{"id":3008,"date":"2019-06-10T07:24:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T07:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=3008"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:20","slug":"carbon-offsets-are-not-our-get-out-of-jail-free-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/06\/10\/carbon-offsets-are-not-our-get-out-of-jail-free-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon Offsets Are Not Our Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By UN Environment<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The era of carbon offsets is drawing to a\nclose. Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry\non flying, buying diesel cars and powering your home with fossil fuels is no\nlonger acceptable or widely accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carbon credits are increasingly coming under\nfire for essentially allowing some to continue on their polluting ways while\nthe rest of us are left scrambling to contain the climate crisis. The\nSecretary-General of the United Nations is the first to call everyone to\naction. \u201cWe are still not doing enough, nor moving fast enough, to prevent\nirreversible and catastrophic climate disruption,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, scientists, activists and concerned\ncitizens have started to voice their concerns over how carbon offsets have been\nused by polluters as a free pass for inaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carbon offsets schemes were set up to allow\nthe largest polluters who exceed permitted emissions\u2019 levels to fund projects,\nsuch as reforestation, that reduce carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) in the air,\nessentially balancing out their emissions equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The types of carbon offset projects that are\nimplemented are diverse. They range from forestry sequestration projects (which\nremove CO2<\/sub> from the atmosphere when trees grow) to energy\nefficiency and renewable energy projects (which reduce future CO2<\/sub> emissions\nin the atmosphere).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN Environment\u2019s operations have been carbon neutral since\n2008<\/a> thanks, in part,\nto the purchase of carbon credits. Since then, the organization has also\nreduced its emissions by 35 per cent. Many organizations and individuals are\nbuying carbon credits to offset the greenhouse gas emissions involved in\ntravel, principally flying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carbon offsets are useful while infrastructure and industry make the transition to electric mobility, alternative energy and the new technology necessary for low- and zero-carbon lifestyles. Where there are no viable alternatives in the short term, an offset scheme promises to cancel out the emissions in one place with emission-reducing actions in another.
However, the reality is far from this neat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Offsets are only part\nof the answer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The climate crisis is now considered our\ngravest existential threat. Fifty per cent of climate changing pollutants have\nbeen pumped into our atmosphere\u2014from power stations, cars, agriculture\u2014since\njust 1990, and this amount is growing every second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we are serious about averting catastrophic\nplanetary changes, we need to reduce emissions by 45 per cent by 2030. Trees\nplanted today can\u2019t grow fast enough to achieve this goal and reduce by half\nour current emissions. And carbon offset projects will never be able to curb\nthe emissions growth if coal power stations continue to be built and petrol\ncars continue to be bought, and our growing global population continues to\nconsume as it does today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that carbon offset projects\nshould stop, quite the opposite. We must continue to plant trees and protect\nforests and peatlands. Renewable energy and energy efficiency projects are\ncritical and offset schemes play an important role in funding and upscaling them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we must look at, though, is how these\nactions sum up to reflect the true cost of emissions and the urgency of their\nreduction. The one-for-one model has been proved wrong. If one tonne of\nsequestered CO2<\/sub> is the price of one carbon credit, that offset\nmust include not simply the emissions today, but also factor in the missing 45\nper cent emissions\u2019 reduction, as well as the future projected increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoa Ehsani, a UN\nEnvironment official who closely tracks UN Environment\u2019s carbon footprint, says\ncarbon offsetting uptake has been slow. \u201cOne of the reasons offsets haven\u2019t\nbeen selling is because the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement are\nnon-enforceable. The main procurers of offsets are supposed to be nations\ntrying to meet the targets they promised to meet. But they have reneged on\ntheir promises and targets. If the nations of the G20, responsible for 81\nper cent of total emissions, are to meet targets, offsets remain an important\nmechanism for them unless they manage a 45 per cent emissions reduction on\ntheir own (which would be fantastic).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"

Dry forest in Tsimanampetsotsa National Park, southwest Madagascar. Photo by GRID-Arendal<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A tool for speeding up\nclimate action<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offsets also risk giving the dangerous\nillusion of a \u201cfix\u201d that will allow our billowing emissions to just continue to\ngrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUN Environment supports carbon offsets as a\ntemporary measure leading up to 2030, and a tool for speeding up climate\naction,\u201d says UN Environment climate specialist Niklas Hagelberg. \u201cHowever, it\nis not a silver bullet, and the danger is that it can lead to complacency. The\nOctober 2018 report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change made it\nclear that if we are to have any hope of curbing global warming we need to\ntransition away from carbon for good: by travelling electric, embracing\nrenewable energy, eating less meat and wasting less food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo secure popular support for\ndecarbonization, the public needs to be informed about the positive effects of\nemission reductions, their benefits for cleaner air, health and new energy\njobs,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe should tax carbon, not people. We know fossil fuel\nsubsidies are unfair when non-polluting alternatives are here right now. Making\nsuch a huge transition will require all the tools at our disposal, though, and offsets,\nif examined and applied with clear eyes, can aid the transition where sudden\nand drastic change might instead set us further back.\u201d Read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By UN Environment The era of carbon offsets is drawing to a close. Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry on flying, buying diesel cars…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}