Vatican "first carbon neutral state" - Kind of... but not quite : Hippyshopper

It has been claimed that the Vatican is the first “carbon neutral state”. The Vatican has offset its CO2 emissions for 2007 by announcing it will plant a forest in Hungary. Whilst this sounds like one of the greatest global boosts for the environmental campaign, there is a little bit of fudging going on here.

What actually happened is that two offsetting companies, the U.S.-based Planktos Inc. and its Hungarian partner, KlimaFa, donated part of their own reforestation project in Hungary as the ‘Vatican Climate Forest’.

That’s not quite what we were hoping for is it? Read on because there’s more fudge to be found.

The motives of Plankton are a trifle questionable according to Msgr. Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, an official at the Vatican's council for culture. In the most positive terms he said that the monetary value of the Planktos-KlimaFa gift "is clearly symbolic. They get free publicity and the Holy See is provided with a way to encourage Catholics to do more to safeguard the planet."

Whilst the Vatican seems to have been completely honest about their modest yet significant environment efforts and were not at all blinded to the motives of their benevolent donors, here, I think, is another whopping example of people being a little loose with the term ‘carbon neutral’. The term means: balancing carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels with renewable energy that creates a similar amount of useful energy. Well at least this is Wikipedia’s decent definition of the phrase. The important point here is that going carbon neutral doesn’t mean putting a few energy saving lightbulbs in, and planting a few trees doesn't cut it either. It means sorting out your eco-output to match your destructive one. However, we can't blame Planktos for appearing to pounce on every eco publicity opportunity they can, and encouraging eco-friendliness is seen to be good despite apparent financial motive. I just think this one was a little blown out of proportion.