In Europe, big polluters need a permit for every tonne of carbon dioxide they emit. Unfortunately the huge multinational corporations owning these polluting factories and power plants have been aggressively lobbying politicians. This has resulted in too many permits being given out. With too many permits in the system factories often have no need to reduce their emissions, which is good for the corporations - as it saves them a lot of money - but bad for the environment! Although the EU releases the emissions data publicly, the complexity of the data creates a lack of transparency, which benefits the big corporations and their polluters. At Sandbag we have been using a range of techniques to visualise this data (e.g. sandbag.org.uk/emissionsmap). Our new map exposes the 10 "carbon fat cat" companies that benefit most from having been given too many pollution permits (after all, the system was created for the benefit of the environment!). Future work aims to tie in data on company lobbying activities and see how this directly relates to those companies being allocated too many permits. As this is still work in progress, we would love to get feedback (ideas or data) from OpenTech.

1. Exposing
“Carbon
Fat
Cats”
through
data
visualisation
sandbag.org.uk

2. Who’s
heard
of
Climate
Change?
http://www.phlorum.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/climate-change.jpg

3. Who
knows
the
biggest
European
Policy
dealing
with
Climate
Change?

4. European
Emissions
Trading
Scheme
Covers
40%
of
Europe’s
greenhouse
gas
emission
–
all
big
polluters!

5. “Cap
and
trade”
Greenhouse gas emissions from factories and
power plants are limited (capped) by number
of “carbon permits” they receive

6. If plant
The Cap If plant emits
emits less: too much:
Sell excess Required to
permits buy additional
permits
Reduction of cap provides incentive
for companies to invest in cleaner technology
http://www.avonconnects.co.uk/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8159-4346/rewards.png http://landgiraffe.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/money_in_hand.jpg

7. A
big
lever
for
change!
More ambitious Emissions Trading Scheme1
could save
175,000,000 tonnes
carbon dioxide per year!
130% instead of 20% emissions reduction by 2020 relative to 1990
Source: http://www.sandbag.org.uk/site_media/pdfs/reports/Rescuing_EU_ETS.pdf

8. That’s
equal
to…
2,916,666,666 91,145,833
Light bulbs replaced Return flights
per year London-New York

9. EU
Commission
publishes
emissions
data
online

10. Amazing
transparency?
Unfortunately
not…
Factories and power plants are NOT
required to surrender full company
information - data is far from complete
…thanks to hard-working industry lobbyists!
(and the EU commission’s website might well qualify as one of the
worst web apps ever…)

11. At
Sandbag
we
scrape
the
data..
http://hakeemit.blogspot.com/2011/02/database-multi-language-support-format.html

12. …
and
assign
individual
plants
and
subsidiaries
to
parent
companies

13. Sandbag
analysis
reveals…
O Multinational companies (especially steel
sector) were given far more carbon permits
than they need to cover their emissions
O The excess permits (that they were given for
free) are worth lots of money on the market!
O Essentially government subsidies!

14. Visualising
the
Carbon
Fat
Cats
on
Sandbag’s
Company
map
www.carbonfatcats.eu

15. Number
1:
Steel
company
ArcelorMittal
Hooray!!
€1.7bn windfall
profits!
http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/10/2009/lakshmi-mittal.jpg

16. How
could
this
happen?
O Lack of transparency and public scrutiny!
O Hard-core lobbying of politicians in charge of the
EU Emission Trading Scheme:
“… when the European Union's landmark climate bill
was nearing its legislative conclusion, Avril Doyle, the
MEP …. complained about being besieged by
lobbyists ... tally came to 168.”
16/03/2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/
0/8896a5c0-11ca-11de-87b1-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz1MnbGTsX4

17. EU
Lobby
registers
(voluntary)
http://europa.eu/lobbyists/interest_representative_registers/index_en.html
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/expert/lobbyAlphaOrderByOrg.do?language=EN

18. But
overall…
O EU transparency on lobbying is poor
O Urgent need for publicly available service
that collects data on how and when decision
makers are being lobbied by industry

19. http://transparencydata.com
USA
http://influenceexplorer.com
http://opensecrets.org

20. Future
work
O Freedom of Information requests
on lobbying activities
in collaboration with Corporate Europe Observatory
www.corporateeurope.org
O Expose steel industry: Direct causality
between steel industry’s lobbying activity
(need proof! Can anyone help?) and profits
from overallocation of carbon permits

21. Thank
you
patrick@sandbag.org.uk
sandbag.org.uk
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