Going carbon neutral

My wife and I just purchased carbon quotas (EUA) to cover the carbon emissions from our 2008 consumption and travel. We did this via the Norwegian Government's recently launched Voluntary Carbon Offset Scheme. At their site I just entered our air travel, our electricity consumption, car driving and "other", and then simply hit "purchase quotas" and paid by credit card. This cost NOK 6000+ (approx. US$ 1000), based on a high estimate of our emissions.

The way this EUA works is that large emitters in the EU need to purchase emission quotas to be allowed too emit carbon. The number of quotas is fixed, so that when we buy quotas for 38 tonnes of CO2 and then avoid using them, that is 38 tonnes of CO2 emissions that have to be cut by whichever company would otherwise have bought these quotas.

There is also another scheme called Certified Emissions Reductions (CER), which is administered by the UN and which achieves emissions reductions in developing countries. I must admit I was very unsure about the effectiveness of this program, and rather went for the more expensive EUAs to be certain. Afterwards, I've met a friend who works with CERs at the World Bank, and after interrogating him for a while I was much more reassured that the emissions achieved are real.

Is this a good use of $1000, when the same sum could provide vaccines for hundreds of children or some other positive outcome? I do not think this is the right question to ask. Decent people clean up any mess they make, and now that there is a sure-fire way for anyone to do this we simply have to.

Nevertheless, I've given some thought to the pros and cons. Here is my list:

Cons

• Voluntary reductions may reduce the pressure for politicians to pass the necessary legislation and to reduce the number of available quotas sufficiently
• Those are early days of the quota schemes, so their effectiveness is not conclusively documented

Pros

• Voluntary cuts demonstrate to the politicians the interest for this issue, making them feel safer when they push for e.g. improvements to the CER scheme
  
• If we can get a "snowball effect", then those of us who started early have made a contribution far beyond the actual effect of the quotas we bought

In the end, it is the principle of the thing. If I spill something in a public place or at a friend's home, I clean it up. When I spew 38 tonnes of CO2 into an atmosphere that can't take it, I can't just pretend it didn't happen when there is something I can do about it.