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.
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.