The Problems with Carbon Offsets
The Financial Times has as package of stories examining the new carbon offsets industry. Since the idea of carbon offsets is nebulous and abstract snake oil salesmen pop up.
A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.
Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.
Carbon credits and trading markets don’t have to be pie-in-the-sky attempts as assuaging celebrity or corporate guilt. If the offsets are properly documented and monitored so there’s no fraud and double counting then a substantial market can be established. Since weather futures are for sale there’s no reason a carbon credits market can’t be legitimate. A market for sulfer dioxide emissions exists. Doing the same with carbon dioxide isn’t a stretch. Carbon credits are simply contracts. What is required is government to determine the authenticity of the offsets and to enforce the contracts if the offsetting party isn’t doing what they claim to be doing.
As for celebrites buying their environmental indulgences, Jonathan Adler points out that if they “want to be sure they are reducing their carbon footprint, they are going to have to reduce their own energy consumption, rather than paying others to do it for them.” But that would get in the way of symbolism over substance. Don’t blame the celebrities for their latest fad of conspicuous consuption. They mean well. It’s “for the children.”
“Carbon Offsets: A ‘Green Gold Rush’”
