Carbon offset programs do not deliver what they promise

Carbon offset programs have become ubiquitous. You’ve probably seen them as options to bookmark when booking flights: “Click here to upgrade to a premium seat”; “Click here to cancel your greenhouse gas emissions.”

It’s an attractive proposition — the promise that, for a small amount of money, you can go about your business without climate guilt. But if it sounds too good to be true, it’s because, at least for now, it is.

The New York Times asked readers this spring to submit their questions about climate change, and several asked about carbon offsets. How do they work? Do they work or “is it just money for the fault?” as one reader asked?

The idea of ​​carbon offsets, sometimes called carbon credits or climate credits, is simple. We know that human activity produces tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases every year. We also know that it is possible to remove or sequester carbon from the atmosphere, for example, by planting trees.

Offsets seek to offset, for example, airplane emissions by funding emission reductions or carbon removal elsewhere, such as forests.

Some experts see them as an essential tool to limit environmental damage, at least in the short to medium term, until the world can make a full transition to renewable energy.

Scientists are certain that the world needs to reach net zero emissions – the point at which we stop spewing greenhouse gases or fully neutralize the gases we produce – by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change, and “it is virtually impossible to reach to zero” without offsets, according to Bruce Usher, a professor at Columbia Business School and former CEO of the EcoSecurities Group, which has developed emission reduction projects in developing countries.

But that doesn’t mean offsets work today, and Usher’s advice is hardly an endorsement. “If you want it because it’s in line with your values, of course, you should buy carbon credits,” he said. “But don’t be under the illusion that for every credit you buy, you’ll get 100% emission reductions in the same proportion.”

In a 2016 study, the EU Commission concluded that 85% of projects examined were unlikely to achieve their reduction claims. And a 2019 ProPublica survey found that, overwhelmingly, forest conservation projects “did not offset the amount of pollution they should have, or brought gains that were quickly reversed or could not be accurately measured.”

The biggest problems are structural, related to something called additionality.

That’s technical jargon for a simple concept: a carbon offset needs to finance reductions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. If you pay someone to preserve a grove, but they never intended to cut it down, then you are not offsetting your emissions. And it is difficult to establish the facts in these cases with the level of confidence necessary for compensation programs to work.

While individual activities have environmental costs, and flying is one of the most expensive, climate change is predominantly driven by the actions of the fossil fuel industry.

And the vast majority of carbon offsets are purchased by corporations, including fossil fuel companies themselves, on the premise that they can achieve “net zero” emission targets without fundamentally changing the way they operate.

For now, the best thing an individual can do remains what it has always been: try to emit less.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves