Everyone needs to get to carbon 0. Including under Paris. Everyone needs to stop producing any meaningful amount of carbon, as fast as possible.
That means any activity to reduce emissions, whether efficiency, capture, protection, or anything else is stuff they need to do anyway. And the “cheapest” carbon to get rid of is inevitably going to be the first carbon to get rid of.
Failing to do these activities is just borrowing against yourself.
So in terms of offsets, the only way they can possibly make sense is if the offset is priced starting with the last ton of CO2 you can remove and working backward. Otherwise, they’re just loaning a cheap ton of CO2 now that they KNOW they will have to “make up” with a very, very expensive ton of CO2 much later. The budget is the budget. The other person has $500 tons to remove, why offer them your $50 tons instead? It just means you’re agreeing to take $50 now and you’ll have to pay their $500 later.
All carbon offsets are just too cheap to be legit. It’s basically the end of the story.
And that’s assuming the offsets are sincere and legit. That’s assuming no scams. Add in scams and they make multiple times less sense than that.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Wednesday, members of the European parliament [MEPs] voted to outlaw the use of terms such as “environmentally friendly”, “natural”, “biodegradable”, “climate neutral” or “eco” without evidence, while introducing a total ban on using carbon offsetting schemes to substantiate the claims.
It comes amid widespread concern about the environmental impact of carbon offsetting schemes, which have often been used to justify labelling products “carbon neutral”, or imply that consumers can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.
“I am particularly pleased that claims such as “climate-neutral” or “climate-positive”, which are based on CO2 offsetting, have been completely banned from the internal market.
The directive comes after months of negotiations over how environmental claims will be regulated in the EU, with a deal reached in September that was approved by law makers on Wednesday.
Environmental NGOs have raised concerns about claims based on offsets, including the 2022 World Cup in Qatar which was advertised as a “carbon neutral” event.
The European Union is taking leadership in combating greenwashing,” said Lindsay Otis, a policy expert on global carbon markets at CMW.
The original article contains 454 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
