be getting more money from me without having to spend that extra cash on *anything*!
One of the biggest problems in the next years is not going to be how much we use, but how much more the developing world will be using (e.g. the growth of China, greater prosperity and industrialisation in 3rd world countries etc.) and I've heard of organisations that will take your money and use it to provide better/cleaner technology to third world countries so they start off on the right foot ... so organisations like Climate Care (http://www.climatecare.org/) spend part of the money on things like reforestation in Uganda, and cooking stoves that use local agricultural waste rather than fossil fuels, part on things like the low energy bulbs, and part on CO2 education so that people will learn to switch off those bulbs.
But you know all that!